Packed Lunches

We believe that a healthy packed lunch can contribute to the health of young children and needs to be consistent with the nutritional standards set out in the School Food Trust Standards for Packed Lunches.  Packed lunches represent a third of a child’s daily intake of foods and nutrients, which presents a great opportunity to promote healthy food choices for children. 

Content of Packed Lunches

Foods to include:

We ask that all packed lunches be based on the School Food Trust Standards for Packed Lunches and should include the following:

• Fruit and Vegetables; at least one portion of fruit and one portion of vegetables.
• Protein; meat, fish, egg or other source of non-dairy protein (e.g. lentils, kidney beans, chickpeas, hummus or dhal).
• Oily Fish; such as tinned or fresh mackerel, sardines, salmon and tuna
• Carbohydrate; starchy food such as bread, pasta, rice, couscous, noodles, potatoes, chapattis.
• Dairy; food such as milk, cheese, yoghurt, fromage frais, or calcium fortified Soya products, reduced fat versions of these should be used where possible.
• Drinks; water, pure fruit juice (no added sugar), reduced fat and sugar yoghurt, milk drinks or smoothies. NO FIZZY DRINKS.
• Puddings; should be fruit based such as fruit salad, tinned fruit with yoghurt or custard, fruity rice pudding, fruit smoothies, fruit based crumble.

Foods to avoid or limit:

• Crisps, cakes and plain biscuits.
• Meat products such as sausage rolls, individual pies, corned meat and sausages.

Note: The limited items should be included in packed lunches no more than once per week.

Packed lunches should not include any of the following:

• Fizzy/sugary drinks in cartons, bottles or cans (including diet or energy drinks which can contain high levels of caffeine and other additives which are not suitable for children).
• Confectionary such as chocolate bars and sweets.
• Chocolate spread as sandwich filling.
• Peanuts and peanut products.
• Food that needs to warmed up.

We are unable to warm food up but in cold weather we will offer the children a warm drink.

Special diets and allergies

We ask that parents/carers be aware of nut allergies. The school recognises that some pupils may require special diets that do not follow the National Food Standards exactly. In this case parents/carers are asked to make sure that packed lunches are as healthy as possible. For these reasons pupils are also not permitted to swap food items. As some children in school have nut allergies we ask parents to refrain from including peanuts or peanut butter in lunches.