Making Bold Tuckshop Changes

This is the tale of one tuckshop, two motivated women and many partners who joined forces to put the health of their students first to progress bold changes to the tuckshop menu.

In this episode we talk to Sabrina Mitchell, P&C President (and former tuckshop convenor) of Cannonvale State School, and Angie Kelly, Principal of Cannonvale State School.

Read the full case study and see the tuckshop menu.

This podcast is proudly brought to you by the Queensland Association of School Tuckshops and funded by the Queensland Government through Health and Wellbeing Queensland.

Transcript

Deanne Wooden  00:08

Hello everyone, this is Deanne Wooden and you're listening to The Talking Healthier Tuckshops Podcast, the show that talks all things school tuckshops. 

This podcast is proudly brought to you by the Queensland Association of School Tuckshops and funded by the Queensland Government through Health and Wellbeing Queensland. 

From the health of your kids and family, to your own well-being and happiness. We'll explore topics that matter to you, giving you easy ways to implement them in your tuckshop and your day-to-day life.

Today, we’re talking about the tale of one tuckshop, two motivated women and many partners who joined forces to put the health of their students first to progress bold changes to the tuckshop menu.

We’re joined by Sabrina Mitchell, P&C President of Cannonvale State School, and Angie Kelly, Principal of Cannonvale State School. 

Sabrina is a mum of 6 kids ranging in age from 27 to 7. She has a 7-year-old grandson and is also a foster mum to 4. 

Sabrina has volunteered in the P&C including in the tuckshop and school classrooms since her first daughter attended the school 22 years ago.  She took on the role of President of the P&C as a way of keeping up to date with the school while her eldest children went on to high school. Now that her youngest son and grandson attend the school, she has remained the president for the last 5 years, loving every bit of it. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that Sabrina’s passion is children and helping.

Angie Kelly has been teaching since 1995.  She has taught right across Queensland, in state schools, and a C&K, from kindergarten to Year 12. She has also done some volunteer teaching overseas in South Africa in a village school.  Angie has been a principal since 2010 and has been the principal at Cannonvale State School since 2013.  Angie is passionate about education, all living things and the future.

Sabrina and Angie, welcome to the show.

Angie Kelly  02:00

Thank you. Thanks so much for having us. Thank you. We're very honored to be here.

Deanne Wooden  02:06

So my first question is, QAST has been working with schools for many years to make healthy changes to tuckshop menus, it's usually our advice to make small changes slowly over time to make sure that the changes are accepted by the school community. And we've noticed this as the exact opposite to what you have done at Cannonvale State School. So, we're interested to know why you took such a radical approach.

Sabrina Mitchell  02:30

I'll answer that I think. Angie Kelly doesn't do anything in small steps. So, when our Principal said that it was the tuckshop’s turn to make some changes, we just got on board and did what needed to be done. And I think that the community really took that onboard and everybody's come together. 

Angie Kelly  02:52

I think, also, it's, you know, I've been here a long time, I've been at this school, this is going into my 11th year now. And there's been a significant amount of change in that time. And my relationships with the community at large have been formed over a long period of time, and they're solid. So, it's a trust piece there. This, the way that the tuckshop is now and what the changes that have been made, have been in my head for a very long time. But when you're making significant change in an organization, of course, there's triage, and there's a right time to do things. And I think a lot of the time with decisions that you make, there are strategic changes, and there's also organic changes. Sometimes you just have that moment where you feel and go. Yes, the times now, it's now or never, and I felt this was a now or never moment. Absolutely.

Deanne Wooden  03:53

Okay, well, that's really great. And I love hearing you say it's that trust that you know, you've developed with your relationships with the school community over many, many years. So yeah, that's really great advice. So QAST have published a case study on the changes that you've made at Cannonvale state school. And we know that you've worked with many different partners in making these changes. So we wanted to know how important it has been in finding these external help partners and this external help. And you know how this process has been for your school.

