All primary pupils should have free school meals, report recommends

The cost of introducing free meals for all primary school children would be substantial, the report says. Photograph: Christopher Thomond

The government should introduce free school meals for all primary school pupils, starting with the most deprived areas, a report for the government on school nutrition has recommended.

Extending free school meals beyond the poorest pupils will cost around ￡1bn but the education secretary, Michael Gove, is understood to be supportive of the move in principle.

"We believe there is enough evidence, both from abroad and from English schools, to justify the partial introduction of universal free school meals," the report's authors, Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, conclude.

The report says: "We understand that the considerable cost and the need to involve other departments make it a big ask. But we are pleased that the secretary of state agrees with us in principle and we would urge schools and councils to consider funding universal free school meals themselves."

The report notes that the cost would be "substantial", at an average of ￡1.76 for nearly 3 million children who do not receive free school meals now, adding up to ￡912m a year.

The plan – drawn up by Vincent and Dimbleby, the founders of the food company Leon – aims to tackle the poor public image of school meals and recommends that packed lunches be banned.

"Many parents mistakenly imagine that a packed lunch is the healthiest option. In fact, it is far easier to get the necessary nutrients into a cooked meal – even one of mediocre quality. Only 1% of packed lunches meet the nutritional standards that currently apply to school food," the authors write.

The report also recommends that nutritional standards be introduced for all schools – at present they do not apply to academies and free schools.

"We have worked with the Medical Research Council and our own expert panel to develop a set of simpler food standards, which we believe will be easier to implement and enforce. If the new standards are agreed to be effective from a practical and nutritional standpoint, the secretary of state has agreed to make them mandatory across all types of school," the authors write.

At present, the majority of pupils – 57% – take a packed lunch or buy food outside school. Currently school meals cost ￡140m in school subsidies and their provision in England will only break even if average take-up rises above 50%.

Alongside the meals plan, the Ofsted chief, Sir Michael Wilshaw, is to announce that "behaviour and culture in the dining hall" and the way schools promote healthy lifestyles will be considered during inspections.

Ofsted will consider how lunchtime and the dining space contribute to good behaviour and the culture in the schools. Inspectors will be told to spend time in lunch halls during their visits.

"We expect this to have a significant impact, because we know that headteachers and their teams often read Ofsted guidance as a way of maintaining readiness to be inspected," the report says.

The government has agreed to measure progress nationally by food quality, take-up of free school meals, morale of the catering staff, the number of children able to "cook savoury dishes" and the number of schools winning awards for their food.

The report's authors say they visited and ate at 50 schools around the country while preparing their report.

Chef Jamie Oliver, who started a national debate around school meals centring on Turkey Twizzlers, is said to support the latest report and will take part in publicising its findings.

The report suggests a range of measures for headteachers to use to increase take-up of school meals. Children could be barred from leaving school premises at break time, preventing them from buying unhealthy food, such as takeaways. But schools should also make their meals more exciting and ensure unhealthy snacks are not served during mid-morning breaks.

The plan also recommends subsidising school lunches for children in the first term of primary and secondary school or providing discounts for parents with several children.

It suggests introducing cashless payments to reduce long queues and prevent children who receive free school meals from being stigmatised. Teachers are also urged to eat with pupils in the dining hall.

Cooking should be part of the curriculum until children are 14, and schools could also offer lessons to parents and their children after school.

The plans include ￡11.8m from the Department for Education to help increase the take-up of meals, and ￡3.15m to provide healthy breakfasts for children who arrive at school hungry.

Two London boroughs will be chosen to take part in pilot schemes to demonstrate how better school food can improve health and educational performance.

The plan comes after Gove was accused by Oliver of imperilling children's health and educational prospects by letting the rapidly growing number of academies and free schools opt out of standards.

Almost a fifth of UK children are obese by the time they leave primary school. The situation is even worse in London, with almost a quarter of children starting primary school and over a third of year 6 children overweight or obese.

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The school is a health time bomb, report warns at the start of the school week of market

Time bomb health among children who grow up do not walking to school could cost the country billions, says the report must try harder through the streets living on charity.

Children's fears are removed or flattened on the way to school, as well as time constraints, resulted in a major change in attitudes towards walking to school.

And it ceased to be the norm to the exception within a generation, according to a major new report by the living streets charity.

Eight in ten (81 per cent) of parents of primary school students walked to school themselves.

