BANNING packed lunches is just one of a range of measures that schools could use to encourage more children to eat school dinners, according to a new School Food Plan.

Making meals free for all primary school children, cooking food that is appetising and nutritious, making the dining hall a welcoming place and getting the price right are also recommendations served up in the new independent report.

The report, commissioned by the Government, found that across the country take-up of school food meals remained stubbornly low at 43 percent.

And report authors, restaurant owners Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, slammed the contents of children's lunchboxes, saying that only one percent of packed lunches met the nutritional standards that currently apply to school food.

The School Food Plan takes a comprehensive look at the quality of food in England's schools, packed lunches and the links between good nutrition and academic performance.

Members of the Children's Food Trust were involved in the review and chairman of the Trust, Cotswold Chef Rob Rees welcomed the report. "All you can do is welcome it because the issue had disappeared off people's agenda. The numbers of people having school meals is too low but the food is better than ever before", he said. 

"There is still much we can do. There should be 80 percent of children eating school dinners but we have to do a lot to make that happen. Imagine if all primary school meals were free? It needs a lot of investment to make that happen but we should really be investing in our children."

Recommendations for increasing take-up of school dinners include getting rid of "prisonstyle" trays and getting teachers to eat in the dining hall.

Although the Government has not agreed to the proposal for free school meals for all, it has allocated money to help schools in the poorest areas establish breakfast clubs. And it has promised to look at extending free school meal entitlement.

The plan also throws the spotlight on the importance of school cookery and the government has accepted the recommendation that cooking lessons should be made a part of the national curriculum for all children up to the age of 14.

Mr Rees was cautiously optimistic about this pledge: "I have heard this commitment before," he said.

* To read the report in full go to www.schoolfoodplan.com