School Meals

Our catering is provided by Taylor Shaw. We believe it is important to modernise the service delivered by ensuring the food is both healthy and meets all nutritional guidance, but equally important is that it meets the student’s requirements of what they want to eat and how it is presented to them.

We see the provision of school meals as a continual process that will be reviewed regularly as we receive feedback from students, parents and staff and as a consequence the menus provided may change from time to time.

Taylor Shaw School Menu

Free School Meals

You can get free school meals if you are responsible for a child (for example, you receive Child Benefit for them) who is at school as long as you get one of these qualifying incomes:

• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseekers Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Universal Credit (provided your household income is less than £7,400 a year after tax and not including any benefits you get)
• support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• the guaranteed element of State Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit (provided you are not entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
• Working Tax Credit run-on paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit

Cashless Catering

We operate a cashless catering system at Marple Hall School which improves our ability to serve food quickly and efficiently, reduces the amount of cash circulating within the school and makes the process of getting a school lunch easier for students eligible for a Free School Meal. It also makes it more convenient for parents as lunches can be paid for in advance, online via School Gateway.

We have the Live Register system in school, which uses the latest biometric technology to scan the student’s finger to generate a unique number. This is used in the system to identity the child and allow them to spend money from their cashless account.

Please see the letter and FAQs below for more information about our cashless catering system.