Anger at school kitchen closure

A Walsall Wood school’s popular kitchen, where the meals have proved to be a big hit among the pupils and staff, could be closed as part of a major shake-up of the borough council’s meals service.

Parents and teachers are up in arms at the plans which would see the canteen at Castlefort JMI turned into a servery dishing up meals produced in a larger kitchen at another school.

Traditional meals dished up by the catering team, led by Janet Broadhurst, are so popular that large numbers of pupils opt for them rather than a packed lunch.

The situation is in stark contrast to other schools across the borough where the number of pupils eating school dinners has dropped dramatically following the introduction of new healthy guidelines.

These have seen items such as fried food, chocolate, crisps and fizzy drinks taken off the menu.

Items served up by the team at Castlefort, described by one parent as “very tasty and just like a home cooked meal,” include pasta and garlic bread, curry, sponge pudding, fruit cocktail and salads.

Samantha Corbett, whose four-year-old son Christian is a pupil at the school, said: “The school do a great job of cooking the meals in-house and my son loves them. 

“The quality is bound to drop if the meals are produced elsewhere and just brought in and warmed up.”