School Meals

*From September 2023, our catering will be provided by Innovate.

Innovate aims to provide all students with an exceptional catering experience. The very talented Innovate executive chef and their fantastic catering team will be serving exciting menus packed with healthy ingredients, that are full of variety, and with loads of interesting new things to try. Innovate believes that it is important that the food tastes as good as it looks and are confident students and staff won’t be disappointed.

What’s on the Innovate Menu?

Innovate has long been considered the most inventive school caterer and that’s because they are very clear about their food. All their dishes are prepared every day using quality, fresh and seasonal ingredients that are responsibly sourced. As well as ensuring the food on the plate is healthy, they want students and staff to understand the importance of eating the right foods and help them with their food and nutrition journey.

Here’s a taste of what’s to come:

MHS Free School Meals Information

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

MHS 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.