Now, despite the rise in rates of obesity among children, more than one quarter (27%) of parents automatically driving their children to school and more than one in five (21 per cent) have not considered to ensure that their children walk to school.

Health problems related to obesity like heart disease, diabetes and cancers will cost Britain 27 billion ￡ by 2015.

The mere fact of walk to school is not only good for children's physical health, but help to incorporate a good attitude to exercise and maintain good health.

It must be a key element of the Government's strategy to encourage the British to be more physically active, said streets alive.

Less than half [49 per cent] of the primary school children walk to school despite the majority (75%) live within two miles of the school.

One in five primary school children do not walk to school because their parents say they do not have the time to walk with them.

The problem is even worse in children from high school - with only 38 percent opting for walk to school.

And while children start going to school, with 59% of primary school students ready to walk up to 20 minutes each day, the interest fades as they age with only 37 percent of high school students prepared to do this.

The performance of the Government by encouraging children to walk to school has been "mixed" and it "must try harder", according to the report. "School trip for the previous Government policy was quickly abandoned with no replacement," he said.

Walking to school is not only beneficial to the physical and mental health, but help to reduce the congestion of traffic - with fewer cars making the curriculum - improve air quality and reduce carbon emissions", said the report.

And the militants are fighting to reverse the trend towards children leads to school - to ensure that more than half of students in primary schools will be walking to school again by 2017.

Tony Armstrong, Chief Executive Officer, living streets, said: "the overwhelming majority of our grans and grandparents walked to school, but over the generations, we see a steady decline to the point where, it seems, one-fifth of parents do not even think to ensure their child walking to school."? During this time obesity rates have more than doubled, even since I entered the school just about 20 years ago. ?

He added: "encourage walking to school can not only keep children today in good health, but makes for healthy adults in the future." We know that time pressed parents often see jump in the car as the best way to get children to school on time, but we do so at the risk of storing problems for them in the future. ?

Mother of three Laura Lashmar, Sheffield, loved walking to school with his mother and would not for her children to miss.? "Just as my mother walked me to school I did the same thing with my boys.? Walk with your children when they are young is a wonderful opportunity to spend good time together and to hear about their day. It's also a good way to show them the road safety skills, so when they are older and want to walk to school, alone or with friends, you can feel comfortable that they are familiar with the roads and how to cross roads.? It is important for children to develop independence and walk to school is a good way to build their confidence. ?

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Pupils report bullying to their teachers by text message

Many bullying victims are reluctant to speak out for fear their tormentors will make their lives even more of a misery if they are spotted reporting them to an adult. The new service, called “Text Someone”, allows pupils to complain about bullying at a distance.? They do not even have to give their names – although teachers would be able to contact them through their email address if they thought it necessary to help them.

Leicester City Council is pioneering the initiative by becoming the first authority in the country to give all its schools software, which enables their pupils to report instances “24/7” via text, phone and online. The system also has the advantage of allowing a bystander to report an instance of bullying, even if they are not the victim.

Dr Joe Dawson, principal education psychologist with Leicester City Council, said: “Technology is now making it easier for young people to report bullying from the safety of their home via text message or online.

“One of the main difficulties schools face is reluctance from young people to report bullying face-to-face or in school.”

The scheme is also helping schools to identify areas where bullying takes places, and tackle incidents that happen outside school.

In one instance, a girls’ school received reports that one of their pupils was being bullied by boys from another school on the bus on her way to school. “The pupil sent a text message which the bullying co-ordinator at her school was able to deal with by speaking to the school concerned,” Dr Dawson said.

The software was developed by the city council in consultation with the Contact Group, a firm which specialises in providing technological systems to schools. The group now has 2,000 schools signed up to use its equipment, in the UK, Ireland and Australia.

Martin Ebbage, deputy headteacher of Tupton Hall school in Derbyshire, said the initiative had made it easier for pupils to report instances of bullying. “We take the line children often ‘talk with their thumbs’ and texting provides them with a familiar medium to communicate issues they might otherwise find difficult,” he said.

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End 'toxic' exams and test pupils on subjects they like, says report

The report for Demos by James Park, founder of the charity Antidote which campaigns for a focus on "emotional literacy", says the current system of testing every pupil in the same way is damaging their interests. It argues that tests in a variety of subjects should be available so parents and teachers can select the subject the child is most interested in for testing at 11, while still assessing literacy and numeracy.

"People become good at things – whether doing long division, writing elegant sentences … or competing in basketball – because they practise them persistently and purposefully," it says, "…to practise them, they have to see the point."

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