Bailey Street Alternative Provision Academy School Food Statement

At Bailey Street AP Academy we recognise the role that access to healthy food plays in our students achieving their learning potential. We are proud to fund the provision of all food and drink across the school day for all students regardless of benefit related free school meal entitlement.

All of our catering is done in house with meals prepared and cooked fresh and onsite daily. The school dining area offers a safe and social environment for students to enjoy their food together with staff to develop opportunities for improving social skills and to enhance the staff student relationship outside the classroom.

Breakfast is an important meal that is crucial to support our students to be ready to learn at the start of the school day. Bailey Street AP Academy is part of The National School Breakfast Programme and provides a free breakfast club where students can enjoy a choice of cereal, bagels, yoghurt, and a hot or cold drink.

These choices are on offer again at breaktime along with fruit – this ensures no students miss out due to differing timetable start times.

At lunchtime all students can access a hot meal, drink and a desert. Our menus, including drinks, all  follow the National School Food Standards. Information is always available about allergenic ingredients and reasonable adjustments are made for students with any special requirements.

The dining area is fully supervised, staff are encouraged to sit and eat with the students and both the Head teacher and Deputy Head will wherever possible personally supervise the dinner queue. A quiet eating room is also available for those students who require a smaller and calm environment.

Themed events happen throughout the school year and students are encouraged to try food from a range of different cultures. Students views about the School canteen are regularly sought and responded to through Pupil Voice.

In Science, PE and PHSCE lessons students are taught the importance of a healthy lifestyle and this includes healthy eating, positive body image and exercise.

We fund and provide all of the ingredients for the food technology lessons for all of our students. They are taught practical cookery skills and nutritional knowledge to enable them to make healthy lifestyle choices and to enjoy cooking for themselves and others thereby building a solid foundation for good health in later life.

Using all of these measures Bailey Street AP Academy is able to provide a range of free healthy food choices throughout the school day in line with School Food Standards, to support students to make healthy food choices and to be better prepared to learn and achieve and to ensure a consistent approach across the school community regardless of FSM entitlement.