School Meals Procedures

All children in EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2 are entitled to a free school meal under the Government's Universal Infant Free School Meal scheme (UIFSM). In Years 3-6, entitlement to Free School Meals is mean tested and must be applied for through Devon County Council.

To check whether your child is eligible for Free School Meals, please go to Devon Citizen Portal.

Children in Years 3-6 who are not in receipt of Free School Meals, are given the option to purchase a hot school dinner at the price of £2.50 per day. This can be paid for via your Parent Pay account.

We ask that school dinners are either paid for in advance or on the day.

When dinner debts are accrued and remain unpaid, these costs have to be taken from elsewhere in our school budget. This means that money which should be spent on resources for our children is being used to pay for dinner debts incurred by parents.

In order to stop parents accruing large amounts of debt on their child's school dinner account, we have implemented the following procedures: 

• Children eligible for Free School Meals will continue to receive a meal every day (if ordered at registration in the usual way;
• If you pay for your child’s school meal, this MUST be paid for in advance or on the day;
• If you forget to pay for school meals in advance or are genuinely unable to pay in advance, we will allow debts to reach a MAXIMUM of £12.50, i.e one week’s worth of meals;
• Debts will be checked daily, and if this amount is reached, you will be contacted by text or email informing that your account is in debt and requesting that the debt is paid by a certain date. Until the debt has been paid in full, a packed lunch from home MUST be provided for your child every day. We will not be able to provide them with a hot school meal.
• If your child then comes to school without a packed lunch, a phone call home will be made requesting that one is brought in. If parents (or a friend or family member) are unable to bring a packed lunch into school OR payment cannot be made online for that day, food items will be provided for your child, HOWEVER parents will need to be aware that this will NOT be a full meal and children may not have a choice in what they are offered.
• If the debt remains unpaid by the deadline, parents will be asked to attend a meeting with our Senior Leadership Team to discuss a payment plan, safeguarding and support. In some circumstances, the Threshold Tool may be used to ascertain whether a MASH referral should be made (Multi Agency Safeguarding Team at Devon County Council).