I offered my services free of charge to schools wanting to have a practical cooking session at school, SFM is committed to supporting state schools in the areas of school food provision and food education. I then proceeded with 1-2 cooking sessions per month, starting initially with two ‘pilot’ schools. The sessions will take place Monday–Thursday either during school hours (10-11.00am) or as an after-school activity (3.30- 4.30pm). SFM and Tom are committed to supporting children choose fresh, healthy options so cooking activities should support this ethos.

School Food Matters has six basic goals. We want all schools to have:

• Kitchens capable of preparing fresh and healthy food
• A commitment from school meal providers to supply food from local and sustainable sources
• Cooking and growing programmes
• A link with a local farm as an educational resource, and for the supply of local produce
• Lunchtime in a pleasant, fully equipped environment
• A designated champion from staff or governors and from the school council

School Food Matters will contribute by:

• Issuing this report to schools to canvass support from Heads, governors and PTA
• Finding out exactly what your school needs to allow you to achieve these goals\
• Liaising with existing school meal providers to work towards local and sustainable sourcing
• Reporting to council to urge them to allocate funding to school meals and food education
• Canvassing the wider community, where appropriate, to gather support for the campaign
• Establishing a database of farmers to facilitate contact between link farmers, schools and meal providers