Sabrina Mitchell  04:26

I think, from the tuckshop’s point of view, we really wanted to do a free fruit Friday. So we wanted to give back to our kids and our families. So getting Woolworths on board was massive. So, we've done that. So that was really cool. And then obviously, we wanted to make sure that not only our thoughts on the actual nutrition of the menu, were, you know, it wasn't just about us it was we wanted outside opinions and things. So we got the Healthy Eats program, and a few other people involved with that. And then of course, getting support in the entire school. And then the kids on board was just fantastic. So for us, it was a whole school thing. It was a whole community thing. And it was, you know, the kids were our goal, and they just all came together. So it was extremely important to have everybody around to make it go through. 

Angie Kelly  05:19

Yeah, and I think it was, again, something that just felt I mean, it's the antithesis of the perfect storm. This wasn't the perfect storm that some people may have thought it was. But it really was just, you know, almost like that perfect day, that perfect sunrise that perfect sunset because there were again relationships that had developed over the years around different things. And that includes obviously a very strong working relationship with our P&C, a very, we've got very strong relationships with multiple organizations across our community. We also had a situation, which again, I've been dying to do, couldn't see the right moment couldn't think about how it was going to work. I think it's that somewhere in the recesses of my mind and would pop up and go back and pop up and go back. But a wonderful opportunity presented itself a couple of years ago where I restructured how our school was going to be run. And in that restructure. I was able to introduce a specialist teacher, which was a health teacher into our school. And that was a really pivotal moment. So that really affected a whole range of things across our school, and was able to make a situation where we could come together with teachers once every week, which was really important. So that's completely separate. But in the interim, I got this wonderful health teacher now. And she's somebody who's been on our staff, she has been part of our Reef Guardian team and our Earth Smart team, which has been in in working for 11 years now. And she absolutely 100% wanted that role. And she has grabbed that role. And in that, at the same time, healthy, it's we're there, we've got strong links to Eco Barge in our community, again, been developed over a long period of time, we've got the strong built connection to the Great Barrier Reef, Marine Park Authority, and the list goes on. And so because of the way that we put out, looked at the Australian curriculum, and her work, it actually fed organically, strategically, beautifully into this moment. And Sabrina's right. This has been driven by kids through the teachings of that wonderful teacher as well. And that's been really important.

Deanne Wooden  07:49

What I'm hearing there is that you've taken a whole of school approach, you've got health being taught in the curriculum, and then you're backing that up or reflecting that in other changes across the school environment. So you know, that's what we know, around healthy tuckshops, is that it's very difficult for a Tuckshop to go out on their own, and, you know, create this change in a school community if the rest of the community is not placing a priority on health for the students. 

Angie Kelly  08:19

So yeah, so it's one of the interesting things about this is as well, the real seed that was planted in my mind for this, because what I ran prior to this school was I ran a small school. So when I say I ran a small school, I had 36 children, this school has been around the 800 to 900 mark, but I came from there to here. So in that progression across to a bigger school, what you want to do is bring the magic of small schools, because small schools are a magical place. And big schools are a magical place. I wanted to capture what we had in small schools. And as a small school principal, I went out very early in the piece to a school in a very different demographic to the one that I was running. And they had a tuckshop, they're run by parents, it was and those parents only had a tuckshop one day a week. And they had one thing on the menu one day a week, and it was healthy. And that to me, that was the moment for me. That was a long time ago, I'm going to say that was at least 13 to 15 years ago that I saw that in play. And so I think that sat there and so the changes that that we have been able to make, as you say is all that a lot of that in a big school has been because of the longevity and the relationships formed with multiple partners across and they are vital.

Deanne Wooden  09:43

Yeah, so laying that groundwork over time really important. So let's talk about the menu. QAST has done a Menu Health Check on the Cannonvale State School tuckshop menu and you have managed to change it from I think two stars when you were first involved with the Healthy Eats program. And then it went to three. And you said nope, not good enough. And now it's a five star or five apple menu. And we also know through the case study that you have encountered some resistance to these really drastic changes to the menu. So can you tell me a little bit more about this and how you've dealt with it.

