Chefs in Schools

School food should be good enough to shout about – and our School Chef Educator Programme proves it is! 📢 100% of participants recommend this training. 📢 85% have changed how they work. 📢 81% are eager to use what they’ve learned. 📢 98% feel more involved in food education. When school kitchen teams are empowered, everyone benefits. Children eat better, food waste drops, and chefs bring more creativity, confidence and connection to their role. That’s the transformation we’re here for. 👨🍳 Ready to make a change? Our next fully funded training programmes are open for sign-ups: 📍 London (West) – Deadline: April 4 📍 Southwark – Deadline: May 2 📍 Hull – Deadline: May 1 📍 Devon & Cornwall – Deadline: May 16 Thanks to our amazing funders— Belazu | B Corp™, Southwark Council, William Jackson Food Group, and Riverford Organic Farmers — schools can join for FREE. Yes, free! Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/eKM4NYik #SchoolFoodRevolution #SchoolChefEducator #SchoolFood #FoodEducation

It’s International School Meals Day! Ready to transform your school food? Our School Food Toolkit has had a make over, and it’s FREE—yep, you read that right. Whether you're in the kitchen, the classroom, or running the whole show, this toolkit’s got everything you need to make school meals better. It’s serving all the resources you need to get your school meal programme running like a dream. Inside, you’ll find: ✔️ Kitchen tips to make service smoother and meals tastier ✔️ Simple ways to get kids genuinely excited about their food ✔️ Real success stories proving change is possible No nonsense. Just the tools to make school food what it should be. 🔗 Get your FREE copy here: https://ow.ly/A2up50Vh30H . . . #InternationalSchoolMealsDay #ISMD2025 #SchoolFood #FoodEducation #BetterIsPossible

Calling all restaurants! Have you considered adding £1 to your bill to support the school food revolution? Here at Chefs in Schools, we’re on a mission to transform school food and tackle food-related ill health through better meals and food education. Here’s how we do it: 🍲 We recruit and train school chefs and kitchen teams to create colourful, vibrant meals kids love. 🍲 We bring food education to the heart of the school day. 🍲 We help nurture a lifelong love for nourishing food in children. That £1? It helps us reach thousands of children with better food and food education. Let’s change the game for school food. Add £1 to your bill and join the school food revolution. Learn more and get involved here: https://lnkd.in/eEvG9JZM #BetterIsPossible #SchoolFoodRevolution #SchoolFood #Hospitality #ISMD2025 #InternationalSchoolMealsDay #Restaurants

Russ Ball, Head Chef at Pokesdown Primary, has been recognised as one of the top school chefs in the UK! 🏆 Russ was named the winner of the Individual Category at the All Party Parliamentary Group Excellence Party Parliamentary Group Excellence in School Food Awards, a prestigious award that celebrates excellence, innovation and dedication to improving school food across the UK. Russ and his team at Pokesdown have turned a small kitchen into a busy hub, serving fresh, made-from-scratch meals every day. The kids are especially loving the Thai green curry this year! They also get to enjoy classic school dishes like pizza and fish cakes – all made from scratch with fresh ingredients and packed with veggies. Plus, the bread is proofed overnight and baked fresh every single day. No ultra processed foods here! Russ said: ‘By fostering this kind of food environment directly in the classrooms, eating nutritious food has become the norm. We’ve seen a big impact on mood and behaviour, stable energy levels in the afternoons, and crucially, better concentration.’ Russ’s passion and dedication are transforming the school food experience, ensuring every child at Pokesdown Primary gets the fuel they need to thrive both inside and outside the classroom. For a look at the delicious meals being served up, follow https://lnkd.in/eZ-CiQj8 Cheers to Russ & Pokey Kitchen for leading the way in school food and inspiring others! #SchoolFoodExcellence #SchoolChef #SchoolFoodRevolution

Amber Francis is through to the next round of Great British Menu! Amber is showing the nation just how powerful food education can be. 🎉 Competing as a School Chef & Food Educator, Amber is highlighting that food can be more than a meal - it can educate, inspire, and connect people to history, science and culture. Her dishes this week captured that perfectly: • A Chemist’s Lunch – Inspired by Humphry Davy’s discovery of earth metals, a dish where food meets science. • Lark Ascending – A homage to composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.  • Books, The Mind's Food – A dessert inspired by Hannah More, an education pioneer in the South West. That last dish was especially meaningful. Amber visited her old infant school, founded by Hannah More, where a teacher took her to the play kitchen she used as a child and said, ‘For you, it’s where it all began.’ A full circle moment that shows just how powerful food education can be. We’re incredibly proud of Amber for representing school chefs and food educators on this stage and proving that better is possible in food education. 📸: Great British Menu/Optomen Television  #GreatBritishMenu #FoodEducation #TeamAmber #GBM

