The Correspondent: Thoughts on School Dinners

By Harry Mottram: From porridge in 1906 and semolina in the 1960s, to getting your five fruit and veg a day today – there’s a long history of school dinners – and the once humble lunch has become caught up with the nation’s drive for healthy eating as obesity levels rise.

Parents, teachers, school governors and nutrition groups across the country have welcomed the news that Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson has announced families on Universal Credit will be eligible for free school meals.

Nationally it is estimated around 100,000 children will get free school dinners while in Bath and North East Somerset the Labour group believe around 6,000 children will benefit from the change in September 2026. The group said: “Today, a family’s total household income must be less than £7,400 a year (£617 a month) before benefits to qualify for free school meals. Following today’s national announcement from government, B&NES Labour councillors will continue their successful campaign to ensure all eligible B&NES families are “auto-enrolled” for free school meals.”

Those of us of a certain age will recall our own school days when you took in your dinner money in cash to give to the teacher. And those of us who are even more ancient will recall when all primary school children had a free bottle of milk at break time – something that was ended for most children in 1971 by Margaret Thatcher, the Secretary of State for Education and Science. That left only children in Reception with free milk. Secondary schools had already stopped free milk in the late 1960s in most cases.

School dinners have a long history with children taking in packed lunches from the earliest days of formal education although it wasn’t until 1906 that the Liberal Government of Henry Campbell-Bannerman gave the green light to rate-payer-funded lunches or breakfasts for the poorest children on the discretion of the local authority with the Education (Provision of Meals) Act.

Compulsory primary school education had been introduced which resulted in a spotlight highlighting schools and children as a political issue and with an increased franchise it became a vote winner in politics. By 1912, 358,306 elementary schoolchildren were provided with free meals although these children were still a minority in the numbers attending school.

In those early days breakfast was often the meal provided with mutton or vegetable broth on the menu or milk and porridge as an alternative. Further legislation followed to force more education authorities to provide nourishment and by the 1920s and 1930s the number of school dinners provided rose sharply as universal secondary education increased. During wartime in the 1940s the state took a more proactive role with the 1944 Education Act requiring all Local Education Authorities to provide school dinners although with the increased cost by 1947 they could charge 6d (two and a half pence in today’s money) a meal although poor children were exempt.

By the 1970s and 1980s attitudes in Government had changed and the age of universal free or low cost food and milk in schools was eaten away. Now, a generation or two later those decisions have begun to be reviewed as their negative effects have become known.

The Baby Boomer generation – those born after the war – will recall school meals with either affection or horror. Rice pudding, tapioca and semolina seemed to be fixtures on many menus as were over-cooked vegetables along with spam and corned beef. Others will happily remember sausage and chips as well as apple tart and custard being regular staples – and for many children the prospects of ‘seconds’ were greedily gobbled up – especially if there was an excess of food due to outbreaks of colds or flu reducing pupil numbers that day.

Personal choice and the consumer society changed attitudes in the 1990s and 2000s which was fine for some but increasingly had a negative effect on those who fell through gaps in the welfare net. An increase in child poverty, poor diets, obesity, a reliance on so-called junk food and processed foods – despite high profile campaigns by the likes of Jamie Oliver – revealed all was not good with the health of the nation’s youngest citizens.

The BBC reported: “In 2005, Channel 4 aired Jamie’s School Dinners, a four-part series examining the state of Britain’s school dinners. The programme brought to light the poor nutritional value of food served out of the school canteen, and how this was contributing to an increase in child obesity rates as well as negatively affecting educational attainment.

“The show made a villain of Turkey Twizzlers and other junk foods that were now staples of the school dinner. The TV chef called for the government to act and the public quickly got behind the cause. Over 270,000 signed a petition calling for better nutritional meals. Soon, many schools banned Turkey Twizzlers, fizzy drinks and sweets and added healthier options on to their menus.”

Public disquiet over the revelations along with the increasing waistlines of children led to changes in how school dinners were planned by local education authorities. Some junk and processed foods were withdrawn as staples which led to some parents handing over bags of chips and burgers to their kids in the school playground when the changes were made.

By 2015 every meal had to include at last one portion of vegetables or salad and while the amount of deep-fried food cooked every week were limited. And so in some ways we have come full circle with the state once again taking an interest in school children and their diets. Research (and common sense) shows that children who have a full breakfast and a healthy lunch concentrate better in class and achieve more in school. And school dinners have changed as society has changed.

Gone is the 1906 bowl of porridge and in has come five a day fruit and veg and a balanced diet featuring vegan and vegetarian options in many cases. Good quality food leads to better educational outcomes – an investment in the future of the country – which is why the news of increased free school dinners has been almost universally welcomed – even if the start date is September 2026.

This article is based on one for Bath Voice last year.