Sabrina Mitchell  10:18

So to start with, the five apples were very important. They were that 100%, number one goal. But our most important thing was a five-star Apple rated menu at an affordable price and something that the kids are going to eat. Because if you're serving something that they don't like, they're not going to eat it. So it doesn't matter how many apples you've got. So, we really looked at the menu, we tried to keep it very simple, because as you said at the beginning, we didn't just change one or two things, we changed the entire menu. So we let our stock run out at the end of term. And at the beginning, over the school holidays, we changed the whole app. And then we just came back with a new app and we went “surprise”. We did get a little bit of resistance. We probably had, I would say between five and 10 complaints if you would call them that. Just a little bit. So there was a couple of parents, a couple of kids depending on how those complaints or concerns came into us, Ang may have dealt with a couple, I dealt with a couple coming up to the tuckshop. And it was really just about educating, really those people that were concerned. And just, you know, giving our opinion, I even actually copped a little bit from my own daughter, and my grandson who was is on the autism spectrum and wouldn't eat anything on that menu. So I copped a fair bit there, even personally. It was just a matter of sticking to our guns, and, you know, explaining why we've done what we've done. People generally understand when you're coming from a place of good and you're coming from a place of your heart. People turn around very quickly. And it's taken, I think we're in we're at the end of term two. And I actually called my grandson the other day and said, Hey, man, I know you don't normally eat what's on the tuckshop menu. But could grandma buy you a treat? What would you like to try? And he tried our Apple slinky and our corn on the cob, he took a couple of bites, and chucked the rest out. But hey, guess what, I'm taking that as a win. So, you know, give it a little bit of time, those people that are resistant come around. But if you're doing something from the heart, everyone sees it as a bonus. 

Angie Kelly  12:32

I agree with Sabrina, we've, I mean, I've made a significant, multiple significant changes in this school. Drastic changes at times. And each time, I'm going to make a change, I make a decision. And the decision is always soft launch, or hard launch. In situations in a hard launch, there's a lot of explanation that's going to couch those changes. And that's really important. And during those periods, I've had enormous amounts of resistance from everybody that have ridden the storm, coming back to what Sabrina said, because I knew that my heart and my actions and my intentions were all in the right place. With this one, we had a P&C meeting. And we made that decision at the end of last year. And I think it's also really important to note here, that if I'm really honest, the reason that this has all happened right now is because of the P&C president that we've got, which is Sabrina. And I will also say, and I don't know if I've actually said that to Sabrina before. But it really shocked me. When Sabrina came to me and said, I really want to do this. Because I wouldn't have necessarily guessed that we hadn't had conversations about this. So I really think that's important for P&C presidents out there to know that this has actually been driven by our P&C president. 

Sabrina Mitchell  14:20

I think it's important to note too, that while we talk about the little bit of resistance that we got, we also got some incredible, incredible compliments. I had mums coming up to the tuckshop telling me that their child had never been able to eat or buy from the tuckshop before, I had people texting me going, “oh my god, Sabrina, you know, stick to your guns”. I can't believe how, you know, this is incredible. You know, you're never gonna guess like little Johnny ate apples today. Like, it was just, you know, yes, you got those five or 10 little bits of resistance. And while they're important, and I understand people have different opinions, it was being respectful to those people. It was also incredibly rewarding to see what was coming from the other side as well. And it really just kept driving it and people loved it. So for every resistance, there was three or four compliments and things going on so well. And I'll tell you one of the best things that happened to me. I'd been working in the tuckshop, I've always volunteered but I was working there for a little while. And one of the young girls who had always had a chicken tender and a chocolate milk every single day. That's what she had. She came up and she ordered sushi and a bottle of water. And I went yeah, okay, job is done. That one little girl so if we've made a difference to one child, and I know it's made a difference to our entire community, but you've helped one kid man that's…my heart was full. 

