Healthy Eaters to Earn Prizes

East Riding schoolchildren are to be offered incentives such as mobile phone top-ups to encourage them to eat healthy school dinners.

Secondary schools in the region will be the first in the country to pioneer a new rewards scheme designed to tempt more pupils towards healthy meals.

If the scheme is a success, it could be rolled out across the country.

In line with the national trend, school meals take-up has dipped in the East Riding to only 35 per cent.

But it is hoped the rewards scheme will tempt a higher percentage of the region’s 23,000 secondary pupils to opt for school meals.

The incentive scheme, which is being backed by companies including Next, JJB, Vodafone and iTunes, will see pupils awarded points for choosing healthy options.

They will be able to use the points to claim rewards, including top-ups for mobile phones, discounts in fashion and sports stores and vouchers for sports facilities.

Pupils eating school dinners for a week could accrue 50 points, earning rewards such as pounds5 of free calls or 100 free texts with TMobile.

The PukkaStuff scheme, which will be operated by a private company, will be launched in East Riding schools from Monday.

Five other education authorities will introduce the scheme in the coming weeks.

East Riding Council’s catering unit manager Alan Woods said: "All of our 18 secondary schools have signed up for it.

"We looked at it as an ideal way not only to promote healthy eating but to reward pupils for making those choices.

"We have gone into it for a three-year period and it will develop from here."

Beverley High School for Girls is among the East Riding secondary schools taking part in the scheme.

Pupil Megan James, 12, said the rewards scheme was a good idea. She said: "I like the school meals because they are healthy, they are not expensive and now we will get rewards for choosing them."

Bath-based PukkaStuff Ltd is hoping to eventually roll the scheme out nationally.

The company’s marketing director Paul Heywood said: "Our desire is that we help as many schools as possible to increase the uptake of school meals because it is lower than it should be at the moment.

"We need to persuade the kids not to go off site and eat burgers and chips at lunchtime."

For every school meal they eat, pupils will receive a voucher for five or 10 PukkaPoints with a unique number on it.

Pupils will then be able to key the number into the PukkaStuff website to credit their personal account.

The purchasing power of one 10-point voucher will be between 50p and pounds1, depending on which reward is chosen. For just 30 points, children can claim discounts at theme parks and on football and musical days out.

The scheme will not cost the individual schools or the Local Education Authority a penny and the price of school meals will not be affected.

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