It has been the hardest task for dinner ladies throughout the ages, but Jan Bentley believes she has worked out how to get children to eat their greens.

“Children like vegetables much better when they’ve grown it themselves,” said the newly crowned primary school dinner lady of the year. “You can serve 100 kids carrots and persuade them to eat even if only two come out of the school garden.”

Mrs Bentley leads the catering team at St Andrew’s School in Shifnal, Shropshire, which was voted the best in the country this week.

With her emphasis on local organic produce and cookery classes for pupils and parents, she represents a new breed of dinner lady. St Andrew’s has its own garden, growing broad beans, rhubarb, onions, potatoes and carrots. The children visit organic farms regularly, bringing back vegetables — and even eat sausages made from the organic pigs they meet.

On Thursday Mrs Bentley swapped her apron for an evening dress to see the school honoured at a gala dinner in Birmingham, along with Kirk Hallam Community Technology College in Derbyshire in the secondary category.

Nutritionists and smoothie makers mingled with cooks to back the Government’s drive for fresh and healthy food at the Local Authority Caterers’ Association annual conference.

Processed foods and snacks were, however, well represented among the exhibitors, in a reminder of the pre-Jamie Oliver era. Mrs Bentley says she has been unaffected by the celebrity chef’s health-food revolution. “In Shropshire we were already doing healthy eating before Jamie. We just carried on,” she said.

Mrs Bentley, 58, introduced a cooking club at the school to demonstrate recipes to parents. About 70 per cent of the school’s 260 pupils eat her food, which is created on a budget of 65p for a two-course meal.

Judges praised her team for “a commitment above and beyond that normally expected from staff”.

At Kirk Hallam Community Technology College, in Ilkeston near Derby, Kathy Carlisle’s team was praised for their efforts in “creating a food culture across the whole school”.

The college also has a school garden, which the principal, Peter Hamer, says gives it a “rural element”. Having hens and crops on-site helps pupils “to see life in a different perspective,” he says.

Ms Carlisle even helps to run a Saturday morning gardening club for parents and the community. She says that the culture has changed since she arrived four years ago from the NHS. “The catering team has really become part of the school, not just something brought in from outside,” she said.

Ms Carlisle, 39, offers four main options every day, plus a salad bar “that’s really taken off. Students want to be able to choose.”.

Lasagne is perhaps the most popular of her dishes. “The students say they can smell the garlic and herbs. It’s all made in-house and the smell entices them in.”

This is the sort of effort that delights the Government, which is introducing compulsory nutritional standards for all schools.

It would no doubt also be welcomed by Jamie Oliver — who sharply divided reactions at the conference. While some praised him for drawing public attention to school meals, a more traditional element is furious at his interference.

One frozen food supplier said: “He cost us 15 per cent of our school orders, just like that.”

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