St Winifred’s Catholic Primary school

School Food Policy

We recognise the importance of a healthy, balanced diet as central to a healthy lifestyle and fundamental to a child’s concentration, energy levels and self-image. By teaching healthy eating skills, we aim to contribute greatly to promoting family health and the social pleasure and interaction which this fosters. We wish children to understand food from growth to cooking, serving and eating.

Objectives

To work with the school caterers, governors, staff, children, parents and carers to monitor school lunches and encourage children to eat a selection of healthy food,

To eliminate E numbers and additives where possible, also food with excessive sugar (chocolate biscuits) and fat and salt (crisps),

To encourage children to be adventurous with fresh fruit, vegetables and new tastes for instance by offering them food from the salad bar and putting hot vegetables on plates, also by offering fruit at break time whenever possible,

To monitor the percentage of pupils eating fruit and vegetables each day at school from time to time,

To increase the social pleasure of meals by letting children sit with friends,

To increase knowledge of the value and function of different types of food through lessons in all classes and through food preparation and cooking generally,

To encourage children to drink lots of water throughout the day,

To make children aware of hygiene issues and to wash hands before meals and food preparation,

To ban sweets in packed lunches time as well as in the playground before and after school,

To support initiatives like Healthy Living Week to raise awareness of these issues and to continue the dialogue with parents on healthy eating with the support of school caterers,

To be a healthy school

Allergies, Cultural Sensitivities and Personal Preferences

All teaching staff have a list of children’s medical conditions and food allergies/intolerances and the latter are displayed at the serving hatch in the dining hall.

Vegetarian choices are available at lunchtime as part of the school meal service.

Nuts and nut products are not allowed in school or in packed lunches on trips.

Review and Monitoring

Assessment and monitoring takes place in various ways. The Head teacher monitors school meals and speaks directly to the cook or the school caterers if there is a concern. Governors also drop in to monitor this area. Children ore assessed after each science unit to do with food and healthy eating