School Meals in Milton Keynes

September 2008 - Million Meals Campaign
Find below the latest Million Meals Newsletter from the SFT.

SFT Million Meals Partner Newsletter August 08_(723K)

August 2008 - School Food Trust Autumn Marketing Campaign

The School Food Trust has collaborated with Disney and will be promoting school meals through a 'High School Musical 3' campaign from September 2008 through to February 2009. Look out for promotional materials arriving at your school which may help you in increasing school meals take up. More details below from the SFT:

Competitions

Magic Meal Ticket From 15th September, for two weeks, children will be able to download a voucher from www.myhighschoolmusical3.com/sft. Children take this voucher to the school canteen at lunchtime and can qualify for a stamp if they purchase a meal or meal deal. They then post their vouchers (up to 10 per child) to:

Magic Meal Ticket promotion
School Food Trust
N9
Moorfoot
Sheffield
S1 4PQ

On 30th September the first 100 vouchers drawn will win a Ipod shuffle (1G) and voucher 101 - 105 will win 4 tickets to the Premiere of High School Musical 3 on 7th October (travel paid for by the Trust).

Please note, this competition mechanic has changed from lottery style tickets as the production and postage costs made this solution prohibitive.

It is clearly stated in the rules that any intimidation of staff or pupils, or the theft of the stamp will result in a whole school being disqualified from the competition.

Dining Hall Disco From 29th September until 12th December children can film themselves performing a dance routine to an official piece of High School Musical 3 music. Any English amateur dance group (that does not pay a fee as part of a club) or group of children upto the age of 16 can enter the competition. Children will be encouraged to theme their performance in the canteen, maybe using a drama room with tables and chairs or the hall if it is a multi purpose space. The children upload their finished routines to the website, answering a healthy eating question before they are able to finally upload their film.

There will be nine regional winners (using Government office borders), each winning a flat screen TV for their school, these final nine will go forward to be judged by a Disney choreographer with the overall winner being awarded an official High School Musical Prom, to be hosted on Friday 12th February 2009.

Full rules, terms and conditions can be found on the website.

Campaign support

Promotional materials A pack containing posters (featuring the cast of High School Musical 3), point of sale promotion cards, a self-ink stamp and explanation letter will be sent to headteachers from 1st September 2008. It is expected that all 23,000 packs will have been distributed before 8th September 2008, giving all schools a minimum of a week to display the posters.

A small number of spare materials are available by contacting information.requests@sft.gsi.gov.uk

Recipes Each of the film's stars has worked with Disney and the Trust to create recipes, which will be revealed each week on the new website that supports the campaign - www.myhighschoolmusical3.com/sft. One will be revealed until November. We will also upload them on to the Trust's main website, going live on 1st September 2008. See - www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/caterersrecipes , we hope this will enable you to host a theme day during the promotion. Please note these cannot be published or reproduced as they remain the property of Disney/School Food Trust

Website The new website will launch on the 8th September 2008, featuring an array of exclusive content such as games and blogs from the stars. All the rules and tips on entering both competitions can also be seen here and from January 2009 the nine regional winners will be posted on this site.

www.myhighschoolmusical.com/sft

PR
From Sugar magazine to Secondary Magazine we are working hard to ensure as many schools, pupils and parents are aware of this campaign as possible. As the campaign progresses, and if a school in your area wins either of the competitions, we will get in touch to work with you on any local PR.

Got any questions? From 1st September 2008, on the main School Food Trust Website, a F.A.Q. section for teachers and caterers should answer all your questions or queries, please see:
www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/faqs/hsm
If you have further enquiries please email
info@sft.gsi.gov.uk


July 2008

Please find below a briefing from Client Services, to assist those schools that provide their own school meals service.

Briefing for Schools that run an In-House Catering Service_(15K)

Also find below the lastest newsletter from the School Food Trust and a letter from the SFT regrading some minor technical chnages to the school food regulations.

SFT letter -Minor Technical Updates to School Food Regulations -July 08_(63K)

SFT Newsletter July 08_(1086K)

Previous news items........

We hope the information provided on our School Meals page will be of interest to Schools, Parents, Governors, Caterers and anyone else with an interest in School Food. You will be able to find out how we currently operate in MK, information about the new Nutritional Standards for School Food and what we are doing here in MK with the government funding we have been allocated as a Local Authority. There are also many useful links. This information will be regularly updated to keep pace with this agenda and with both local and national progress.

In a unique place such as Milton Keynes, with so many young people, we are working hard to ensure that the government agenda for improving school meals is driven forward. The Authority has been allocated a further 3-year grant (2008-2011) to help support the provision of healthy and hot (where possible) meals in MK Schools/PRU's. Currently the new standards do NOT apply to maintained Nursery Schools, though they will be required to continue to follow the existing 2001 standards. The Dcsf is currently consulting on The Early Years Foundation Stage.

School Meals funding in MK is devolved to schools, therefore the governing body takes on the responsibility for this provision. This will include, for example, deciding on the content and cost of meals, providing free school meals to eligible pupils and complying with the new nutritional standards for school food.

From 21 April 2008 MKC entered into a 3 year authority wide catering contract on behalf of 73 MK Schools and 9 Day Nurseries. The contract was awarded to Sodexo Education Services. For further information about Sodexo please see their website:

www.uk.sodexo.com/

Historically schools purchased school meals on an individual basis from various catering providers, including our own 'In-house DSO', which has now ceased operating.

Like many other authorities, Milton Keynes has inherited the consequences of school kitchen closures some 20 years ago. However, despite this our 7 'hub' kitchens feed the 73 schools and 9 day nurseries within the new contract, by way of food cooked in these MK kitchens and 'delivered in' to schools by hot boxes.

Not every MK school opted to be included within the LA wide contract and a small number of schools have an 'In-house' catering service (mainly Secondary/Special Schools) or make their own individual arrangements. Client Services meets on a termly basis with a group of 'In-House' Catering Managers to share ideas/good practice and generally offer support to those schools that run their own service. The authority has recently purchased nutritional analysis software and demonstrated this at a recent meeting to show how 'In house' schools might make use of this service to demonstrate compliance with the nutrient standards that come into effect in Sept 2008/09.

The Client Services Dept is monitoring the Sodexo contract on behalf of schools.

For more information Contact us.......