2024: Blog by the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills

International School Meals Day 2024

Jenny Gilruth
Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills

As Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills I am committed to helping ensure our children and young people are well educated and given the skills to make healthy choices enabling them to live free from diet related conditions.

I am proud of the Scottish Government’s record on free school meals – having already expanded universal provision to all pupils in Primary 1-5, which will soon expand to pupils in Primary 6 and 7 in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment, as part of our commitment to universal expansion in primary school. This is already the most comprehensive free school meal provision of any nation in the UK and we are determined to go further.

The role of school meals in giving children access to a balanced and nutritious meal has only grown more important during the cost of living crisis, with many families struggling to make ends meet and too many forced to rely on foodbanks as a result of callous UK Government welfare cuts which disproportionately hurt children and families.

But they can also play an important role in ensuring our children and young people leave school equipped with the knowledge, skills and experience they need to make positive dietary choices throughout their life. The food and drink that is offered in our schools and the education our children and young people receive through Curriculum for Excellence play a vital part in achieving these aims.

Food offered in tuckshops or in classrooms, social enterprise projects involving food, charity bake sales, even the school food and drink policy all provide opportunities to teach children and young people about the importance of making well informed dietary choices and the impact of those choices on their health and wellbeing.

It is important that everyone who has a role to play in the provision of school food and food education works together to give consistent messages as part of a whole school approach to food – and it is important that everyone from government, local authorities and at school level plays their part.

International School Meals Day is an excellent opportunity to showcase some of the great work taking place in schools across Scotland and further afield. From partnerships with farmers and chefs to twinning projects with schools in other countries, they all bring to life the learning children and young people receive as part of their school day. For more than a decade, International School Meals Day has provided an opportunity for pupils, catering teams and teachers to share the creative ways they are exploring and supporting what a balanced and nutritious diet looks like in practice and why it is important to make positive dietary choices.

This year the International School Meals Day theme is ‘innovation in school meals – new routes to sustainable nutrition’. For some this will be grand projects like drones delivering school lunches. For others it will be more subtle like a pupil led project aimed at reducing school food waste. Both types are equally important: they help to ensure that children and young people can access balanced, nutritious and sustainable food, drink and meals while they are at school and are engaged in learning about the wider impact their dietary choices have now and in the future.

It is my hope that we can benefit everyone through the activities that are showcased through International School Meals Day and I very much look forward to seeing the innovative projects you are undertaking this year.