The school canteen continues to be busy and the menus have been re-jigged for the Spring Term as we add more to the menu as we move away from the COVID emphasis on ‘grab-and-go’.

The new menus see more full meals – including Katsu Chicken, Cottage Pie, Chilli & Rice, Roast Dinner, Mandarin BBQ Chicken and Mac’n Cheese – and there is always a range of labelled vegetarian and gluten-free options as well.

Each day is busy – particularly with the spicy fried chicken option on Fridays – but all children are getting served and though the split facility system is not ideal it is enabling more children to eat and the canteen is less swamped.

The menus for the Spring Term can be viewed here:

Friary School Menu – Spring 1
Friary School Menu – Spring 2
Friary School Menu – Spring 3

In addition, there is the breakfast provision in the mornings and the after-school tuck shop for those catching buses or attending the many after-school booster classes.

Elsewhere, all students have access to Year group-based classrooms in the G-corridor to sit, eat and chat with their friends. This is in addition to the playground, sports hall, outdoor seating facilities, and targeted W8 provision.

Matt Allman, Headteacher, said: “Amidst a busy school day, we work hard to provide a range of foods and options via the canteen and wider school, including for those children in receipt of Free School Meals. In an ideal world we would build a brand new canteen which would be 5 times the capacity of the current facility but in the absence of funding levels to do this, we continue to do the best we can with what we have got.”