School Dinners

Although children are able to bring a packed lunch to school, most at Amble Links enjoy a daily hot meal cooked in our school kitchen.  The menus for school dinners run on a 3 week cycle and menus are changed seasonally.  School dinners cost £2.40 per day or £12.00 per week and can be ordered in advance with parents through our Arbor App which can bee accessed with a parent login HERE. Payments for school dinners should also be made through Arbor.

Wherever possible we try to keep to our menus but these maybe subject to change if necessary.

In order to ensure that the children have greater choice we offer the children a daily  ‘baked potato’ option  as well as the main meal option. Children choosing a baked potato are given the option of having cheese, tuna or baked beans with their potato. We will continue to work with the children to encourage them to eat well and at least try the different meals that we provide. On Mondays and Wednesdays , children may also choose a pasta option.

Currently, all children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are entitled to a free school meal as part of the government’s Universal Infant Free School Meal Scheme whilst, unless entitled to Free School Meals, children in nursery and Year 3 upward pay £12 per week for school meals.  At Amble Links the vast majority of children have cooked school meals  and we hope to increase this further with our new choices.

To help us ensure we have the correct meals prepared for children we will be asking parents to discuss with their child which meal choices they would like and order this online through the Arbor App' - parents are provided with access to this system.

We also have a salad bar from which the children are encouraged to try a range of different vegetables and salad items that they may not be used to.  Our aim is to encourage the children to try healthy foods that they may not have tried before!

From the outset we encourage the children to be independent at mealtimes by serving themselves, using their cutlery correctly and cutting their own food. We expect good table manners from the children and ask them to help serve one another. Older children often take on other lunchtime responsibilities such as being  'plate scrapers' and help out around the dining hall as part of our 'Lunch Crew.'