Chips should not be served to pupils more than once a week and salt must be banished from their tables, according to a report will set out stringent new guidelines for school meals this week.

New nutritional standards for children, to be unveiled on Thursday, will give parents and teachers an idea of the kinds of meals that should be eaten on an average day. They set out the calorie content as well as the nutritional requirements for children aged from five to 18, in a format likely to be adopted by the government as its standard for school meals across England and Wales.

The success of chef Jamie Oliver's campaigning TV series, Jamie's School Dinners, has provoked unprecedented demand from parents for a far higher quality of meals. The Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly, has promised to look at the subject, announcing earlier this year that £280m would be spent on improving dinners.

The new figures, produced by two charities, the Caroline Walker Trust and the National Heart Forum, give families the most up-to-date advice on what a balanced diet for a child should look like. But it will anger some within the food industry, as the report makes clear that only water and milk, and orange juice at breakfast, are recommended as drinks.

Along with the recommendation that chips should be served no more than once a week, the report suggests that sugary breakfast cereals should be passed over in favour of those such as Weetabix or Shreddies, which have a higher fibre content.

The study will provide a big test for catering companies, which have complained they are not paid enough by local authorities to provides schools with fresh food of the highest standards.

Kelly has said the government will raise spending on meals from 37p to 50p per lunch for a primary school child - but the new report makes it clear that at least 70p should be spent on the ingredients alone.

An example of a healthy diet for an eight year old, set out in the report, would include a breakfast of Shreddies-type cereal with milk, orange juice and wholemeal toast. Lunch could be a roast, or salmon fishcakes, with potato wedges and sweetcorn, followed by fruit salad. Dinner might be a chicken pasta salad in a tortilla wrap, followed by a banana.

The nutrient-based standards are intended to provide a basis for the catering contracts set by local education authorities and schools. At the moment, the guidelines are voluntary but the experts say it is essential that they become compulsory sooner rather than later.

Evidence collected last year by the Food Standards Agency showed that the present standards are failing to encourage children to choose foods that lead to a healthy overall diet, because instead they can opt for the junk food alternatives on offer.

Dr Helen Crawley, a nutritionist and dietician who wrote the report, said: 'A lot of secondary schools now offer children choice, to have either a whole meal, or part of one. There are a substantial number of children who get free school meals, and we need to offer them a meal that gives them the vitamins and nutrients they really need.'

She added: 'The government has said there will be a "transformation" of school meals and we hope that happens quickly.

'But we really hope that schools can become more creative in the way they make children interested in different kinds of food, so that they actually want to go for the healthier option.'

On the menu

Breakfast

Shredded wheat-type cereals with milk; orange juice and wholemeal toast and margarine or fruit or fruit yoghurt.

Lunch

Homemade tuna pizza, jacket potato, baked beans.

Lunch (Sandwich-Style)

Pitta bread with corned beef and coleslaw, cherry tomatoes, Greek yoghurt with raisins.