SPOTLIGHT ON: London Flagships (Action 5)
25 Nov 2013
The School Food Plan comprises sixteen actions designed to transform school food culture across the country. This week’s update looks at Action 5, around the London Flagships.
As part of the School Food Plan, the Mayor of London will be launching two Flagship Boroughs in London. The flagships will demonstrate how improving food across the whole community can have a transformational impact on health and attainment, with schools serving as catalysts to drive this change. The Department for Education and the Greater London Authority (GLA) are together providing £1.2 million in funding for the first two years of the initiative.
There has been immense excitement around the Flagships since the publication of the School Food Plan in July 2013. Representatives from all 32 London Boroughs attended an initial briefing event on the Flagships initiative, held at City Hall on the 7th October, demonstrating the high level of interest.
At the briefing event, Rosie Boycott, Chair of the London Food Board, stood side by side with Matthew Patten, Chief Executive of the Mayor’s Fund for London, along with Myles Bremner, Director for the School Food Plan, and representatives from across the GLA. To a packed room, they laid out a vision for a whole environment change approach to food in London, with examples of possible activities within the Flagships ranging from extending universal free school meals across all year groups and providing breakfast clubs during weekends, to using school facilities to run holiday cooking clubs for families, and creating ‘healthy high streets’.
Rosie Boycott explains:
‘This initiative will transform London. We know from programs run in cities around the world, from Finland to the United States, that these interventions work. But nowhere has this been tried on the same scale as nbso online casino reviews we have planned for the London Flagships. It’s about creating boroughs where eating healthily is the easy option.’
During Mayor’s Question Time this week, Boris Johnson reaffirmed his support for the School Food Plan, including the GLA’s London Flagships initiative.
The two flagships will be selected through a competitive application process, and every London borough is encouraged to apply. The application process is currently expected to launch officially in early 2014, with the hope of announcing the chosen Flagship areas in spring 2014 (exact timings subject to change). All publicly available information on the Flagships, including documents shared at the briefing event, is available at www.schoolfoodplan.com/london-flagships
Interested in supporting the Flagships initiative? Work for a London Borough? Contact leah.schabas@london.gov.uk to find out more, ask questions, or share feedback.