Our Approach to Catering
STEP Academy Trust aims to provide an environment that promotes the health and well-being of pupils, parents/carers and staff by ensuring that all food provision and food messages are healthy and consistent. We believe that healthier pupils learn more effectively and that a nutritionally balanced lunch can provide children with the energy to keep their bodies and brains working throughout the afternoon.
STEP therefore view catering as an integral part of a pupils’s experience and a factor which supports their learning and development. We have therefore chosen to manage our catering provision in-house, in order to ensure that meals are well balanced, visually appealing and (of course) tasty! We also believe that meals should be prepared and served by a team who are not just passionate about catering, but also about the role they play in pupil’s education.
Menu Design
STEP is committed to becoming an anti-racist organisation and the variety of cuisines on our menu is inspired by the diversity of pupils and staff within our trust. The menu meets all of the school food standards and clearly shows which choices contain one (or more) of the 14 key allergens, as defined by the food standards agency.
Visually, the menu has been design to enable parents/carers and pupils to easily identify which options may not be appropriate for specific dietary requirements and to make informed meal choices accordingly. To further safeguard pupils who have been diagnosed with food allergies/intolerances, all catering teams across STEP prepare meals from the same recipes, which have been reviewed by a registered dietitian.
For this reason, as well as the fact we provide around 5,000 meals each day, we sadly cannot tailor meals for individual pupils. However we have taken every opportunity to make sure that the menu is as inclusive as possible, by ensuring there are choices available every day to suit a range of dietary needs. If your child does have a medical and diagnosed food allergy/intolerance, it’s very important that you inform the academy office immediately.
A copy of our latest menu is available below and we change this three times per year (after October, February and May half terms). You can also find a copy of our food policy, which provides more information around STEP’s approach to food in general.
Packed Lunches
Of course, we appreciate that some parents/carers may prefer to send their child to school with a packed lunch. Where this applies, we ask that these are prepared in accordance with our packed lunch policy, to ensure that children still receive the right nutrients to support their ability to learn in the afternoon and that all meals consumed at school promote healthy eating.
Click here to take you to our information section (catering)