Angie Kelly 15:59

I think the importance of a soft Launch can't be understated here, because that was a strategic decision that we made as a P&C at the end of last year. Because one of the things that I discussed with our P&C team, our executive was, I know, I'm not willing to talk to people about this. This is, this is a non-negotiable, now it's coming. It's happening. They can simply arrive back and find it. And we'll deal with the rest later. So we really did were very strategic about that. And that was incredibly important, I think, because then we didn't mention it. I mentioned it in the newsletter. The only thing I did mention was I held up and read out last year, a group of these incredible letters that I got from children right across the school from grade one through grade six, begging me please, can we change the tuckshop menu? Can we have a healthy tuckshop, please. And they were articulate really, really well written. And so that was the only way people knew. And I said, get ready, everybody changes are coming, you’re talking, I'm listening. So it was really as simple as that. And one of the things that we discussed as a P&C was that, and I suppose I probably led that discussion was the thinking around a tuckshop being a place of a treat. In my worldview is an archaic thought process. Everything that we do in schools absolutely has to be pitched. To those who've got the least amount of control in their lives. That's, that's what we're here to do. We're here to support children. This is significant, the fact that we need to change our thinking on tuckshops in this state. And in this nation. It is not about treats. It is about feeding children. And it should be about feeding them healthily. Trust me there was actually a little bit of, I don't follow social media, that's very helpful. I'm not on it, and I don't follow it. So that's a bonus to principals out there. I always say switch it off. It's much better for your well-being. But there was with Sunday chat, and people did tell me that it was going a little bit crazy. And I said how many voices and they don't you know, there was probably 10… do they actually go to our school, some of them didn't even go to our school, but they felt the need to have a comment, these terrible people who are preventing children from this food. But I got emails from parents, just a few. And when I wrote back to them, I wrote back and said to them, I'm giving you this information confidentially. I want to explain to you the thinking around why we do what we do. If you came to our P&C meetings, you could hear it from me in person, but I'm going to give it to you in writing just for you. And at the end of each piece that I wrote to people, which was always around doing the best for kids, I would say can you do me a really big favor? Anyone who asks you can you tell them the real reasons why we're doing this and promote this? Not one person did not write back to me and say, Oh, my goodness, I'm so embarrassed. I've said anything about this. Thank you. Well done, keep going. You're doing great work. Sabrina's right. When there is no one who's going to come into my office and sit in here and tell me that I have to feed children things that are bad for their health not because there's no justice for justification. 

Sabrina Mitchell  19:34

Exactly 100%. So long as you're doing it from your heart, and you're doing the right thing, and we know that you're right. Go for it.

Deanne Wooden  19:42

It's so lovely to hear you say that, you know the perception of tuckshops needing to be a treat is archaic thinking. And that's something that we as an organization that's supporting tuckshops to have healthier menus. We use that messaging all the time that things have moved on since us adults in our generation where it's school, maybe back then tuckshop was a treat. But these days, we've got families that are relying on tuckshops to feed their children, because we've got both parents working, they don't have time to make healthy lunches. So they need the tuckshop to be that service, where they can be assured that their child will be fed. Well, if they can't do the lunch in the morning, they can go to the school, get a healthy lunch.

Angie Kelly  20:21

One of the things that parents are really grateful for as well, and we're happy to provide this, it to be the bad guys for them. Because it's taken away parents having to be the bad guys. In this case, it's just like, oh, sorry, there's no choice. This is where they see your options. So I think that's been welcomed. And I've got to be honest with you, we don't have anyone talking about this issue anymore. It was all over by the end of term one, if you can ride the storm, if you can stay strong.

Sabrina Mitchell  20:53

100%. I agree, don't ever go back. Once you've pulled your band aid off, it's done. And you just keep moving forward and explain your way through. And eventually, even if there is that little bit of resistance still, which we don't have at the moment, that it grows out. So just keep going, have your plan. And keep going.

Deanne Wooden  21:10

I think in a school of 800 or 900 kids, 10 complaints is pretty small in the scheme of things.

Angie Kelly  21:17

It's definitely become a pride piece now. And that's what I've noticed is that what I'm starting to hear now in the community, and I know because we're a school that has a massive turnover rate in terms of were highly transient schools. So we've got a mobile population, and we have average about five children in and out of our school every week. And our deputy principals who want to enroll students and take children on tour and their families. The feedback they're starting to get now is we hear you've got a really amazing tuckshop. That's just all healthy, we can't believe it. That's amazing.

