Employees of CYP&F Catering Service who provide school meals to the majority of schools in Barnsley are among the best in the country.They were selected as a finalist in the “Best and most improved performer APSE awards 2011” in the Education Catering category.APSE performance networks – a not for profit organisation who works with and benchmarks over 300 Councils throughout the UK, promoting excellence in public services.

Karen Stinson manager for CYP&F Catering Service said “This is an amazing recognition of the catering teams’ hard work, especially over the past few years and what makes it even more fantastic is that this has been achieved at a time when the spot light is clearly on public services ability to be efficient and competitive.”

The APSE audit covered such areas as the service management team governance, overall cost and quality, productivity, take up of school meals, school meal price, qualifications of team members, days lost through absenteeism as well as other aspects of performance. Also, process benchmarking, healthy options, menu range and sustainable procurement.

Background:

APSE is the foremost specialist in local authority front line services.APSE Performance networks is a mature benchmarking service for local government which covers 14 vital front-line services across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland..Local government is facing difficult and turbulent times with the prospects of ongoing financial constraints and the increasing need for services to demonstrate competitiveness, efficiency and cost effectiveness.

Please click through to see our exciting new Autumn / Winter menus including many new dishes for your children to enjoy.


 

We provide a number of courses in healthy eating and hygiene, many of them nationally recognised. The courses will help teachers and support staff to promote the importance of health issues and be able to deal with topics such as healthy eating and special diets, providing a better service for you and your child.

Click on the link below and download our course brochure to see how we aim to improve everyone’s knowledge in health and hygiene matters.

Download a PDF of this news story (TrainingMenu.pdf)

Christine has always worked in retail food, but when her son went to school full time, Christine moved into school meals as the hours were better suited. At the time, the job involved big kitchens ordering pre-cooked meals.

How times have changed! Open Door was kindly invited to spend a working day with Christine, lovingly known to the children as Cook, and whose motto is: “If you wouldn’t sit down and eat it yourself, don’t put it on the menu!”

7.45am I start my day preparing the food we will need to cook today. The team of six start at various times throughout the shift and we all chip in to prepare sandwiches, wraps, salads, jacket potatoes and the hot meals. Today the hot meals are traditional roast chicken with stuffing balls, roast or boiled potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli (the children’s favourite, believe it or not) and carrot, and pasta in rich homemade tomato sauce. Pudding is homemade rice pudding or fresh fruit cocktail. Menus are nutritionally analysed to ensure we serve our young growing children with the right levels of nutrients. Everything is prepared fresh on site from scratch and if we have any new recipes on the menu we prepare a taster plate to go alongside the main meal.

9.30am A member of the school office staff comes down to let me know how many children are eating school dinners today – it’s usually between 250 to 275 per day. The menus are sent home every term and the children choose each day at registration what they want to eat from the daily menu offered. We also have menu boards up around the school like a restaurant, to make it more engaging for them. At £1.70 for a main meal and pudding, we offer really good value for money. There is such a fantastic range to choose from that no child should go home hungry. If they are still hungry at the end of their meal they are encouraged to have another visit to the salad bar. Naturally during the hot weather we have more call for the deli sandwiches, wraps, salad pots and pasta pots. Today we have 100 sandwiches ordered and 28 jacket potatoes and the rest are traditional main meals and a few vegetarian / non meat choice of meals.

11.15am The crèche children come down for their lunches, it’s great to see them all tucking in to healthy, filling food. Just the right stuff for young bones! 11.55am Now the rush is on, it’s time for the main dinners to start. Children use the Reval system – they have their own PIN and credit their meals account with cash. Then when it comes to dinner time, they say what they have ordered and it gets entered onto their account using the touch screen system. Each child has their own meals account and if they want parents can request a print off to see all the healthy food their child has eaten that term. This system has been in place about five years now and is working really well. Everyone is tucking into their food. At the moment we have tray plates but in September we are introducing plates and dishes to create a real restaurant environment.

1.30pm I try to get a bit of paperwork done – cashing up and placing any orders. Then we usually sit down as a group and have something to eat together when service is finished. Everyone finishes at around 2pm and I leave at about 2.30pm, ready for a rest! Christine says this job is ideal for people who need to fit work around childcare. There is also the opportunity to develop skills on the job. Certificates on the restaurant wall show the staff’s various qualifications – fundamentals of nutrition, working safely, school meals cookery and management and development training. If you are interested in working in a school kitchen please call Karen Stinson 01226 773648 for further information.

Following a recent survey with over 7,000 Primary Pupils & 7,000 Parents across 30 schools the following are improvements that we are making in all schools during the next couple of months

1) Plates & dishes are preferred to the current meal tray plates. We are gradually introducing plates & dishes into all Primary Schools over the next few months.

2) Sunday Dinner is by far the most popular meal enjoyed by most. We have planned to include on one day each week a traditional Sunday roast dinner, commencing after Easter, ie

Roast Beef & Yorkshire Pudding
Roast Turkey & stuffing ball.
Roast Pork & apple sauce or stuffing
Roast Chicken & Yorkshire Pudding

3) Parents submitted their favourite healthy recipes for a competition.
5 winning recipes were chosen, the parents received £100 food shopping vouchers & we have included the 5 recipes into our menu for after Easter.

Italian Cottage Pie week 2
Family Fish Pie week 4
Hearty Lentil Stew & Crusty Bread week 2
Prawn & Veg Stir fry week 2
Pasta & Sauce with hidden veg week 3

All other recipes that were submitted for the competition will be included in future menu plans. If you have any favourite recipes that you would like to submit

4) Pupils all thought that our cooks were friendly

5) Pupils thought that the number of meal choices each day was about right & the majority understood that it is difficult for everyone to get their first choice every day, although with pre ordering systems that we have set up in some schools we are getting much better & we are achieving 99% in those schools.

This year employees working in school kitchens across the borough have collectively achieved over 350 separate qualifications. One employee, Sarah Shore from Millhouse Primary School kitchen, gained five qualifications: NVQ2 Professional Cookery, NCFE Level 2 Nutrition, Level 2 Food Safety, and City and Guilds Levels 1 and 2 Literacy. For this special achievement Sarah will receive the Catering Service Award - a new award introduced to recognise the academic achievement of an individual.

Across other schools, 10 employees have successfully gained four certificates and 27 have gained three certificates. All will be presented with awards by Karen Stinson, Catering Services Manager, to recognise their hard work and dedication over the last academic year.

Primary mid-day supervisors will also receive training from the Catering Service’s Skills Development Officer around nutrition, food hygiene and their involvement within 'Every Child Matters.'

Up-skilling the workforce is just one of the priorities of the action plan jointly produced by the Catering Service and School Food Trust as part of their campaign to help increase the uptake of school meals.