Lunchtimes

The children all stay for dinner at lunchtime and have a choice of meals each day. You can choose to provide your child with a packed lunch each day, which they would take to the junior hall at lunchtime.

Most children have a school dinner each day. They get a choice of either:

- A traditional lunch consisting of the traditional type of school meal like meat pie and vegetables, or fish pieces and chips with a hot pudding;

- A jacket potato with a variety of fillings and sweets;

- A grab a bag, which is a sandwich, crisps, drink and sweet.

Each day your child will choose what they want and the order is prepared in the kitchen. We operate a cashless school meal system, where money for dinners is paid into a machine and at lunchtime the children line up at a till. On the till is every child’s photo, they press the photo and that child’s account is shown, they press the type of meal they want and the amount of a school dinner is deducted from the total paid into that child’s account.

There is no limit to the amount of money held in a child’s account, and it does not have to be paid in on Mondays, as has been the tradition in the past. You can also pay by cheque in the same way.

Costs and how to pay

The school operates a cashless system and parents are provided with a pin number when their child enters our school. The machine is situated on the year 3 corridor between classes 8 & 9. Parents key in their child’s pin number and press enter, their child’s balance will be on the screen. They can then place money into the machine and we ask them to check that it has been recorded correctly. The machine doesn’t accept anything smaller than 10p.

If parents prefer to pay by cheque they are quite welcome. We ask them to place their cheque into the box (please write their name and class on the back) on the wall next to the machine. The catering staff will then enter it onto their account!

Fruit in school

As part of the government’s healthy schools initiative, the school receives fruit to give freely to our Infant children each day. The types of fruit include apples, oranges, pears, bananas, even carrots.

If any child in school wants to bring their own fruit to eat at playtimes that is fine, although it should be clearly labelled with the child’s name and class on it. We do not allow sweets, chocolates or fizzy drinks to be brought into school. Sometimes, when there are spare pieces of fruit from the Infants this is shared out to the Junior classes.

Water in school

The latest research about learning has shown that children are quite often dehydrated when they are in school. If they are dehydrated they will not learn as well.

As a result we have bought two water coolers to use in our school that dispense cool filtered water.

Children are asked to bring their own named water bottles to school to use and refill from the water coolers. However, if you are unable to provide a water bottle we have plastic cups available for the children to use.

Many children take their bottles home at night and bring them to school with cold water in. This makes the start of the day a lot easier.

Milk

Cartons of milk are available to order through school each term. Letters are sent home to advise of costs and how to order so that the children receive their milk every day.