Deanne Wooden  21:54

And that's actually really great, because you've got families that are moving in and out and they've got that experience and potentially they can take that experience right to school. Yeah, that's fantastic. So a question for you, Sabrina, and I think I've got the answer to this already. But do you think these radical changes would have been successful without the full support of your principal? And if Angie wasn't fully supportive, do you think you would have proceeded so quickly and drastically with the change? 

Sabrina Mitchell  22:24

Well, I'm pretty stubborn. No. I think it would have been a harder slog, it really would have been, and you know, anything that you tried to change, unless you've got the support of everybody around you to bring it all together, then it's always going to be a harder slog. So we definitely needed the principal on board. We needed the P & C on board. We needed the outside, you know, we needed the staff on board, it was very important that when the kids were mentioning little things, you know, oh, you know, there's no party pies, that each teacher was going, Hey, there's no party pies, but there's sushi. Have you tried the sushi? Have you tried, you know, the toasted wraps? Have you tried this or that? You know, so instead of it being negative, it was fed back positive. So it was very important that from the top, Angie Kelly all the way down, we were all together and we all linked together and we supported each other no matter what came in or what came out. We were all together. And we're still together. 100% this tuckshop’s going forward with five apples always no matter what. So we definitely needed each other.

Angie Kelly  23:25

For me, I had to have a P&C president who was 100% supportive of this vision. That was really important. Because if you are having to fight with really the person who is the top of the parent community, that's, something that you're going to make things very, very difficult. So as I say, this was the antithesis of the perfect storm. It was everything just coming together at the right moment.

Deanne Wooden  23:59

Fantastic. All right. So, I'm sure listeners will be very interested in my next question or the answer to that. How is the tuckshop going financially since all the changes have been made?

Sabrina Mitchell  24:10

The tuckshop’s pretty cool to be honest, we did run at a loss for the first term, which we expected. So when we sat down and originally spoke about this, there was already some money sitting in an account that we'd made profits over the years. Everybody's got a profit sitting in the tuckshop or they wouldn't be running a tuckshop. So there was already some profit sitting there. The idea was to run your stock right down as low as possible, change over your suppliers so you're making sure that everything in the tuckshop is healthy. So our containers, our packaging, our plastic, anything and everything that we could use was all changed at once. And of course, then our new food was also all changed, ordering systems were changed. And all that was done as well so that the cost of wages and things were looked at as well so that we could minimize all of that, because we knew we were going to take a hit. So you know, it was a holistic look at the tuckshop. So containers, packaging, all of that jazz, our wages, our hours, not to mention, our staff are incredible in the tuckshop. Our volunteers, everything was looked at all at once. And then we did take a hit. So we were down about $1,500. And I was like, that's actually, that's a week, like, we just need to keep going. So we looked at the menu, we tweaked a couple of little things that weren't selling and we went “hold, “just hold”. So we went into term two. A couple of people had said, “Well, what about icy poles just once a week”. And we went “ooooh the money”. But no, it's not about the money. We held again. So we were steadfast to absolutely not dropping our apples. So we kept our apples at five star, 100%. And I believe this term, we will be in profit. So were not making a million dollars. We're not as good as what we were back in 2022. But it's increasing. The kids are loving it. We've had no complaints, if anything we've had, “can you add this in, this would be exciting”. And they're all healthy options that are coming at us. 

Angie Kelly  26:20

That's really one of the things is that kids are now really thinking about, and their parents are really now thinking about, what can you add in there that is actually healthy. That's the thought processes going on. Our tuckshop always was a fluctuating thing, in terms of financially, and there is really only one thing that we want to achieve if we can, and that is to break even. Because I'm at the end of the day. From a financial point of view of the school, I'm certainly prepared to pay $2,000 for the health of our students. I'm not sure which cost center I would put that under, maybe I just put it under our health curriculum cost center. But really, it's worth it. It's absolutely worth it. And you know, nothing would please me more. It's such a big thing, it wouldn't get it I can't imagine it happening. But just because I know the way of the world, the busyness of parents, the world is a very, very different place. And it's an it's migrated again into another different place since COVID. I would love nothing more than to be feeding all children once a day, to be honest, and really, really getting to that program where we we’re doing paddock to plate within schools. But that has been another big aspect of it is that we have got our environment club, we've got our gardening club, everybody for years now we've been composting in this school, we've got vegetable gardens, growing things all over the place, they are directly feeding into our tuckshop as well. That's been all on the go. And kids are really conscious of all those sorts of things. So this has only been positive coming out of this program.

