Freshly prepared and hot school lunch is traditionally a part of the school day for Estonian children. A tasty and healthy school meal provides energy and helps students stay active throughout the day. It also offers an excellent opportunity to teach children about making healthy food choices.
The program is intended for schools that have been discussing offering inclusive food education, changing the organization of lunch breaks, reducing food waste, or more consciously integrating food-related topics into the curriculum, but have not yet planned any changes. This is an opportunity to start implementing changes through the development program in collaboration with experienced mentors.
The "Making the School Community Food-Wise" development program is a great chance to help every member of the school community become more food-conscious and to shape the school's approach to food education systematically. This is a first-time initiative, so we will start with a pilot program.
The pilot program will begin on October 1, 2024, and will run until April 30, 2025.
Participation is free for schools, and the requirement for joining is the willingness and readiness to implement changes in catering management.
The pilot program will be conducted by the team from Strateegiakorraldus OÜ, including:
- Marika Saar, a strategic consultant with long-term experience in local government leadership, creating various strategies, and leading projects. She has excellent experience as an expert in education management.
- Triin Kaaver, a strategic consultant with experience as a school administrator at both local government and ministry levels, developing development and action plans, and advising organizations on setting goals. She also has deep experience in analyzing surveys.
- Tuuli Taimur, the team’s nutrition expert, who has primarily focused on children's nutrition. She has conducted many nutrition-related training sessions in kindergartens and schools, including SAPERE method training. She is also a board member of the Estonian Nutrition Consultants and Therapists Association.
The pilot program will take place on-site at the school and will bring together all parties involved with school lunches: teachers, parents, students, cooks, and many others.
The "Making the School Community Food-Wise" pilot program will run actively for the school over a period of 5 months. The development program consists of twelve (12) stages, which are outlined in the diagram:
To complete the program, the school needs to form a broad-based team. Experts will provide guidelines on how to set up this team. The team will go through a detailed self-assessment questionnaire to understand the school’s current situation, and students' plate waste in the cafeteria will be measured.
The self-assessment questionnaire has twelve (12) elements, covering topics such as strategic management, subject curricula, catering management, communication, roles, extracurricular activities, events, training, food waste, satisfaction with catering, procurement, and the role of school management. This helps the school understand how systematically they are approaching food education and catering management.
Based on the self-assessment results, the experts and the school team will meet to discuss the findings and create an action plan with measurable goals for the next five months. The school team will lead the implementation of the action plan, with ongoing support from mentors.
At the end of the implementation period, the school team and experts will assess progress and measure changes, including re-weighing the food waste. The school will also repeat the self-assessment to see what has changed internally. Together with the experts, they will compare the results with the initial self-assessment and discuss what went well and what could have been better. The team will also create a follow-up plan to continue developing food education and catering management after the pilot program.
The school will provide feedback on the pilot program through a survey and focus group interview. This feedback will help improve the program for future participants. The busiest period for the school will be from November to March, when the action plan is implemented with the support of mentors. The expected commitment for meetings, workshops, mentoring, and feedback sessions during the five-month pilot program is about 24 hours.
The school’s participation in the program requires a commitment to continue developing food education and catering management after the program, following the action plan. At the end of the pilot program, the experts will create a school-specific report and a general report for the Tartu County Municipalities Association. The school report will cover all activities during the pilot, from the self-assessment to the action plan, and an analysis of successes and challenges. It will also include the school’s feedback on the methodology and suggestions for improvement. Additionally, the report will outline a follow-up plan for the school to continue after the program.
The development program has been created by the Tartu County Food Education Steering Group and the EMÜ Organic Center, in collaboration with Tartu Biotechnology Park.
The pilot phase of the development program is funded by the Tartu County Municipalities Association, with support from the Interreg Baltic Sea Region "Circular FoodShift" program and in cooperation with the KISMET project of Tartu Biotechnology Park, which focuses on the issue of reducing food waste in this program.
For more information, please contact:
Kaidi Randpõld,
Development Specialist
Mob: +372 5326 8963
E-mail: kaidi.randpold@tartumaa.ee