Healthy Eating School Pupils do Better

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Thursday, 10 March 2005

Primary schools which belong to the government's national healthy schools programme, where pupils are better fed and exercised, have outperformed others in national tests in reading, writing, maths and science, according to research.

The findings will underline the link between healthy life style and educational attainment and put fresh pressure on ministers to spend more money per head on school meals amid a growing public debate about poor nutritional standards. The debate has been fuelled by Channel 4's TV series Jamie's School Dinners, in which the chef Jamie Oliver has called for the government to raise spending per pupil from 37p to 50p.

The research, commissioned by the government, analysed the test results of 2,314 schools in 16 local education authorities in inner-city and rural areas. The measure of improvement used was the change in the proportion of 11-year-old pupils achieving level 4 (the expected standard for their age) or higher in English, maths and science at the end of so-called key stage two. Progress was measured over one year (2003-04) and two years (2002-04).

It found that all 496 schools which had already achieved healthy status reported a greater rate of progress over two years in all three subjects. The improvement was small - 1.5% across the three subjects - but the fact that it was universal to all 496 schools suggests that it was significant.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk