School Lunch Project Evaluation: Final Report 2024

The Tasmanian State Government initially committed $1.52 million in 2021 to provide cooked school lunches to students at 30 government schools over two years (15 commencing in 2022 and an additional 15 commencing during 2023). The School Lunch Project is led by School Food Matters, a Tasmanian non-government organisation supporting school communities to promote and provide nutritious food. The project builds on a previous evaluation of a pilot project delivered over 20 days in three Tasmanian schools in 2020. The Menzies Institute for Medical Research (Menzies) has undertaken a developmental evaluation of the School Lunch Project during its initiation and development phase. As a developmental evaluation the purpose is not to draw definitive conclusions about the effectiveness or impact of the project but to determine if the project has achieved its intended outcomes and to contribute to the project’s ongoing development and refinement. Schools could choose to prepare the meals from scratch using supplied recipes and ingredients or have meals prepared by a central kitchen (run by Loaves and Fishes Tasmania, a not-for-profit Tasmanian emergency food relief provider) and delivered to the schools.

Two thirds of schools (N=20) chose the centralised model. Lunches were served one to four days per week. The number of students receiving meals ranged from one class to the whole school. Twelve of the 30 schools participated in a detailed evaluation (seven primary schools, two secondary school, three district schools) in 2022–23. Data were collected via surveys, interviews and discussion groups from parents, students, teachers and other school staff, principals and key stakeholders from School Food Matters, Loaves and Fishes Tasmania, the Tasmanian Department of Health (DoH), and the School Lunch Project advisory group. The 18 schools not selected for detailed evaluation were invited to provide basic information through a principal survey and/or interviews. To assess the impact of providing cooked school lunches on student attendance and wellbeing, all 30 School Lunch Project schools were matched with 30 comparison schools and invited to provide consent for the Department for
Education, Children and Young People to provide daily attendance data (2018–23) and Student Wellbeing and Engagement Survey data (2019–23). Seventeen School Lunch Project schools and 11 comparison schools provided consent.