Nourish
Celebrating five years of Nourish
We’re thrilled to share new findings from a five-year evaluation of Nourish, bringing together learnings from our school food transformation work with more than 35,000 children and young people in over 100 schools. These insights offer a practical blueprint for turning policy commitments into real, everyday improvements for children at a pivotal moment for school food.
The independent evaluation highlights that in busy, resource-constrained school settings, expert guidance, clear expectations and robust monitoring are essential to help schools deliver lasting change.
Read the full independent evaluation of Nourish here.
Explore our one-page summaries of the Nourish findings for commissioners, government and policy makers, grant funders, and schools.
Read more about our Nourish work in secondary schools here, and our work adapting Nourish for SEND settings here.
We’re working with primary, secondary and SEND schools to ensure nutritious food is prioritised throughout the school day in the London boroughs of Southwark, Lambeth, Westminster and Newham.
We are excited to be launching Nourish outside of London in 2026 - we will be heading to Birmingham, Cumberland, Hertfordshire and Worcestershire.
Get involved
Get in touch to find out how we can help your school: georgie@schoolfoodmatters.org
Our support for schools
We will support you in developing your own bespoke school food action plan and policy, covering food throughout the school day, while fostering a positive food culture and integrating food education.
The programme uses a whole school approach, involving everyone across the school community - from parents and catering staff to school governors and students. We offer training and workshops for staff and parents to build the skills and confidence needed to offer nutritious alternatives, whilst taking into account the school’s resources and budgets. Through engaging, hands-on sessions, we also work with students to hear their opinions and ideas, which inform policy changes, recipes and menu design.
Explore our dedicated school food resources page.
Project timeline
Term 1:
- School visit to observe the food provision, dining environment and whole school food culture across the day
- Gather feedback from whole school community – students, parents, senior leaders, school staff and catering teams
- First working group to draft a tailored action plan
Term 2:
- Four full-day engagement sessions with parents, staff and students (including events such as parent coffee mornings, family cooking sessions, sensory food exploration, staff training, structured feedback sessions between student ambassadors and catering teams)
- Share-and-learn session with other schools
- Support with first draft of your school food policy with involvement from whole school community
Term 3:
- Finalising and launching your new school food policy
- Review and revise the action plan to embed changes in day-to-day practice
- Access to legacy resources to support schools beyond the programme
- Reflection session with other schools
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After school club children -
Choosing menu -
Children enjoying nutritious school meals -
Trying out tomato pasta -
Nourish cooking workshop -
Children at breakfast club -
Choosing menu -
Water only at Nourish schools -
Secondary student holding fruit
Our approach
Inspired by several core principles of the Intuitive Eating (IE)1 framework, SFM practises gentle nutrition and sensory education to help foster positive relationships with food from childhood. A gentle nutrition approach involves teaching children to become attuned to their physical hunger/satiety cues and eat more consciously.
Sensory food education offers children opportunities to explore various foods and broaden their taste preferences, setting them up for a more balanced and varied diet. Behavioural changes are more likely to occur in playful environments where children feel safe and curious to learn about food.
Role modelling, age-appropriate nutrition information and equitable access to nutritious food are all essential for establishing better eating habits. We promote food neutrality, with the belief that no food is inherently ‘bad’ or ‘good', within the constraints of the school food standards.
Encouraging schools to implement non-food rewards ensures that food is not used to reinforce potentially harmful eating habits. A gain-framed messaging style (for example, a balanced diet improves attainment) more effectively influences behaviour than the loss-framed messaging traditionally used in health promotion.
Addressing concerns over children’s health with context and evidence offers practical solutions and destigmatises individual choices. “Every meal is an opportunity” emphasises the significance of systemic change in improving health outcomes.
Our partners
Nourish has been developed in partnership with Impact on Urban Health, with an initial focus on supporting schools in Lambeth and Southwark. It forms part of a wider 10-year Impact on Urban Health programme aimed at improving children’s health in urban areas by transforming the food environments where children and families spend their time - at home, in schools, on high streets and in green spaces.
Funding from the Nutritional Wellbeing Foundation, Westminster Foundation and Ocado has enabled us to deliver Nourish in schools across Tower Hamlets, Ealing, Westminster, Wandsworth, Islington and Newham. Support from the Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Foundation (KGJF) is helping us scale the programme beyond London, working with schools in Cumberland and Birmingham. In addition, funding from Hertfordshire County Council’s Public Health Prevention Investment Programme (PHIP) means we will also be working with schools in Hertfordshire.
