Children may bring a healthy snack to school to eat during break time.  Ideally, this will be a piece of fresh fruit or vegetables, but other 'healthy' foods are acceptable.  Sweets, chocolate, high sugar food and products containing nuts are not allowed.   We do not want the children to eat sugary snacks because they give a short term energy boost followed by a low.  This does not help with concentration or learning behaviours.  

 

Children may have a NAMED bottle of plain water to drink in class throughout the day.

Packed Lunches

If your child prefers a packed lunch, please provide it in a strong, named lunch box.  According to NHS choices, a balanced lunchbox should contain:

• Starchy foods like bread, rice, potatoes or pasta
• Protein foods like meat, fish, eggs or beans
• A dairy item, like cheese or yogurt
• Vegetables or salad and a portion of fruit

Sweets, chocolate and products containing nuts are not allowed.

Drinks should be in a carton or plastic container.  Fizzy, high sugar and energy drinks are not allowed.

A number of children at our school have a severe allergy to nuts. If they eat food containing nuts they will become unwell.  In some cases, children can become unwell by indirect contact, for example shaking the hand of someone who has touched nuts or using utensils when nuts have been in contact with them. If they have a mild reaction, a child will have to take an antihistamine tablet, but a severe (life threatening) reaction could result in anaphylaxis (e.g. difficulty breathing, throat tightening etc) which requires an adrenaline auto-injector called an Epipen.

To keep children with nut allergies safe, our school meals are ‘nut free’ and we ask parents who send in snacks and packed lunches to avoid nuts and food containing nuts.  In particular, the following must not be sent into school in packed lunches: 

• Packs of nuts
• Peanut butter sandwiches
• Fruit and cereal bars that contain nuts
• Chocolate bars or sweets that contain nuts
• Sesame seed rolls (children allergic to nuts may also have a severe reaction to sesame)
• Cakes made with nuts

Items which ‘may contain nuts’ (i.e. there could have been cross contamination, but nuts are not an ingredient) are acceptable, but please be cautious.