The proportion of secondary pupils in Scotland who typically have a school meal ranges from 9 per cent to 75 per cent by school, new research has found.

One of the academics behind the research, Professor John McKendrick, of the Scottish Poverty and Inequality Research Unit at Glasgow Caledonian University, said that the closeness of other food outlets to schools had bearing on school meal uptake.

However, he said that other important factors when it came to pupils’ decisions about whether or not to have a school meal included: the school dining environment; the length of queues and of the lunch break; the information available about what was on offer; and the quality of the food.

Improving overall student uptake of school meals was important, he told Tes Scotland, because of the positive knock-on effect it could have on free school meal uptake.

He said that families accessing this support was more important than ever, given that they were coming under increasing pressure from the cost of living crisis.

He added: “One strong reason for pupils to take a school meal is to eat with their friends.”

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Professor McKendrick also said that the new research had shown a high proportion of students in some secondaries skipped breakfast - up to 61 per cent in some schools - making it even more important that they ate a proper lunch.

Scottish school food is subject to strict nutritional guidelines but secondary students usually have the freedom to go off campus at lunchtime, meaning it can be tough for school canteens to compete with local supermarkets and takeaways.

Still, there was a lot that schools could do to encourage their pupils to opt for school dinners, said Professor McKendrick - with a good starting point being to ask students for their opinions about school meals, and to act on their feedback.

Professor McKendrick said the research showed the majority of pupils had never been asked what they thought of school meals.

But it also showed the majority of pupils rated catering staffs’ efforts as “good” or “really good” in 97 per cent of schools.

Today, 86 of the nearly 200 schools involved in the research with large enough sample sizes received reports showing: what their pupils had to say about their eating patterns; reasons for having or not having school meals; their opinions on school meals; and how informed they were about school menus.

Professor McKendrick said: “We hope these school-specific reports help everyone in these schools better understand what works and what could work better to ensure that Scotland’s secondary school pupils have a first-class school meals service in the years ahead.”

Nationally, around half of Scottish secondary students take a school dinner - in 2014, 44.4 per cent were recorded as eating school meals during the annual survey carried out in February, and in 2020 that figure was 44.6 per cent.

The proportion registered for free school meals has also remained steady in recent years, with 15.6 per cent of secondary pupils registered for free school meals in 2020.

However, uptake of free school meals in secondary is falling - in 2014 76.6 per cent of pupils registered for free meals took a free meal, but that proportion had fallen to 70.9 per cent in 2020.