School Meal Ordering

SCHOOL MEALS ORDERING – IMPORTANT CHANGE

Dear Parents and Carers

I am writing to let you know that we are making changes to the current system for ordering which school meal your child chooses.

We currently use Parent Pay to pay for meals and also, if you choose a school snack, to pay for these – this will not change. What will change is the way choices are made as to which meal your child will have each day.

We have found that a mixed system where some parents pre-order specific meals for their child and others leave it up to the children to choose in school on the day is taking up too much lesson time to administer and leading to confusion. Some children may also choose certain meals regularly when you may wish them to have more variety in their diet.

From Monday 11^th November, the system for ordering a school meal will be that you must specify your child’s choice for each day beforehand on parentpay – we will not be giving children the choice to make in school. You can order the whole week’s meals in advance on there. PLEASE NOTE: A child whose parents/carers haven’t made this choice will be given a default meal of a jacket potato and their choice of topping (cheese/beans usually); as meals are prepared in the quantity previously ordered, there can’t be any other ‘at the counter’ choice.

This should enable our teachers to get on with teaching and give you more control over what your child is eating so that you can be reassured as to their diet. As the payment system is already electronic, I hope that this additional task will not cause you significant extra effort but it will make a big difference to the time we spend on children choosing meals in school when we should be focusing on learning.

We’ll send a reminder text message daily regarding meal choice ordering as an aide-memoire. Those children who being their own packed lunches are of course unaffected by this.

Best wishes

Yours Sincerely

I H Williams