A review of the English school meal: ‘progress or a recipe for disaster’?

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the discourse on school meals, as evidence suggests that political agendas feed into policy making. The paper fills a void by proposing new insights into how school meals could be reformed, following reflections from a doctoral study and a review of the changing narrative on school food in England. Recommendations include rethinking the coverage on school meals by taking into account this multifaceted area of inquiry by recognising the importance of the physical context of the meals as well as the subjects of school mealtime.

KEYWORDS:

• School meals
• history
• food provision
• education

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the reviewers for providing critical commentary on this paper, for which I am grateful.

Disclosure statement

Gurpinder Singh Lalli declares that he has no conflict of interest and that the research follows the University of Leicester’s code of ethical practice and meets the requirements of the Human Subject Research (HSR) with children. All research conducted was carried out appropriately in conjunction with the HSR and British Educational Research (BERA, 2018) guidelines.

Additional information

Funding

None to declare.