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The School Lunch Saga - Epilogue

Before I share the final part of the saga of our quest for a school lunch provider I want to write about why I chose to tell this epic tale.

Recent Government data states that there are 2034 state funded primary schools with less than 100 pupils. We hovered around the hundred mark for the entirety of my time there. My point is, if we were a larger school we would either not have had this problem because we had our own kitchen or I would have had a team of staff to deal with the issue of provision if it arose. Also, if we were part of a MAT it would have all been sorted without taking up a huge amount of my time. 

This is one of many issues faced by primaries who remain with local authorities, and with the reduced support they provide we are being pushed harder and harder into joining MATs. For 90 percent of my time in leadership I was a passionate 'remainer', but the pressure got so intense that I had changed my mind entirely before I left. My local authority was starting to get the message, and trying more to support its schools, but I fear we have passed the point of no return. I feel that the only other alternative is the closure of all our small village schools, and I don't think anyone, at least anyone outside of government, wants that.

Anyway, here is the final chapter of our epic saga.

We were back with our original lunch provider (from Episode 1) and thankfully they had improved their service to the point where we were happy to stay with them for the long term. Then came the latest bombshell, they were going to raise their prices to the point when it would not be viable for us to continue with them...

That's another part of the small school dilemma that I didn't discuss in this story. Economies of scale, or lack of them, are such a huge limiting factor for small schools that they can effect hugely important decisions. If we were part of a larger group (i.e. a MAT) we could have negated the effect of them.

We were now looking for our seventh supplier in 12 years, at least I think it was our seventh as I may have lost count. Luckily, my new office manager had a contact who provided meals for a couple of other local schools and he was able to swoop in and save the day. I hate that we had to rely on luck, but there we are.

When I left my school things were going well, lunch-wise, and my spies tell me that nothing has changed on this front since then. I will keep my fingers and toes crossed for them, as the new supplier seems brilliant. His meals are good, but not too challenging for the children, which is quite a tightrope to walk. I won't name check any of our other previous suppliers, but I will give a shout out to School Meals | Fabulous Lunch Company | England

Also, if you want to read more about the challenges faced by small schools, I suggest reading the following Schoolsweek article.

The decline of small schools in the MAT era   

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