![The Mayor Sadiq Khan with children around a table eating a meal](/sites/default/files/styles/page_header_sm/public/2023-09/Large_Web_Image-Free-School-Meals-Waltham-Forest_1.jpg?h=f569404b&itok=SdDJlcsN)
The Mayor of London's Love Your Lunch Challenge
The challenge
The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has provided free school meals to all primary school children in state schools in London for this academic year.
The Mayor stepped in with emergency funding of £135 million to help up to 287,000 primary school children receive free school meals. This could save families upwards of £440 across the year.
The Mayor is now asking young Londoners to join the conversation and to create a piece of work in any medium that tells us about the value of nutritious school meals.
The competition closed on 20 November.
The theme
The Mayor wants to hear about children’s experience with school lunches. He is inviting all London school children in years 3 to 6 to make a creative piece of work, on the theme:
This is an exciting opportunity for children to tell us about what access to healthy meals means to them, and to their friends, families, and communities.
We are asking children to reflect on the following questions:
- does eating school lunch provide an enjoyable moment to spend time with friends?
- does lunch at school help you to concentrate in your favourite afternoon lesson?
- does lunch at school give you energy to play your favourite sport?
The prizes
Grand prize for the Mayor’s Love your Lunch challenge
The winning pupil, along with their whole class, will win the opportunity to have their school lunch prepared for them by the BOSH! chefs, Henry Firth and Ian Theasby.
Their healthy recipes have over 3 billion views, have sold over 1 million copies of their award-winning and best-selling cookbooks, and have products in major supermarkets across the UK.
Pupils and their classmates will get to sit alongside one another and enjoy a nutritious and delicious festive meal together - no child facing stigma and no child going hungry.
The prize meal will take place in the second week of December. We will work closely to support the winning school to help with the logistics, and a huge thank you to ASDA supermarket who will be providing the food for the meal.
Runners up prizes
We also have some amazing runners up prizes including cookbooks from Gizzi Erskine, Tom Kerridge, Nathan Outlaw, Miguel Barcla and Jamie Oliver, as well as workshops from partners including Officina 00, Chartwells and ProVeg UK.
Prizes for all entrants
All entrants will receive a token of appreciation for sharing their thoughts and ideas with the Mayor, including enamel badges, bookmarks and certificates signed by the Mayor.
Children entering the challenge will also have the chance to have their piece of work featured on the Mayor of London’s website and social media.
How to take part
Nominate a school lead
The school lead should:
- champion the challenge in school
- plan how pupils take part
- be responsible for submitting entries on time.
Encourage pupils to take part
You could encourage contributions to the challenge by:
- announcing it in a school assembly
- making it a homework assignment
- assigning it as a half-term activity
- adding it to a lesson plan as an activity.
Submit your entries
All entries are to be submitted by 11:59pm on Monday 20 November 2023 using our online form.
Information for teachers, parents and guardians
Teachers, parents or guardians will need to submit a photo or scanned image of the pupil's work using our online entry form.
They will need to:
- take a clear scan or photo of the piece of work
- submit a single entry for each child
- submit one image of the piece of work for each entry
- upload a JPEG or PNG of the piece of work. The file size can be a maximum of 20MB
- complete a separate online entry form for each entrant
- allow time for completing multiple online entry forms and upload images
- hold on to the original piece of work to post to us, if a an entry is selected as one of the winners.
The deadline for teachers, parents and guardians to submit entries using our online form is 20 November 2023 at 11:59pm.
Information for children
We are asking children to design a creative piece of work inspired by the theme ‘The best thing about school lunches is...’
We encourage creativity. Some examples are:
- drawing
- painting
- poem
- short story
- poster
- photography
- greetings card
- history, geography, or biology diagram
- recipe.
Put your thinking (or chefs!) hats on and let your creativity flow.
Upload an entry
The Mayor of London's Love Your Lunch Challenge
Further information
- Entry to the challenge is only open to children at school in Greater London, who were in school years 3 – 6 as of 1 September 2023.
- Entry to the challenge must be made by a teacher, parent or guardian on behalf of a child or group of children from the school at which that teacher is employed and the teacher must ensure that they have the necessary parent/guardian authority before making the entries.
- Entries must be submitted using the official entry form, one form per entry. The GLA reserves the right to reject any entry not made on the official form and on the designated deadline for entries. The GLA shall not be responsible for late, lost or delayed entries or network computer hardware or software failures of any kind that may delay or restrict entry to the challenge.
- All entries should respond directly to the challenge – to design a creative piece of work inspired by the theme ‘‘The best thing about school lunches is...’’
- Submitting an entry to the challenge indicates acceptance of these terms and conditions. The GLA reserves the right to refuse entry or refuse to award the prize to anyone in breach of these terms and conditions.
- The challenge opens for registration and entries from 9am on Monday 16 October 2023. The deadline for receiving entries is 11:59pm on Monday 20 November 2023.
- Teachers, parents and guardians can upload as many entries as they wish. However, for each entry, only one image may be submitted and entries are limited to one per child.
- Entries will be judged on their creative responses to the requirement to make something creative based on the theme of ‘The best thing about school lunches is...’
- Entries will be anonymous for judging purposes.
- The judging process will be final and binding in all matters and no correspondence will be entered into.
- Entrants will be notified via their parent, guardian or teacher using the contact information provided if their entry is selected
- The name, age and schools of winners will used in marketing activity for the Universal Free School Meals Programme and on the GLA website.
- The winner will be required to provide the original piece of work to the GLA by 1 December 2023. The original artwork will be returned to the winner.
- The winning designs will be the featured on Mayor of London’s social media channels and London.gov website. It will also feature the winner’s name, age and school name.
- The GLA will not be liable for any loss or damage, however caused, to any entries, and bears no responsibility for incomplete or delayed entries.
- Personal data supplied during the course of this challenge will only be processed as set out in the GLA Privacy Policy.
- The GLA reserves the right to cancel the challenge at any stage if it considers such action necessary, or for reasons beyond the GLA's reasonable control, and the GLA will have no liability to the entrants in respect of any such cancellation.
- By entering the challenge, each winning entrant grants the GLA and all media partners an irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free, world-wide licence to reproduce, enlarge, publish or exhibit, mechanically or electronically on any media worldwide (including the internet) the entrant's winning artworks whether in connection with the challenge or in connection with other GLA policies or projects.
- By entering, winning entrants acknowledge that the GLA may need to crop or make other minor alteration to the photographs of the winning entrants’ artwork when used outside the remit of this challenge.
- By entering the challenge, the parent/guardian/teacher/play scheme leader confirms and warrants that, in relation to the entrant’s artwork, which has been submitted:
- It is their own original work.
- That all copyright, and any other intellectual property rights in the artwork photograph are vested in the entrant and that they have neither assigned, licensed nor disposed of nor otherwise encumbered any of their rights in the artwork.
- Does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party in respect of the artwork, and the parent, guardian or school as applicable will indemnify the GLA against any claims made against the GLA by any third parties in respect of such infringement.
- By entering the challenge, the parent, guardian, teacher or play scheme leader confirms and warrants that they have the permission of those pictured in the artwork, (if any) (or, where the artwork pictures any persons under the age of 18, they have obtained the consent of that child's parent or guardian) for the design to be published and used by the GLA as contemplated by these terms and conditions.
- The challenge will be governed by English law and entrants to the challenge submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.