City of Bristol College to transform school meals with new training initiative

Up to 300 school staff in the South West are to receive additional help with the provision of healthy school meals, following the launch of a new training course by City of Bristol College, last week.

The new initiative, School FEAST (Food Excellence And Skills Training), supported by Bristol City Council, will be offered to all schools in Bristol and the South West region in the hope of tackling obesity.

Deputy Leader of Bristol City Council and Cabinet Member for Cohesion and Raising Achievement, Councillor Peter Hammond said: “This training is an opportunity to make a difference to children and young people in our city by continuing to transform school food. We welcome the partnership with City of Bristol College and will be supporting the training of 300 school lunchtime supervisors.”

The college is currently offering a number of courses at NVQ Level 2 covering; food preparation, cooling and food safety.

Mr Hammond continued: “The programme compliments the training we have in place for school cooks and teachers, and our work to support schools in gaining Healthy School accreditation. We are already seeing this investment paying off, with an increase in the number of primary school children choosing school lunches to over 40%.”

Principal and Chief Executive of City of Bristol College, Keith Elliott said: “I am delighted to announce the launch of the School FEAST initiative. School staff play a key role in the provision of healthy meals and, as part of the School FEAST network, we hope to work with the region’s schools to make sure they get the training they need to help them meet government guidelines for healthy, nutritional school meals.”

Jason Seebaruth