Awards
Food for Life Award
A Food for Life Schools Award is a great way to demonstrate that your school is doing fantastic work to provide healthy school meals, great lunchtimes and food education, and the benefits are for all to see with FFL schools seeing improved attendance, attainment, behaviour and health outcomes. By getting their award, schools are showing their commitment to a good school food culture and the importance of nutrition on the physical and mental health of their pupils, families and wider community.
Plus, awarded schools seem pretty pleased with the goodies they receive too which includes a confirmation letter, framed certificate, use of the Eat Smart Sheffield & Food for Life logos, Sheffield Sweet Enough recipe book, and banner for the school gates so you can proudly show off your achievement!
Award Criteria
Food for Life awards are centred around four areas of development, which link to the criteria and create an action framework for your school:
- Food Quality
- Food Leadership and Food Culture
- Food Education
- Community and Partnerships
Here’s a taster of what your school will achieve to get an award at each of the levels (Bronze, Silver & Gold):
Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards
Bronze Schools
- Have committed to improve their school food culture by developing a school food policy.
- Meet Bronze Food for Life Served Here Award standards which shows that school food is healthy and uses seasonal ingredients that are at least 75% freshly prepared
- Involve pupils and parents in planning improvements to school menus and the lunchtime experience, boosting school meal take-up
- Give every pupil the opportunity to visit a local farm, and take part in cooking and food growing activity.
Silver Schools
- Serve school meals on proper crockery, not plastic ‘flight trays’
- Meet Silver Food for Life Served Here Standards which shows that school food is healthy, ethical, and uses some local and organic ingredients
- Have a cooking club, where pupils get to cook with and eat the produce grown in the school growing area
- Involve parents and the wider community to get involved in food education via food-themed events
- Our food is healthy, ethical, and uses local ingredients. We use a minimum of 5% organic ingredients in our menus.
Gold Schools
- Act as hubs for their local community, actively involving parents and community groups in cooking and growing activities
- Meet Gold Food for Life Served Here standards which shows the food served is healthy, ethical, uses lots of local ingredients and is animal and climate friendly, including a minimum of 15% organic and 5% free range
- Pupils choosing to eat a school meal is the norm
- Are actively involved in the life of a local farm and active in planning and growing organic food for the school.
Awarded Schools
Lowfield Primary School with their Bronze Award
Huge congratulations to the following Sheffield schools who have achieved a Food for Life Award:
Food For Life Bronze Award
Mansel Primary
Oasis Fir Vale
Arbourthorne Community Primary
Lowedges Junior Academy
Phillimore Community Primary
Lowfield Primary
St Theresa’s Catholic Primary
Netherthorpe Primary
Wybourn Community Primary
Bradway Primary
Coit Primary
Gleadless Primary
Brightside Nursery & Infants
Ballifield Primary
Food For Life Silver Award
Lowedges Junior Academy
Food For Life Gold Award
Which school will be the first to achieve our prestigious Gold Award?
For more information on the Food for Life School Award, please visit:
Criteria and guidance – Food for Life
And if you’d like to sign your school up and start working towards your Food for Life Award, please get in touch.