The win will see the company provide catering and hard and soft facilities management (FM) services, including: cleaning; premises, waste and utilities management; grounds maintenance; vending; helpdesk; planned and reactive maintenance; winter services and management of third party lettings, to two secondary, three primary and two schools for pupils with severe learning difficulties over the next five years.
It will also implement its new “modern school food brand” in each, Food & Co. by Sodexo, which was developed following research undertaken on pupils aged between 7 and 16 to “understand the type of food they like, how they would like to eat it, and their preferred dining environment and experience.”
Working with students at each of the new schools, Sodexo was keen to create a dining area that is “truly somewhere they ‘own’ and where they want to eat,” and that they helped shape.
Matt Garner, managing director for Schools at Sodexo UK and Ireland commented: “This is a good win for ‘Schools by Sodexo,’ and we are delighted to be working with schools so close to our home in Swindon (all within four miles of Sodexo’s education business’s head office.)
“The comprehensive integrated solutions that we offer as part of ‘Schools by Sodexo’ are designed to drive efficiencies and support schools with non-academic, but sometimes safety critical tasks.
“Through the provision of these services, we’re confident that we can support the schools’ leadership teams and improve quality of life for the pupils, staff and the wider school communities.
“We are particularly excited to be working directly with pupils at the schools through our ‘Agents for Change’ programme. So far we’ve had fantastic feedback from the students and are excited about the potential to deliver better engagement with food, and better health outcomes as a result.
“As the feedback so far shows, the pupils have told us that they are excited about the dining designs and the new menu concept.”