Pupils at a Huthwaite school have dished up praise for the school meals served by Nottinghamshire County Council.

The All Saints’ C of E Infants’ School received a cheque for £500 from the council to spend on school sports equipment after winning a prize draw for schools that responded to the local authority’s school meals survey.

Out of nearly 200 Notts schools which answered the survey, more than 80% said they were satisfied with school lunches.

Pupils rated catering staff highly with nearly 90% saying they were satisfied with the presentation and quality of food served up at lunchtimes.

The council’s group manager for catering, Kevin McKay, said: “We are encouraged by these positive results, which are testament to the hard work our staff put into serving up fresh, nutritious meals on a daily basis, and developing our menus.

“It is also good to know that school meals are regarded as being better value than Starbucks, KFC and Greggs.

“And we will, of course, be taking on board suggestions from the survey when designing future menus, including demands for a wider choice of food.”

All Saints’ head Joanna Redfern said: “Lunchtimes are an important part of the day at All Saints’. We know that our children enjoy their meals because take-up is high. It’s great to hear that other schools agree.

“This year, the council has been helping us set up the family service model of eating together, which has resulted in calmer, more positive lunchtimes for the children.

“We completed the survey partly to express our thanks to the council’s catering team. It was a bonus to win the draw — we will spend the prize money on playground equipment to make lunchtimes an even better time for the children.”

The council is also celebrating becoming one of the first local authorities in the country to be awarded the Soil Association’s top catering mark for its school meals.

To earn the Food for Life Catering Mark Gold Standard, organisations have to show they use fresh food you can trust, source environmentally, be sustainable and ethical, champion local ingredients and make healthy eating easy.

The council’s personnel committee chairman, Coun Sheila Place, said: “This prestigious award is a great source of pride for us.

“We’re delighted because it supports what we have been practising for years — delivering tasty, healthy, locally sourced food and teaching children the importance of good quality ingredients.

“The Gold Standard also recognises our efforts to buy organic and serve fresh food rather than frozen meals — an approach that always gets the thumbs up from our greatest critics, the children.

“We are also big on using seasonal vegetables and fruit, so you won’t see any strawberries used in the winter or parsnips in summer.”

Donna Baines, who is responsible for developing school meal menus at the council, explained: “For every new menu we always search across our region for the best quality products to make exciting meals.

“We allow our chefs to take ownership of the menus and have the flexibility to tweak dishes to suit their customers by using the same ingredients in a different way. So if their children don’t like hot pot, for example, they could make a cottage pie instead.”

Following the introduction of free school meals for infant-aged children in September, on average 47,000 pupils from 291 schools have a school lunch provided by the council each day.

Pictured is All Saints’ head Joanna Redfern with Nottinghamshire County Council catering manager Helen Fifoot and some of the pupils who will benefit from the new sports equipment.