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What a stupid school


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I think I work for one of the most stupid senior schools in England. The kitchen manager has done his best over the last few years to bring all the cooking and baking back into school as we use to buy most stuff in ready cooked. But now he and the rest of the kitchen staff makes all the pasta sauces and all meals fresh each day. We make all the puddings and biscuits fresh each day. None of these things are easy its hard work cooking for 1400 kids and staff each day and all we cost the school is £8000 a year that includes all wages, food and other bills. Cooking everything ourselves means can cater for everyone with food allergies but now the school wants to start buying lots of food and puddings in which will cost more and mean we can't cater for people with allergies. Just needed to get it off my chest. The school is a senior school in dronfield.

 

Are you sure that it costs only £8000 to feed 1400 kids for a year or have I read it wrong?

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Me and the kitchen manager are getting all the facts together to e-mail to the governors.

.

 

---------- Post added 12-01-2016 at 17:21 ----------

 

No once all the food costs, wages, uniforms, bills, insurance and any other out goings have come out of the income from school meals we cost the school £8000 a year.

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Get Jamie Oliver on board! Or James Martin, he did a series about hospital food where everything was bought in and the nutritional value of the stuff was leading to patients suffering starvation. He advocated cooking in house as it was healthier and proved cheaper in the long run.

 

Unfortunately there are big businesses out there, with big logistical know how, who can deliver plastic trays of slop to hospitals and schools up and down the country for what appears to be a bargain.

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Me and the kitchen manager are getting all the facts together to e-mail to the governors.

.

 

---------- Post added 12-01-2016 at 17:21 ----------

 

No once all the food costs, wages, uniforms, bills, insurance and any other out goings have come out of the income from school meals we cost the school £8000 a year.

 

somewhere the balance is wrong, you need to increase the cost of the school meal? by a very small amount to make up the shortfall.

work on 40 weeks x 7000 meals a week, if you upped the price by 0.05p you would make a profit or to break even approx 0.03p

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Yep got a new school finance manager.

In most schools, the Finance manager isn't a decision maker. He may have been asked to put together a spreadsheet, but he won't have been the catalyst for the change

 

---------- Post added 13-01-2016 at 09:08 ----------

 

Have the PTA said anything about it, seems like a good place to bring it up?

The PTA is about fundraising, not management

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If you cook and give the kids salmonella (not saying you will! - just saying how the average bean counter might think) then the school is liable.

 

If they buy in precooked chicken that gives the kids salmonella they can palm off the blame to the outside company...

 

It's maybe not just about finance - there is also risk etc to consider....

 

Isn't that what insurance and hygiene standards are for?

 

---------- Post added 13-01-2016 at 09:16 ----------

 

Me and the kitchen manager are getting all the facts together to e-mail to the governors.

.

 

---------- Post added 12-01-2016 at 17:21 ----------

 

No once all the food costs, wages, uniforms, bills, insurance and any other out goings have come out of the income from school meals we cost the school £8000 a year.

 

So that's the net cost after the kids have paid for the food. That makes more sense.

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Could you also run 'home economics' lessons with your current kitchen setup? If you are cooking everything from scratch I'd bet a lot of the kids could learn a lot from your about how to prepare simple food at low cost.

 

Not sure how H&S works in this situation and whether that would be feasible, but another suggestion to support you keeping the current cooking culture.

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A commercial kitchen cooking for 1400 kids isn't going to be the correct environment to teach kids to bake a cake or make a pie I'd have thought.

 

No but home economics isn't just about teaching kids how to bake a cake! It's also about food costings, using up leftovers, meal planning. Skills of which the cooks in that school will more than likely have and could help pass on. I just think it's a missed opportunity that's all.

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