According to a new Ofsted report, UK schools are increasingly favouring cashless, smart card-based catering equipment systems as a means of urging pupils to engage in healthier eating habits.

The same report also referenced the fact that schools are upping their scrutiny as to the contents of children’s lunchboxes and drawing up lists of banned items that parents are advised not to give to their young ones.

The motivation behind the recent investigation was to ascertain exactly what has been done, what is being done as well as what can be done to better food standards within the country’s schools.

However, although schools’ increasing proactivity is considered positive on the one hand, it also encroaches upon sensitive ground with parents who may view such practices as interfering, the report also revealed.

The majority of educational establishments are putting significant effort into improving the number of pupils opting for school dinners and free meals. One of the benefits of the cashless catering system, other than removing the need for children to carry any money and minimising queuing, is that parents can actively follow what their children are eating.

In other related news, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has retaliated against accusations by health secretary Andrew Lansley that his healthy school dinners campaign had a ‘lecturing’ approach and was an example as to how not to eat healthily.

Oliver’s retaliatory comments defend the hard work of countless dinner ladies, school teachers and parents which has been belittled, with the key culprit for its perhaps less than evidential success linked to a lack of funding, as the chef sees it.

Posted by Matt on the 8th July 2010