Week of Action

To kick off the Week of Action, we’ll invite and support faith leaders to hold a prayer that gets at the heart of the moral case for why we need Free School Meals for All, that talks about the next generation of children and our responsibility to address the vast inequality they experience in their lives and in school today. We'll provide a toolkit and speaking points for faith leaders called to take this action. 

If you're a faith leader:

• Use the toolkit to hold a prayer to reflect on the importance of food for our children's future. See the toolkit here: bit.ly/freeschoolmealsfaithpack

• If you know other faith leaders who may want to lead a service, they can sign up here to let us know they're planning on taking action: bit.ly/faithactions

• Ask your place of worship to sign the open letter in support of Free School Meals for All: https://freeschoolmealsforall.org.uk/partner-sign-up

If you're a faith-based organisation or connected to faith networks:

• Distribute the toolkit through your networks to help recruit faith leaders to sign up. Here's a template email you can use when circulating it.

This day will centre on two actions. First will be coffee mornings where parents can watch the video, discuss the issue together and sign up to support the campaign. We’ll provide a toolkit with a film to watch and speaking points to make this as easy as possible.

For educators, we’ll be encouraging pupils and teachers to host an assembly or form-time about this demand on the day. Involving young people has been an important element of this campaign - after all this is for them.

If you're an educator or work with a school:

• Sign your school up to the open letter. Here's the information you'll need to help convince school leaders to add your school's voice: Read more here. 

• Hold a form-time or organise a class assembly to support children and young people to reflect about the role of school food in their day and how Free School Meals for All would impact them, their peers and school community. 

  • Our lesson plan has everything an educator will need to run a reflective and engaging 30-minute session: bit.ly/freeschoolmealslessonplan

  • Our guide, which includes links to the lesson plan, offers 3 ways schools and young people can take action to support the campaign: bit.ly/freeschoolmealsresources

If you're a parent/caregiver or connected with parent networks:

• Host a coffee morning at your child's school or help distribute the toolkit to parent networks, whether that's through WhatsApp, a community facebook group, or something else. You can see the coffee morning toolkit here: https://bit.ly/coffeemorningtoolkit 

• If you are sharing the coffee morning toolkit with others in your network, ask people to let us know if they will hold a coffee morning by filling in the form here: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/host-coffee-morning-for-free-school-meals/

On this day, we will release findings from the medical community about health challenges children face and how Free School Meals for All could help address these challenges. 

Health practitioners will lead the call for this demand in the press. We’d like this day to reflect the incredible support that medical bodies and professionals have voiced for Free School Meals for All. 

If you're a health professional network, represent a medical body or connected to public health:

• Provide spokespeople like school nurses or doctors who would be willing to provide testimonials or speak with press about this issue. Sign up here to let us know if this is something you could support with: bit.ly/coalitionactions

We are collaborating with the Big Issue Magazine to reveal a spread in their papers that day about Free School Meals for All, reaching new readers with our message. 

If you represent a food bank or other service-providing organisation:

• Organise spokespeople willing to give testimonials or speak with press about the importance of Free School Meals for All. Sign up here if you're interested, and we'll follow up with more information: bit.ly/coalitionactions

All week we will be working our way up to the hand-in at 10 Downing Street.

We’ll be taking our joint open letter and public petition to the Prime Minister. This will be a major moment, with an event and speakers outside the gates of Number 10 and a smaller delegation handing in the printed materials.

If you or someone else from your organisation can attend, fill out the form at: bit.ly/sendadelegate

We’ll share interviews and photo diaries with schools doing incredible and innovative work around nutrition and healthy eating - running programmes that understand why food is part and parcel of a great education. 

If you are an educator or work with schools: 

• Schools are sharing their school food programmes and the experiences of their pupils to highlight the difference Free School Meals can make in children's lives. Email us at campaigns@nochildleftbehind.org.uk