Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds
As a school, we encourage our children to learn about eating a balanced diet, as well as the importance of drinking plenty of water. When they are eating and drinking healthily, it also helps them be fit and ready to learn.
Our school meals offer a great choice and provide a range of nutritional meals each day. By law, school kitchens must adhere to very strict nutritional guidelines about what can and cannot be included in school meals, such as salt, sugar and saturated fats. All menus compiled by school kitchens must meet these standards and all recipes are scrutinised for their nutritional content. This means that although the children will have puddings, cakes or chips, for example, these are sourced and cooked in a healthier way with vastly reduced sugar and fat contents, and are presented as part of a balanced menu over the week.
We understand that many parents prefer to send packed lunches for a variety of reasons. The vast majority of packed lunches are balanced with fruits and vegetables, proteins and carbohydrates, with one ‘treat’ food, like a Kit Kat or biscuit.
Unfortunately, childhood obesity is increasing in England, as is tooth decay, particularly amongst the under 7’s. There is also a clear correlation between a high sugar intake and poor behaviour and concentration, particularly in an afternoon. In school, we want to support parents as much as possible to make healthy choices for their children’s meals.
With all this in mind, we have put together some information which may be helpful to refer to.
A healthy packed lunch may include:
✔ At least one portion of fruit and one portion of vegetables every day.
✔ Meat, fish or other sources of non-dairy protein
✔ Oily fish, such as salmon
✔ A starchy food such as any type of bread, pasta, rice, couscous, noodles, potatoes or other
type of cereals every day.
✔ Dairy food such as milk, cheese, yoghurt, fromage frais or custard.
✔ Water, cordial with no-added sugar, yoghurt or milk drinks.
The following items must not be included in packed lunches:
X Sweets and chocolate
X Chocolate bars
X Fizzy drinks
X Energy drinks, whether fizzy or still, such as Lucozade Sport, Prime, Monster.
✔ One item of food high in salt, fat or sugar such as crisps, a bun or biscuit is ok.
Please be advised that as we are a nut-free school, packed lunches should not contain any nut products whatsoever, including but not limited to products like Nutella and peanut butter (whether smooth or crunchy).