 The days of chips with everything are over |
Three weeks into the new school term, there's just one thing that many pupils and their parents are talking about. It's not the amount of homework they're getting or the quality of the teaching.
It's the new healthier school dinners which schools across the country have been offering since the beginning of September.
The menus, which mean fewer chips and more fresh fruit and veg, might be a great hit with health conscious parents, but it seems that many children are struggling with them. And increasing numbers are opting out altogether.
This morning on Breakfast:
Our reporter Sarah Campbell went to one school in Leicester where the number of children eating school dinners has taken a nosedive - down by as much as 40% on last term. Many pupils, it seems, are heading for the chip shop instead.
We'll be following the fortunes of the City of Leicester College over the next few weeks, to see whether the pupils finally get used to their new healthy menus.
We talked live to the man in charge of one of the biggest school meal companies, Scholarest, to see how the new healthy eating rules are affecting his business. According to Ian El-Mokaden, school dinner take-up has dropped by up to 20% in some schools, but it's actually on the rise in others, where the heatlhy eating message has got through.
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