School lunches

The school’s catering service is provided by Taylor Shaw, caterer of choice for thousands of primary pupils across the UK.

Our menu is appetising, nutritious, balanced, and designed to encourage children to enjoy food, learn, play, and grow. Lunch is an integral part of the school day and something all children should look forward to. Taylor Shaw’s dedicated catering team ensures the dining hall is a welcoming and happy place for your child.

Our menus meet the Government’s School Food Standards and the bronze Food for Life standards.

All items on our menu are freshly cooked by our catering team in your school kitchens to ensure we’re always offering fresh and nutritious food whilst minimising salt and sugar in recipes.
No undesirable additives or artificial trans fats are used
Our menus provide for all dietary and cultural requirements
Our suppliers adhere to all appropriate food safety standards
Our catering team is supported with skills training in fresh produce

Taylor Shaw’s dedicated dietitians work with our Chef teams to ensure our menus are nutritionally sound, shaping recipes to ensure they meet the School Food Standards and standards set by Public Health England.

Our Menus

Our diverse menus include a wide variety of options to suit all tastes and are based on feedback from pupils, staff, the catering team, parents and guardians. We run a three-week menu cycle that changes twice a year.

Please Click Here for the current school meals menu

Packed Lunch

At Longshaw we recognise the importance of a healthy, balanced lifestyle and teach our children to make sensible choices when it comes to their physical and mental health.

As part of this, we believe that packed lunches provided by a parent or carer should meet the best possible standards of nutrition for every child. The guide below outlines our expectations for packed lunches.

Sweet Treats

We recognise that sweet treats should also be part of a well balanced diet and therefore we will allow children to bring a Homemade desert such as flapjacks or other oat/whole grain based cakes, banana bread or malt loaf etc in their packed lunch. These items however, must be nut free. Items brought into school should be carefully checked by parents, to ensure this as Longshaw has pupils who are severely allergic to a range of nuts.

Please do not bring the following items on any day of the week:

Chocolate bars or sandwiches with chocolate spread
Sweets
Crisps
Squash, fizzy drinks and energy drinks

Packed lunches are monitored daily. If we have any concerns about your child's packed lunch, we will contact you to let you know.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Fussy Eaters

Sometimes we speak to parents who tell us that their child is a fussy eater and that they struggle knowing what to put in their child's packed lunch. Hopefully the suggestions will be helpful, but for more information on this, the NHS and BDA (Association of UK Dieticians) have some tips that you might find useful.

If however you feel that you need further support in this area, please also remember that we run School Nurse Drop In sessions for parents, which is an ideal opportunity to discuss such concerns. If you would like to meet with the school nurse, please email the school office: office@longshawprimaryacademy.org.uk

Details of School Nurse drop-ins can be found below.

Further advice can be found at:

Lunchbox ideas and recipes – Healthier Families - NHS

A healthy balanced diet | British Nutritional Foundation

Eat like a Champ - Healthy Schools

About Our Food

Our menu is sourced responsibly and uses:

Red Tractor-certified meat
Marine Stewardship Council fish (MSC)
Free-range eggs
Local suppliers for bread, fruit & vegetables, and dairy products to reduce food miles
Seasonal produce

Managing Allergies & Other Medical Diets

Your child's health and safety will always be of the utmost importance to us, and having accurate information about dietary needs and allergies is crucial for us to prepare and serve meals that meet their requirements

Taylor Shaw’s dietitians and catering team work together and follow a robust process, so you can feel reassured that whenever safely possible, an alternative menu will be provided. All the teams receive allergy training annually, and whenever there’s an update to allergen laws.

Our guide ‘Medical Diet Menus - A Guide for Parents, Guardians & Carers’ contains further information about the medical diet process and includes step by step instructions for you to record this information to ensure we are fully aware of any medical diet requirements.

Please click here for the Parental Guide for Medical Diets.

Eat & Learn

We encourage pupils to learn about food through our food education program which includes fun-themed events, assemblies, and displays with messaging around health and wellbeing.

Eating a School Lunch is Better for Your Child

Did you know only 1% of packed lunches meet the nutritional standards that currently apply to school food? Here are five reasons school lunches are better:

They can save time & money
They’re nutritionally better than a packed lunch
They promote a varied diet & encourage new tastes
They support inclusivity, dining with friends
They help academic attainment by being linked to improved concentration

Please click here for the information leaflet for Parents and Guardians.

Free School Meals

All children from Reception to Year 6 currently receive free school meals, funded by the Mayor of London.

However, your child may be eligible for Free School Meals based on your household income and circumstances. We encourage all parents to apply, as eligibility can provide additional funding for the school, helping us to offer extra support, resources and opportunities for pupils.

The school can make an application on your behalf. To do this, we will need:

Parent/carer's full name
National Insurance number
Date of birth

In addition, families who are eligible for Target Free School Meals may also qualify for food vouchers during school holiday periods, should the Local Authority continue to provide this support.

If you believe you may be eligible, please contact the school office and provide the information listed above.

Please note: Applying for Free School Meals will not affect your child's entitlement to receive a free school meal, as all pupils from Reception to Year 6 currently receive this benefit through the Mayor of London scheme.