JAMIE Oliver says Greenwich's improved exam results since his school dinners campaign are "fantastic".

We recently reported on research by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) which suggested the new healthy menu adopted by most of Greenwich's schools has had a positive impact.

Jamie said: "The research results are fantastic as it's the first time a proper study has been done into the positive effects of the Feed Me Better campaign and it strongly suggests we were right all along.

"Even while doing the programme, we along with the teachers could see the benefits to childrens' health - we could see that asthmatic kids weren't having to use the school inhalers so often.

"We could see that it made them calmer and therfore able to maintain concentration.

"The School Food Trust should be commended, especially working with the budgets they have.

"However there still is a massive area that needs urgent attention, and that is to invest in training our dinner ladies."

He added: "My original strategy was always to have training set up quickly and aggressively in every county.

"At the moment there are only three government-funded training centres - FEAST centres - but they are taking time to set up and they don't yet really have a professional training course specifically designed for school cooks.

"If the investment and strategy was there, I think we could see a radical difference in childrens' health and results in three years instead of ten."