Healthy Eating and Menus

All children in Foundation Key Stage and Key Stage 1 (Reception / Yr 1 & Yr 2) are automatically entitled to a free hot meal under the Universal Free Schools Meals Scheme. Children in Years 3-6 are charged at the daily rate of £2.85 (unless entitled to free school meals).  Payment should be made in advance via the School Gateway.

At lunchtime, you may arrange for your child to have a school dinner, bring a packed lunch or collect him/her from school to go home.  To assist us with our supervision levels at lunchtime it is preferred that your child keeps to the same lunchtime arrangements for a number of weeks.

 

School Meals

 

Edwards & Blake provide our school meals in line with current Government guidelines.  The chef and her staff will be preparing an excellent variety of meals that was recognised at our Ofsted inspection to give a healthy, balanced diet.  School meals are a good opportunity for the children to develop their social skills and can play a major part in broadening children’s attitudes to what foods they will and will not eat!  For all these reasons, we like as many children as possible to use the school meals service.

School meals should be paid for in advance on either a half termly or weekly basis.  If for some reason you no longer wish your child to have a school meal, please write and tell us at least a week in advance.

Packed Lunches

 

Parents are requested to follow healthy eating guidelines when sending packed lunches to school.  Many children bring carrot sticks and pieces of fruit or raisins as healthy extras in their lunch boxes.  Chocolate and fizzy drinks cause problems for us in school and we therefore prefer these not to be brought.  Nuts, nut and sesame products are not allowed in school because of the number of pupils with serious food allergies.  Please carefully check food ingredients and exclude them from packed lunches if they contain nut or sesame.

Food Allergies

 

As part of our Inset programme, all staff have been updated on allergy and anaphylaxis guidelines from NHS Herts.  In school we have children with life-threatening allergies to some foods. To keep these children safe, we would like to remind you of our food policy as follows:

NO NUT OR SESAME PRODUCTS

Our school dinners do not contain any nut or sesame products, please help us by not sending in items which contain nut or sesame in packed lunches.  See food exclusion list below for further guidance.

 

NO SHARING FOOD RULE AT SCHOOL

Usually, we encourage children to share, however sharing food at school can be very unsafe due to allergies.  Please gently remind your child of this.

 

FOOD EXCLUSION LIST

The following list of foods contain nuts or sesame, which represent a high risk to children with food allergies, should they come into contact with them.  Please exclude the following food items in school:

 

All Nuts & Sesame          Nutella                                Seeded Bread Sticks                             

          Peanut Butter                  Houmous & Tahini           Sesame Snaps

 

PLEASE CAREFULLY CHECK THE INGREDIENTS OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS, AND EXCLUDE IF THEY CONTAIN NUT OR SESAME

 

Cereals/Cereal Bars        Seeded Crackers              Sushi