SCHOOL CATERING SERVICE

A full range of food including healthy options such as pasta and salads and the standard full balanced school dinner and pudding is always available, as well as vegetarian options.

The pre-ordering service is gaining in popularity. All students can pre-order food. We and the students' School Council constantly encourage students to use this facility as this ensures that their choice is always available even if they arrive at the end of the queue. Parents are asked to support this and encourage children to take the healthy options on offer.

Healthy eating will continue to form a focus for discussion. Our caterers attend regular meetings that we run with our School Council's Catering Sub-Committee to review the service, the range of products available and costs. Members of the school council are elected each year from each tutor group and those students with a particular interest can join this sub-committee. We are always very receptive to ideas and suggestions for further improvement and if you have any comments, we would be pleased to hear from you.

We have recently completed a successful Healthy Eating Week and have encouraged students to recognise the range of healthy food already available. At the end of this term we are withdrawing from sale sweetened additive based fizzy drinks and are replacing these with a range of more healthy drinks such as fruit and milk based products. You may wish to look at the school's website which gives details of the school's Action Plan on catering which is linked to the Nutritional Standards policy.

Packed Lunches

We have researched advice that is available for the best healthy packed lunches. If you regularly provide a packed lunch for your child you may wish to consider the following:

• It is important that a packed lunch is healthy and contains a good mixture of different foods.

• It should include food from all the main food groups: carbohydrate (for example, bread and cereals), protein (for example, meat, fish, chicken, nuts), fruit and vegetables and milk and diary products (for example, yoghurt, fromage frais).

• Milk, water or fruit juice are the best drinks whilst avoiding sweets, crisps and fizzy drinks.

• Try lots of different things for lunch - for example, different breads, fillings and fruits.

The internet is a good source of advice. One site to try for ideas is here.