Agenda item

A draft report on the visit to St Francesca Cabrini Primary School is attached.

9.1  The chair reported that he and members of the committee had visited St Francesca Cabrini Primary School. He noted that the committee have now visited a number of schools to consider the lunches they provide and how they are delivering the new Universal Free Healthy School Meals offer. He commented that a variety of catering methods are used, including in house provision and different external catering companies.

9.2  An education representative noted that the universal funding is having the unintended impact of not requiring parents to apply for the free school meal benefit and this is unfortunately affecting the funding that schools receive as free schools meals applications are linked to deprivation funding. Kerry Crichlow, Director Strategy & Commissioning, commented that the council had just received some recent census information which had brought this issue into sharp relief. She went on to report that some schools are managing to record all children receiving this benefit but some are not managing this, and there is a wide spectrum of performance. She reported that the intention is to try to and improve this and review progress in January.  An education representative commented that it is important that the council work with the schools to get the most accurate figures possible.

9.3  The Director of Strategy & Commissioning was asked by an education representative how the programme links up with work on reducing childhood obesity and she responded that the council is committed to measuring the current cohort of children at entry and year 6 .This will give some data on the impact of the free Healthy School Meals programme on reducing obesity.

RESOLVED

The chair indicated that programme should be kept under review for the next 6 months.