Healthy Lunchbox Policy

Policy details

Academy: Co-op Academy Princeville

Policy owner: Ryan Lewis

Overall aim of the Policy

Our aim is to ensure that all packed lunches brought from home and consumed in school (or on school trips) provide the pupil with healthy and nutritious food that is similar to food served in schools, which is now regulated by national standards.

This policy has been formulated to:

• Make a positive contribution to children’s health and wellbeing
• To encourage a happier and calmer population of children and young people.
• To promote consistency between packed lunches and food provided by schools which must adhere to national standards set by the government.
• To contribute to the self-evaluation for review by Ofsted.

This policy applies to all pupils and parents providing packed lunches to be consumed within school or on school trips during normal school hours beginning from September 2021.

Food and drink in packed lunches

The school will provide facilities for pupils bringing in packed lunches and ensure that free, fresh drinking water is readily available at all times.  The school will provide attractive and appropriate dining room arrangements.  As fridge space is not available in school, pupils are advised to bring packed lunches in insulated bags with freezer blocks, where possible, to stop the food going off.  The school will work with parents to advise that packed lunches follow the list below.

Recommended contents of a healthy lunch box are;

• Fruit and Vegetables; at least one portions of fruit or vegetables every day (a portion is the amount your child can fit into the palm of their hand). This could be fresh, dried or tinned fruit  
• Carbohydrate; a starchy food every day such as bread, pasta, rice, couscous, noodles, potatoes, chapatis/roti, plain crackers, breadsticks, rice cakes  
• Protein; meat, egg or other source of non-dairy protein such as lentils, kidney beans, chickpeas, hummus, dhal, falafel  
• Oily fish; tinned or fresh mackerel, sardines, salmon or tuna should be included at least once every three weeks  
• Dairy; every day such as milk, cheese, yoghurt, fromage-frais, custard or calcium fortified soya products - reduced fat if possible  
• Drinks; (with no added sugar) such as pure fruit juice, semi-skimmed/skimmed milk, milk-based or yoghurt-based drinks, fruit smoothies  
• A bottle of water; It is recognised that the concentration and behaviour of children improve when children drink water throughout the day. Dehydration can give children headaches and make them tired. Therefore, we encourage children to bring in water bottles daily. This is in addition to their packed lunch drink  

Items not permitted in lunchboxes:

• Sugary or Fizzy drinks
• Sweets/confectionery
• Bars of chocolate
• Crisps
• Energy drinks
• Items containing nuts or nut products (ie; peanut butter/Nutella)
• No more than 2 portions of food each week that includes pastry
• Hot food

Special diets and allergies.

The school recognises that some pupils may require special diets that do not allow for the standards to be met exactly. In this case parents are to be responsible for ensuring that packed lunches are as healthy as possible. Coop Academy Princeville is a nut free school.  Nuts or nut products of any kind are not permitted on site due to some children having a severe nut allergy.  For both these reasons, pupils are also not permitted to swap food items.  

Lunch boxes should be brought to school upon arrival as these will not be collected from parents/carers throughout the day.

Monitoring

To promote healthy eating, class teachers, teaching assistants, learning mentors and lunchtime supervisors will regularly monitor the content of packed lunches. Parents/carers and pupils who do not adhere to the Health Lunch Box Policy will receive a notice in the packed lunch informing them of the policy. If a packed lunch is not sufficiently healthy, the school may confiscate an item of food and offer your child an alternative which may be chargeable. If a child regularly brings in a packed lunch that does not conform to this policy, the school will contact the parents to discuss this.