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(FRom The Secondary Educational Management News Service)

Jamie Oliver's healthy school dinners produce a marked improvement in national curriculum tests

Research is suggesting that Jamie Oliver's healthy school dinners continue to produce a marked improvement in national curriculum test results five years after the chef first launched his campaign.

The latest study shows that children who eat the healthier lunches introduced by Mr Oliver do far better in tests. What's more, absenteeism from sickness was also said to have dropped by around 14%, while literacy is improved.

The research can be found in the April issue of the Journal of Health Economics.

This comes just at the moment when the ringfencing of the school lunch grant was lifted, allowing schools and local authorities to divert funds once dedicated to food into something else.

Writing in the Observer, Mr Oliver likened the provision of poor quality food to child abuse.

Worse, there is a direct link between a percentage point rise in prices and a corresponding reduction in the take-up of meals, according to the Schools Food Trust.

The study examined the test results for pupils aged 11 in the 80 Greenwich schools where Mr Oliver's Channel 4 series launched its healthy dinners campaign.

It then compared them to children who were not served the nutritional food in neighbouring local authorities.

Between 2004 and 2008, the research team found there was on average a 6% improvement in the number of pupils reaching a high level in English tests in the schools surveyed where the healthy meals were eaten and an 8% improvement in science. There was a 2% increase in the number of children reaching the basic level of attainment in science and 3% in English and maths. In addition, the number of children marked as having authorised absences for sickness since 2004 showed a 14% decrease.

The Local Authority Caterers Association said it intends to carry out its own research on school prices and lobby for headteachers to keep the cost to a child down in the coming months.

Sandra Russell, the national chairman of the LACA, said: "Considerable efforts should be made to encourage headteachers and school governing bodies to channel the School Lunch Grant towards supporting the provision of school meals, as originally designated."