Sabrina Mitchell  27:58

Angie was very clear to me in one of our very, very first meetings because I was you know, I don't want to cost her money. Like that's costing, like, this is my thought like, I'm the P&C president, I make money for the school, I don't spend money. So I was, you know, conscious of that. And she was very clear, Sabrina, I don't care if it makes any money, it needs to break even eventually, we can take a hit for a little while, but it needs to break even eventually. So it's not so much about the money. It's about the kids and the healthy eating. It's about loving our kids. That's what it's about.

Angie Kelly  28:35

You also make gains in other areas unexpectedly. So we've had a huge environmental focus on the way that things are packaged and sold or not packaged and sold as the case may be. We have reduced our rubbish in the school by over half. So when you even start to think about that, that's garbage collection, money that you're saving, that's garbage bags that you're saving. So there is unexpected savings in that way. Can I also add in there's other benefits that people really will start to see over time, behavior reduction. You have behavior reduction in children who aren't having as big of behavioral issues. All of a sudden you've got less need for certain numbers of staff on certain tools. There's unseen benefits that you could probably sit around and count up as well, where you are gaining in other ways.

Deanne Wooden  29:28

Difficult to quantify in a P&C budget, but gains nonetheless.

Sabrina Mitchell  29:32

Absolutely. And as I said, like dollar to dollar, if you want to say it anyway, we've broken pretty much even this term. So we're not we're not worried at all. And we truly believe that by next and by the end of the year 100%, we will be making money.

Deanne Wooden  29:46

It's very clear to me that, you know, you're running your tuckshop as a service to the school community. And you know, every school and every P&C needs to make that decision. Is it a profit generator? Or is it a service to busy families within the school and a service to the health for the children?

Sabrina Mitchell  30:01

The entire school was a service to our children, and our tuckshop is part of our school. So it's all about our kids. That's 100%. That's our attitude. Done.

Deanne Wooden  30:11

All right, well, you've shared lots of great advice and insights and information. Final chance to provide any final advice for our listeners today.

Sabrina Mitchell  30:22

Mine is just do it. Stop mucking around. Look at your menu, grab your menu out, cross off all the crap, if I'm allowed to say that, cross it all off, rewrite your menu, pick your date, rip the band aid off and do it. That's it done.

Angie Kelly  30:39

Yeah, I'm with Sabrina. I just want to say to people out there, to principals, to P&C presidents, to anybody in schools who would be listening to go, I'm just hoping that this starts to plant a seed for you. And that you can see we did it at the beginning of the year, which I think is a marvelous time to feel refreshed. And I think right now, we're at the end of term two, so I think you've got six months and you can hear from all of the things we've said this morning, the conditions that led to this moment. If I went into a brand new school tomorrow, would I be speeding that process up? Oh, yes, you can absolutely bet. But it would be the end goal. And I would be able to say, “Oh, we did it a Cannonvale, everybody. And it was a win.” So yeah, please, I would absolutely passionately implore everyone to get on board. Because our children deserve this. And our families deserve it.

Deanne Wooden  31:41

Thank you so much. Both of you for a wonderful chat today.

Angie Kelly  31:44

Right. Thank you.

Sabrina Mitchell  31:45

Thanks for having us.

Deanne Wooden  31:46

There you have it, Sabrina Mitchell and Angie Kelly from Cannonvale State School.

We’ll link all the details for the CSS website and the case study in the show notes so make sure you check them out.

Thank you so much for joining us for this conversation Sabrina and Angie.

The Talking Healthier Tuckshops Podcast is produced by the team at QAST and made possible thanks  to funding from Health and Wellbeing Queensland as part of the Healthier Tuckshops program.

Visit qast.org.au to learn more about other program opportunities, and for the latest tuckshop tips, ideas and advice.