📢 Tonight’s the night! Amber Francis is back on Great British Menu - this time as a School Head Chef & Food Educator. Amber is used to feeding 1,000 teenagers a day at CHRIST'S COLLEGE FINCHLEY making fresh, exciting food from scratch. Like all the chefs we support, she’s also a food educator, teaching students about ingredients, seasonality and flavour, making sure food education continues beyond the classroom. Tonight, she’s bringing that passion to the GBM kitchen. 🔥 As Thomasina Miers - chef, food writer, Wahaca Founder, passionate advocate for better school food and one of our trustees - puts it: 🗣️ "Not only is Amber showcasing her incredible talent for crafting beautiful food, but she’s highlighting that school food is a career any chef should consider." A school chef on GBM? About time! We’re so proud to see Amber representing school food and food educators at this level - showing that better is possible and that school chefs deserve recognition. 📺 8pm. BBC Two & Iplayer. You won’t want to miss it! #GreatBritishMenu #SchoolFoodRevolution #TeamAmber #GBM20

We know how talented school chefs are. Now millions of others are going to get to see it too. Amber Francis is making history as the first school chef to compete on Great British Menu! She spends her days cooking fresh, exciting meals for teenagers at CHRIST'S COLLEGE FINCHLEY - but now, she's stepping into the TV spotlight to take on the UK’s top restaurant chefs. Amber isn’t new to Great British Menu - viewers may remember her from a previous season when she was competing as a restaurant chef. But everything changed when she came across Chefs in Schools. Inspired by the mission to transform school food, she left high-end restaurants behind to cook for the future - training a school kitchen team, rolling out food education initiatives, and proving that school food can be fresh, nutritious, and packed with flavour. She’s used to feeding 1,000 teenagers a day. Now she’s serving up something special for the nation. This year’s Great British Menu theme is Great Britons, and the competition is tough—but Amber’s ready. With her school and the Chefs in Schools community behind her, she’s set to show what school chefs can do. Tune in next week and cheer along with us! #GBM #GreatBritishMenu #20years #SchoolFood

It’s been a decade since the school food standards were last updated. While they marked an important step forward, too many children still miss out on fresh, vibrant meals that nourish and empower them. Since The Jamie Oliver Group said so long to turkey twizzlers, people assumed school food was fixed. But bland, boring, beige meals are still all too common, with food education often treated as an afterthought thanks to tight education budgets. Henry Dimbleby, our co-founder and co-chair, and Naomi Duncan, our chief executive, share the important steps we need to take to improve school food. That’s why we’re calling for change. Our manifesto outlines three essential changes needed: 1️⃣ Train the Workforce: Equip school kitchen teams with the skills, confidence, and know-how to serve up fresh, exciting meals and teach food education. 2️⃣ Quality First: Out with bland and beige, in with bold and fresh. Nutritious, high-quality ingredients, all within school budgets. 3️⃣ No Child Misses Out: Free School Meals for every child who needs them—no exceptions, no postcode lottery. Find out more about what we’re calling for and help us get the word out. Visit our website to learn more: https://lnkd.in/dZupuW84 #SchoolFood #FoodEducation #FeedTheFuture #BetterIsPossible

We’ve come a long way from one school in Hackney back in 2018. Here’s a round up of everything we do now. A huge thank you to everyone who works with us and donates to make it possible. Want to join the school food revolution? Get in touch! Kids are our future, let's feed them like it. #schoolfood #betterispossible #charity #childhealth #childnutrition

Big news – Hubbub’s ‘Eat It Up Fund’ has backed 13 game-changing food waste solutions, including us, with funding provided by Starbucks. This support allows us to empower school chefs to take on a bigger role – creating delicious, nutritious meals, cutting food waste, and inspiring children to learn about food in new ways. With 96,000 tonnes of food wasted in schools every year, there’s a lot of work to do, and we’re excited to keep making a bigger impact. Thank you to Hubbub for supporting our work and believing in what we do.