School Meals

Cucina Menu - November 2023

The daily queues in our restaurant speak for themselves, our catering contractors, Cucina, are a big hit with students and staff!

Serving a huge range of healthy, freshly cooked food at breakfast, break and lunchtimes – from traditional British roast dinners to world cuisine – students are spoiled for choice.  Cucina even offer an after-school ‘take-away’ service providing freshly cooked roast chickens or delicious pizzas for students to take home and share with their families.

Read more about Cucina and the service they provide.

Cashless Catering

The Academy operates a cashless, biometric, system for school meals and all payments must be made via ParentPay.  Click on the links for further information on ParentPay and answers to FAQs.

Biometric System

This method removes the need to bring money to school and takes away the stigma attached to free school meals.  Parents are able to check lunch money is being spent correctly and monitor what their children are eating.  Biometrics removes the emphasis on students having to remember lunch cards and alleviates the chance of identity fraud.  Caterers enjoy even faster speed of service as students no longer have to search for swipe cards and administrative staff save valuable time by no longer having to issue new cards.

Biometrics and Security

The Biometrics system uses an image of a fingerprint to create a mathematical algorithm. The image of the fingerprint is destroyed and only the numbers remain; these cannot be reinterpreted back into a fingerprint image.  Students and Parents can therefore be rest assured that the fingerprint image is not retained and cannot be used by any other source for identification purposes.

Biometric Registration

Registration is quick and easy to complete.  New students are registered on the morning of their first day in the Academy so that by breaktime, they are able to purchase refreshments.

If you have any queries about Parentpay or our Biometric system please telephone Marion Roberts in our Finance Department 020 8850 7678 or email Marion.Roberts@scwa.org.uk.

Free School Meals

Some families are entitled to claim free school meals for their child, this is administered through the Pupil Benefits Department at the Royal Borough of Greenwich.  Click here to find out further details and download a claim form.


FOOD ETHICS

  • At least 90% of our meat is from mainland Britain and is largely red tractor accredited
  • When in season we buy our fruit and vegetables from British farmers or grow our own
  • All tuna is dolphin friendly and all other fish is caught from sustainable stocks
  • All of our eggs and mayonnaise are free range
  • All of our coffee and chocolate is fair trade
  • We recycle all waste oil in our kitchens into bio-diesel
  • We hold the food for life catering mark in recognition of our ethical and sustainable sourcing

We are proud to be able to maintain our commitment to offer all students entitled to a free school meal any two items from our entire menu range; irrespective of tariff, for their free school meal where cashless systems allow. Cucina will continue to cover the difference between the tariff and the free school meal value.

Over the last twelve months we have also continued to work on our green initiatives, and are pleased to announce our progress:

  • 94% of our packaging is now recycled and nearly 50% is already biodegradable. We have now fully introduced OXO biodegradable straws and have removed all plastic straws from our restaurants.
  • We are building water wells in the developing world now and plan 20 by 2020. We have currently built 5 and counting.
  • By converting our waste oil into biodiesel, we now remove the equivalent of 120 family cars from our roads each and every year.
  • We now purchase most of our ingredients from the UK, to reduce food miles and our carbon impact as well as support our economy.
  • We now reward customers for making good choices via loyalty schemes, such as our “bring your own cup” initiative and healthy eating points.

Additionally, we are in the final stages of launching an ethical and greener water range called Dr1nks. This is currently bottled in a part recycled, very thin plastic bottles as Tetra Pak and aluminum alternatives have other drawbacks too (the insides of paper cartons all use plastic or foil and are therefore difficult to recycle, aluminium can cause health and safety issues on school grounds). We plan to introduce these in September, with a donation from every bottle sold going directly to building water wells in the developing world and sponsoring clean ups of our beaches and oceans, as well as supporting recycling schemes in your school. We will continue to work on a biodegradable pack, but having conducted lengthy research, we believe we have selected the best currently available solution to allow us to start making a difference now.