A significant proportion of FVFL’s work is aimed at increasing opportunities for children and young people to have access to fresh healthy produce. Throughout Forth Valley area we work in partnership with the local councils to offer links between local producers and schools in order to address the goals set in “Hungry for Success: A Whole School Approach to School Meals in Scotland”.

Here are some examples of FVFL's work with schools:

Farmhouse Breakfast Week
As a means of promoting the health benefits of eating a healthy breakfast, FVFL has used this themed week to encourage participation from local schools and community groups throughout Forth Valley.

In 2006, FVFL is working with all Forth Valley councils' Hungry for Success Co-ordinators and the Royal Highland Education Trust (RHET) to involve the schools in Farmhouse Breakfast Week. 

Both Falkirk’s Catering Services Manager and ‘Hungry for Success’ Co-ordinator were keen to involve Falkirk schools in this initiative. It was decided to focus on four High Schools, teenagers being those most at risk of doing without any breakfast at all. It was important to promote healthy eating rather than ‘the full fry up’ and so local producers were chosen with care.

• Lean Beef sausages from Barkers Highland Beef (Callander) – Highland Beef is particularly healthy. These sausages were specially made for the Breakfast Week and are at least 85% visual lean.

• Free range eggs from John Logan at Blairmains Farm Shop – when he heard that they were being used for schools he gave us a special price of £1.00 per dozen

• Button mushrooms from Stirling Mushrooms

• Free range Turkey ‘bacon’ rashers from Gartmorn Poultry Farm at Alloa

• Raspberries (frozen but grown last summer) from South Powrie Farm, Tayside – for breakfast smoothies. These fruits are from a farther distance due to the amount needed, smaller producers in Forth Valley could have produced smaller quantities.

In Falkirk we have recently made significant progress in encouraging an increase in Healthy Eating throughout all schools and we are eager to continue with this strand of work.

Summer Berry Days

In 2005, Falkirk Council agreed to take part in a further promotion during the summer to boost the health benefits of berry fruits. FVFL worked with Berry Scotland to co-ordinate the supply of strawberries to every primary school in Falkirk for one day during the summer term as part of the school lunch menu. For this one-off promotion local soft fruit producers were encouraged to supply all fruit necessary.
 

Although one day may not necessarily be seen as making a vast difference in the whole scheme of things, it will serve the useful dual purpose of encouraging school children to realise that healthy food can also taste delicious and to encourage local producers to find more ways of supplying into schools and into really local communities.
 

“One More Step..”
NHS Forth Valley’s toolkit to provide help in developing a whole school approach to food in schools names FVFL as a support organisation in linking up to local producers for Healthy Tuckshops. We are pleased to be contacted by any schools who need support in this area, or with  ‘Free Fruit in schools’ initiatives – we see much scope for seasonal linking and wish to progress school/ producer links in the coming year.
 

Falkirk Eco Schools
FVFL took part in an in-service training day for Falkirk teachers who were taking up the Eco Schools Initiative. FVFL’s role was to link up the ‘Health & Wellbeing’ and ‘School Grounds’ strands in the Eco Schools Programme with the ‘Hungry for Success’ and ‘Health Promoting Schools’ initiatives and to look at ways of learning about and growing food in the school grounds.

Grounds For Learning
In March 2005, FVFL led a workshop on “Growing Food In the School Grounds” as part of Grounds For Learning’s National Network annual event – on the theme of “Healthy School Grounds”. Representatives from schools all over Scotland attended, including Falkirk, and learned about how to incorporate messages about healthy eating into their school grounds’ use.

Individual Schools’ needs
FVFL was recently asked by the Health Commissioner at St Mungo’s High School to visit and talk about how to help “make St. Mungo’s healthier and more ecologically aware”. Issues discussed were: getting healthier food on the menu, greater fresh fruit options, healthier vending machines, FVFL small grants for food production in the grounds, Breakfast Clubs and the production of an in-house ‘healthy eating’ recipe book. FVFL is limited in the way the organisation can offer help to individual schools as all catering decisions are carried out across the whole authority, however, we are happy to lend our support and time to schools and will take part in individual healthy eating days if requested.

Past such events have included the NHS initiatives ‘Food Dudes’ and ‘Healthy Tuckshop’ events.