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News: Tasty rise in school meels

Dumfries and Galloway Standard — Fri, 24 May 2013 09:21:00 GMT

School dinner bosses are winning the fight for the hearts and stomachs of secondary pupils.Four years ago, the lure of burger vans parked outside playgrounds was placing a huge question mark over the future of meals in the region’s senior schools.Just 28 per cent of youngsters were sitting down to canteen dinners. At the time, the Scottish average was 39.6 per cent.But next week councillors will be told that a fresh approach to what has long been the butt of pupils’ jokes has seen a dramatic turn-around.The census of uptake for the past financial year revealed 47.5 per cent of pupils now have meals, either paid for or free, and that is almost certainly well ahead of the Scottish average.However, the education committee will be warned there can be no let-up in the recruitment campaign.Education and school meals service management teams are emphasising the need to continue to market secondary school meals, re-inforcing the message that free meals now include morning breaks as well as lunches. It is also important to keep parents of free meal pupils informed about eligibility changes.A report points out the free school meals uptake in secondaries averages 61 per cent, a long way behind the 83 per cent in primaries. A nine-point plan has been drawn up to try to keep the increase rolling forward.It includes training for catering managers, specific action plans for individual schools, piloting online school meals payment and increasing awareness of free school meal entitlement though continued general marketing.Members will be told the plan has been drawn up in the expectation that “2013/14 will see continued financial pressures associated with the economic climate and the potential impact of welfare reform”.School meal prices went up by 5p in April on the back of a 4.6 per cent rise in food costs over the past year along with a projected further rise of three per cent over the next 12 months.

News: Courts chief calls for trust

Dumfries and Galloway Standard — Fri, 24 May 2013 09:20:00 GMT

The head of the Scottish Court Service (SCS) has claimed closing the Stewartry’s only court won’t cause problems elsewhere.

News: New school just three years away

Dumfries and Galloway Standard — Fri, 24 May 2013 09:16:00 GMT

Pupils could be streaming into Dalbeattie’s new combined school as early as spring 2016.Now that the statutory consultation period for the combined secondary and primary learning campus is over, councillors are set to give the go-ahead for design and development work to get underway.And the education committee will be told next week that workmen could be on site in June next year.An update briefing report to go before education councillors admits the plan for a joint school came as news to a significant number of parents and young people.That is being put down to a “waning interest” caused by the length of time it has taken to push on with the plans.But members will told the council has “set out a sound case” for building a new shared campus for Dalbeattie High School and Dalbeattie Primary School next to the existing Dalbeattie High, on the edge of town.The door to the new development was opened in 2009 when the Scottish Government offered £6.587 million, through the Scotland’s Schools for the Future programme, to replace the high school.However, a new primary was needed and the plan for a joint campus was soon drawn up.In October, members of the corporate policy committee agreed to set aside £14.3 million for the campus as part of the capital investment strategy.And the development is also an identified project in the Hub South West Scotland (SWhubco) programme.Hubco is a public/private sector partnership involving the council and fellow authorities in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire, along with the Alliance Community Partnership and the Scottish Futures Trust.Councillors are expected to rubber-stamp the proposed timescale for the development at their meeting on Tuesday.

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