Support for:
parents
Parents and School Food:>why your voice matters
Parents are the driving force behind better school meals. By raising questions, sharing ideas, and collaborating with school leaders, you help shape menus that are fresh, nutritious and appealing to children.
Your involvement can influence standards, introduce seasonal ingredients, and create a culture where children enjoy and benefit from every meal.
In our national poll, 96% of parents said fresh and nutritious ingredients matter in school meals, proving that parent voices aren’t just important, they’re powerful.
Support For
For Parents
How you can take action
Parents have real power to shape school food culture. Here’s a step-by-step guide to get started:
1️⃣ Get informed
Learn how your school food system works and what’s possible. Check our FAQs below for the basics.
2️⃣ Start the conversation
Engage with your school leadership or governors. Use our Governor’s Guide to start a conversation.
3️⃣ Amplify your impact
Follow us on social media and sign up for our newsletter below to get tips, resources, and news on school food innovations.
4️⃣ Bring change to life
Use our School Food Toolkit to introduce ideas and programmes that help your school make lasting improvements.
The Governor’s Guide
This guide help governors make informed decisions that benefit children, staff and budgets.
The School Food Toolkit
This pack of resources is aimed at helping every school put its best foot forward and transform their food.
What Parents say in our schools
What Parents Really Think
Our Future of School Food Report surveyed 1,000 parents across England, revealing clear priorities for school meals: fresh and nutritious ingredients, meals that children enjoy and strong support for raising standards nationwide.
Key findings include:
96% of parents say school meals should be made with fresh and nutritious ingredients.
78% want government inspection and enforcement of school food standards in every school.
66% of parents are concerned about unhealthy food being available every day in secondary schools.
The report outlines a vision for stronger, clearer standards that put nutritious food first – backed by parents, food professionals, chefs, and young people – and explains why the time for change is now.
What parents Said in our report
FAQs
Answers to parents’ most burning questions.
We know you care deeply about what your child eats at school, and you’re not alone. School meals matter more than many people realise: when children eat well at school, their wellbeing, behaviour, and attainment all improve. These FAQs are here to help you understand how school food works, and how you can be part of making it better.
What do Chefs in Schools do?
We’re a charity on a mission to transform school food, plate by plate, school by school. We work hands-on in schools, training kitchen teams to cook fresh, nutritious meals from scratch, and supporting school leaders to make lasting change.
Our programmes include:
- School transformation programmes – our flagship programme for schools managing their own kitchens or looking to bring catering in-house, covering training, menu redesign, and on-site support.
- School Chef Educator (SCE) training – professional development for kitchen teams in both externally catered and in-house kitchens.
- Membership support – an ongoing training network and resource hub for in-house school kitchens.
We’re not a caterer. We build the skills and confidence of the people already in your school’s kitchen, because great school food starts with a great kitchen team.
How does school catering work?
Before you can influence change, it helps to understand how your school’s food is managed. Schools generally fall into one of three categories:
- Local authority catered – a council-run catering service provides and manages meals.
- Externally catered – a private catering company is contracted to run the kitchen.
- In-house catering – the school manages its own kitchen team directly.
Each model has different constraints and different opportunities for improvement. Knowing which applies to your school is the first step in knowing how to help.
I want to help, but I don't know where to start. What should I do first?
The most effective thing you can do is engage constructively, with curiosity rather than criticism. Here are three practical starting points:
- Talk to the school’s nominated governor for catering. Governors oversee food standards and statutory requirements. You can download and share our Governor’s Guide to get the conversation going.
- Request a meeting with school leadership to ask about their catering approach, the challenges they face, and their appetite for support.
- Check whether there are Live Training Opportunities in your area that your school could benefit from.
If you think the school might be open to support, request a Discovery Call with us and we’ll talk through the options and what’s realistic for your school’s situation.
How can I influence the food my child eats at school?
Parents can be powerful advocates, especially when they lead with support rather than complaints. A few things to keep in mind:
Feeding hundreds of children every day, on tight budgets, to strict nutritional standards, is genuinely hard work. Kitchen teams are often undervalued and under-resourced. Coming in as an ally rather than a critic makes change far more likely.
Practical ways to help include volunteering for tasting sessions, supporting a growing or gardening club to build food culture from the ground up, or helping to fundraise for kitchen improvements. You can also encourage the school to explore our School Chef Educator training offer, transformation programmes, or membership so the kitchen team gets the professional guidance they deserve.
Real change happens through collaboration with the school, not by going around it.
What if the school kitchen is externally catered?
Lots of schools work with external catering companies, and our School Chef Educator training is specifically designed to work within this model, giving kitchen teams the skills, confidence, and inspiration to serve meals children genuinely enjoy, while meeting School Food Standards.
As a parent, you can help by introducing the programme to school leadership and encouraging them to explore it with their catering provider.
What if my school is part of a Multi-Academy Trust (MAT)?
MATs add a layer of complexity that’s worth understanding. Depending on how the trust is structured, catering may be managed centrally by the MAT, meaning the contract, budget, and decisions sit above school level, or individual schools may manage their food provision independently.
If your school is in a MAT, it’s worth asking:
- Is catering managed centrally by the trust, or by the school itself?
- What scope does the school have to make changes independently?
- How long does the current contract run?
We work with many MAT schools across a range of catering models. The starting point is simply understanding how things are structured. Once you know that, we can help work out what’s possible. Get in touch and we can talk it through.
What if my school doesn't cook on-site?
Hub kitchen models, where meals are cooked centrally and delivered to schools, can work really well, and we’ve supported both rural and urban versions successfully. If it would help to see what’s possible, we’re happy to share case studies from schools thriving under this model. Just get in touch.
How can I involve governors and school leadership?
Governors are your most important allies. They have oversight of catering and statutory compliance, and they can ask questions and request changes that parents cannot.
You can:
- Find out who the nominated governor for food or catering is at your school
- Share our Governor Guide: How to Spark a School Food Revolution
- Suggest they check current menus against the School Food Standards
- Propose tasting sessions, pupil surveys, or curriculum-linked food activities
The more governors understand what good school food looks like, and what’s possible, the more likely they are to champion it.
How do I introduce my school to Chefs in Schools?
Keep it solution-focused and positive. You might:
- Share a link to our website with the headteacher or catering lead
- Pass on the Governor Toolkit so leadership and governors are aligned
- Suggest a brief Discovery Call with us to explore what support might look like
Change in schools rarely happens overnight, but consistent, well-placed advocacy really does work. Since 2019, we’ve helped improve school food for thousands of children. Yours could be next.