Healthy school meals

Liz Colligan, the school cook is committed to providing a high quality catering service. We employ Caterlink Catering Services to provide our school meals. All children within Key Stage One receive a Free School Meal. Meals are freshly prepared daily and offer a varied choice of tasty, value for money, nutritious meals.

To pay for school meals, parents and guardians are asked to sign up to our cashless payment system ‘Parent Pay’. Once you have set up an account, payments can be made for anything in school that requires payment including dinner money.

We regard lunchtime as an important social occasion and pupils are encouraged to sit with their friends.

Our school staff provide the necessary support and supervision for all but particularly our younger boys and girls.

Healthy packed lunch

If you decide to send your child with a packed lunch please help us to promote healthy eating by providing a healthy balanced lunch avoiding drinks, any foods containing additives and colourings, sweets, chocolate bars, flavoured crisps/ snacks and any other high sugar, salty or fatty foods. (We base our packed lunch standards on the Food Standards Agency requirements for a healthy diet). Water will be available on the dining tables for all children to drink. Children are encouraged to drink plenty of water during the school day in an effort to address dehydration. Packed lunches should be a light balanced snack of nutritious food to enable your child to access learning effectively.

Healthy Schools award

We are very proud to have been awarded the National Healthy Schools Award in recognition of our commitment to promoting good health in the community and we continue to work towards promoting a healthier lifestyle at St Margaret Clitherow’s. Staff actively promote the importance of adequate levels of exercise and sleep for all children to enable them to develop a healthy lifestyle and effective learning.

Allergies

We currently have pupils in school with a range of allergies including:

  • Nuts – including peanuts and hazelnuts
  • Shellfish
  • Sesame

These pupils are at risk of serious harm if they have an allergic reaction, so we ask that everyone does what they can to help us keep them safe.

How can you help?

  • Do not send in food that contains any of the above allergens for your child’s packed lunch or snack.
  • Label your child’s water bottle and lunch box with their name, to avoid any confusion.
  • If you want to send in some food for your child to share with friends, we can only accept shop-bought food in its original packaging. This is so that we can check the ingredients list and be sure that the food is safe for all our pupils to eat

If you have any questions or concerns about allergies, please get in touch with Becky Gaynon-Johnson through the school office.