Principal Maryann Roberts hands out lunches made at Aranui School. Photo / Bevan Conley
Principal Maryann Roberts hands out lunches made at Aranui School. Photo / Bevan Conley
When schools were offered the chance to provide lunches for their students, one Whanganui city school opted in right from the start - and now others want to share its knowledge.
Aranui School had been providing lunches for its 79 pupils since term 2, principal Maryann Roberts said.
Late lastyear, schools were given the choice of contracting to an approved external supplier like Compass Group, Kimiora Trust or Pita Pit, finding an alternative provider, or the "internal" option of providing their own lunches.
Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Tupoho, Te Wainui a Rua and Aranui took the internal option. They submit two weeks of menus to the Ministry of Education and abide by regulations in the 2014 Food Act.
Aranui already had a school hall with a kitchen, and staff member Ray Jaggard had previous experience from owning a bakery.
By the end of term 1, its kitchen was upgraded, and the ministry provided a large freezer and refrigerator, plates and cutlery, and a reusable lunch box for each pupil.
The children can also get breakfast at school. Then they work for an hour and have a fruit break. After another hour they have a snack brought from home. At lunchtime, they play first and sit down for lunch at 1pm after kai karakia.
Children play first, then sit and eat together under a shelter. Photo / Bevan Conley
On Tuesday and Thursday, lunch comes in a plastic lunchbox.
Three days a week they sit down to a hot meal at tables in the hall. Butter chicken is a favourite, and there are roasts and spaghetti bolognaise.
Each lunch contains a roll, some chippies and a yoghurt pottle. Photo / Bevan Conley
Preparation for the lunches was intensive, Roberts said. Children were told the food might be different from what they have at home, but they were cheered on if they tried it. They got used to brown rice - but wholemeal bread rolls were still a bridge too far.
The Government's Ka Ora, Ka Ako programme had been great for the school, Roberts said. Parents were reporting their children now expected to eat at the table, and they were asking for recipes.
"Kai is the centre of our culture," Roberts said.
Co-ordinator Ray Jaggard struggled to spend the $5 a child that the Government provided, and wages were probably the biggest expense.
Aranui's school lunches were "the gold standard we would like everyone to move to", Whanganui District Health Board nutritionist Grace Putan said.
Keith St and Whanganui Intermediate schools have both visited to learn from it.
Louise Oskam and Beth Savage are members of the Kai Ora Collective, "people with a heart for improving the kai system in the community". Savage is also involved with the Harrison St Community Church near Keith St School.
The lunches at Keith St School are made in Palmerston North - not meeting the Ka Ora, Ka Ako aim of providing local jobs and cutting down on transport to help the environment.
Oskam said about two-thirds of the food at Keith St School was wasted because the children did not like it, and the school offered it to parents at the end of the school day.
It repurposed some of the food - by toasting sandwiches, for example, and the teachers made "supplementary" lunches for the children who weren't eating.
