School Meals

Cost

Free school meals are given to eligible families.

From September 2014, school meals for all children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are completely FREE. This will provide a saving to families.

For children in Years 3 to 6, the price is £12·75 per week (£2·55 per day)

Dinner money payment is made through the ParentPay website or at a Paypoint using a barcoded letter which you can request from the school office.

Families who are in receipt of certain benefits may also be entitled to free school meals. These benefits include:

• Income Support
• Income Based Jobseekers Allowance
• Income Related Employment and Support Allowance
• Child Tax Credit with an annual income of less than £16,190, provided they are not receiving Working Tax Credit.
• The ‘Guaranteed’ element of the State Pension Credit
• Support under Part V1 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999

Please note: People receiving Working Tax Credit, regardless of their income level, do not qualify.

Harehills Primary School can claim additional funds per year to spend on supporting your child’s learning. School will work in partnership with you to carefully consider the learning and development needs of your child and use the additional funding to support them with the following areas :

• Personal, social and emotional  development
• Communication and language
• Physical development
• Literacy   

New menu, new choice

In our school we serve two meal choices each day, one of which is a vegetarian meal. Each meal includes a main course, vegetables and salad, pudding of the day or fruit or yoghurt and chilled water. The new menu works on a 3 week rota, which you can see by clicking the menu below.

Meals are freshly made every day using great quality produce:

• Fresh vegetables and potatoes, locally when in season
• UK farm assured chicken, beef and lamb 
• Free range eggs from East Yorkshire
• 100% salmon and white fish fillet from sustainable sources
• Dolphin friendly tuna
• Choice UK cheddar

Menus are designed to provide healthy, balanced meals which will be enjoyed by children and meet the Government guidelines for school meals. All medical and religious diets are catered for.

Ambassadors

In order to ensure that school lunchtimes are a success, we are empowering children to take an active role in the management of lunch times at school. We are inviting children in year 6 to become ambassadors for lunchtime. These children will act as a pupil voice for dinner time and will have a number of responsibilities, chiefly among them to monitor the quality of lunches and provide feedback to school leadership about areas for development in the future.

Packed Lunches

Harehills Primary School holds Healthy Schools status which means we promote heathly eating in both our school dinners and packed lunches. 

A child at school should have about a third of their daily nutrient requirements at lunchtime. This means they need food that are going to provide them with enough energy, protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals.

A healthy packed lunch should contain a mix of foods from the Eat Well Plate.  The EatWell Plate shows how much should be eaten from each of the 5 food groups.

A good packed lunch contains:

• A starchy food, such as bread, rolls, pitta bread, naan bread, potatoes, rice, noodles.
• These foods are good for children to fill up on.
• A good source of protein, iron and zinc such as meat, fish, beans, nuts or eggs.
• A good source of calcium such as milk, cheese, yoghurt or fromage frais.
• And one portion of fruit and one portion of vegetable or salad to provide all the other vitamins and minerals. A piece of fruit could be a 100% juice or piece of fresh fruit, dried fruit or tinned fruit in fruit juice. A piece of vegetable could be a fresh vegetable such as carrot stick, salad or a vegetable soup or vegetable dish.

No single food contains all the essential nutrients the body needs to be healthy and function efficiently so it is important that the content of the packed lunch is varied.

For more information on healthy eating, have a look at the Change 4 Life website.

What about snacks such as crisps, cakes, pastries and sweets?

As Harehills is an advanced healthy school, these foods are not allowed as they have very little nutritional value.

Milk

Children in the Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 are provided with a third of a pint of milk each day. Parents are asked to pay £35 per year for their child’s milk through the CoolMilk website. Families in receipt of free school meals and children under the age of five do not have to pay for this.

Fruit

A portion of fresh fruit is given to all children in Foundation and Key Stage 1.