Læsø Municipality has confirmed that it will serve free hot meals to all of its schoolchildren, broadcaster DR reports.

The arrangement will run on an initial one-year trial basis. Its overall objective is to improve wellbeing and learning for school students, DR writes.

“There’s no doubt that it’s harder to get into fights with each other when you’ve just been sitting down to eat pizza together. Shared mealtimes create more calm, wellbeing and a better learning environment,” Læso School’s headteacher Henrik Mogensen told the broadcaster.

According to the national confederation for municipalities, Kommunernes Landsforening (KL), Læsø is the first local authority in Denmark to bring in a free school lunch scheme.

The new scheme will also mean that students will be able to sit with friends from other classes to eat their lunches. Before, classes sat together during lunch.

The cost of the free lunch scheme to the municipality will be around 500,000 kroner, DR writes.

“This is a really good initiative. Research suggests that an healthy and varied meal during school time can promote the wellbeing and health of students,” Dorte Ruge, a researcher in applied schooling at the UCL University College in Southern Denmark, told DR.

“When you are gathered for meals, that can give better relations between students, teachers and educational staff,” she said.