Handcross Primary

LUNCHTIME AT HANDCROSS

Lunchtime is from 12.15pm to 1.15pm each day.  Children either eat a packed lunch or are provided with a hot lunch, which is paid for in advance. All children in Reception, Year 1 & Year 2 are eligible for Universal Free School Meal and those who opt-in receive a free hot lunch. For Junior children, meals can be purchased for £2.97 per meal. All meals, including free meals, must be ordered in advance at www.parentpay.com/

Application forms for free meals for those families receiving Income Support must be made online at www.westsussex.gov.uk/education-children-and-families/schools-and-colleges/free-school-meals/#how-to-apply

Packed lunches should be brought to school in a lunch box, clearly labelled with the child's name.  We ask parents not to send in fizzy drinks with packed lunches: only water may be drunk during the school day, except at lunch when children may bring their own drink. We recommend a balanced lunch box, including fruit/ vegetables.  Nuts/sweets and chocolate bars are not permitted at lunch, though a cake or biscuit based bar is allowed as part of a balanced diet.

We aim to create a calm, well-mannered atmosphere in which our children can enjoy their meals together, as we believe that it is an excellent opportunity to help children to develop social skills and good manners. 

Lunchtime play is an exciting and well-organised time at Handcross School and is run by an excellent team of teaching assistants, who know the children well and love their job, as well as dedicated sports staff, who organise “Keep Fit” and other sporting activities. There is a wide variety of activities and equipment available and many of the older children, including Year 6 Sports leaders, run clubs for the younger children, making sure that no one is left out.

Chartwells Hot School Meals

Our hot school meals are provided by Chartwells, who provides us with Steamplicity, a patented micro-steaming system that enables a range of raw and pre-cooked ingredients to be freshly cooked in minutes. The controlled steaming process means more key vitamins are retained when compared to conventional cooking methods. With a low capital outlay the system requires less preparation of meals, less storage of ingredients and less space to deliver a mealtime service. 

All meals in the range are developed to be nutritionally balanced and to meet the requirements for School Food Regulations 2014. The Steamplicity menu includes at least one portion of wholegrain pasta a week, one or more portion of 60g of vegetables a day and has no more than two fried food options a week. Meals in the range are panelled by children to ensure that we are developing food that children look forward to eating at mealtimes.

They define a special diet as a requirement different to the choices offered on the main menu due to a food allergy or intolerance. Lifestyle choices such as vegetarianism and religious diets are not defined as a special diet as Chartwells are confident their main menu offers a variety of different foods to cater for these needs.

Chartwells have a dedicated special diet team which supports all special diet queries and requests whether it be alleviating parent concerns or creating special diet menus for single or multiple allergens, a special diet nutritionist will be available all year round to support the catering teams and special diet pupils eat safely at school. For further information on Chartwells guidelines for special diet procedures and allergies, please refer to the documents at the bottom of this page. For further information, please click here

Please note:

All Special Diet Request forms (which include allergies) must be returned to the school office. These will then be forwarded to Chartwells for processing.  Chartwells have a 3-week turnaround for all new special diet requests. 

For more information, please visit their website on: www.chartwells.co.uk

All meals, including Free School Meals and Universal Infants Free School Meals must be ordered on ParentPay

Chartwells Nut Safety Statement

"Chartwells will never use nuts or any product containing nuts as an ingredient within our food offer. Chartwells may carefully use products with a ‘may contain’ declaration for nuts as long as no nuts are present in the ingredient list, we will treat such items as ‘contains’ to reduce the risk to our nut allergy pupils. All pupils suffering from a nut allergy should request a ‘nut free’ special diet menu which will remove these products from the menu. Chartwells do not endorse a complete ‘nut free’ environment as we believe we have a duty of care to educate our pupils and staff on how to handle and manage their food allergy safely in the school environment in order for them to develop a better awareness to it. This advice is consistent with external governing bodies and charities who state that a complete ‘nut free’ environment is artificial and not consistent with the real world which can provide pupils with a false sense of security. For further information please contact the Chartwells special diets team."