The EllisChurch Of England Primary School

‘Be The Best You Can Be’

School Meals

Your child will be offered a selection of options for lunch.  They can either bring a packed lunch from home, have a traditional meal of the day, a vegetarian option, jacket potato with filling or pasta.  All of these options have a choice of puddings and water is readily available to drink. Each meal is £2.60 and the menus vary weekly. The menus are uploaded onto ParentPay and you can view and order your child’s lunch once you have received your login details.  You can also view the menus here by clicking on the link below:

The Ellis Summer Menu from April 24

Free School Meals

If you would like to apply for your child to receive Free School Meals, Pupil Premium or Early Years Pupil Premium, please follow the link below to the BMBC website and complete the on-line form.

BMBC application form for free school meals

Universal Infant Free School Meals

From September 2014, the new nationwide scheme ‘Universal Infant Free School Meals’ became available. This means that all children attending school in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 will be entitled to free school meals, regardless of income or eligibility for benefits.

By receiving free school meals you can save up to £400 a year and ensure your child is eating a healthy, balanced meal every day.

How Universal Infant Free School Meals will affect Pupil Premium

When a student is on our Free School Meals register, the school receives extra money for that student which has to be spent only on the education of free school meals students. This extra money is called the Pupil Premium and its purpose is to ensure that children from low income families are not at a financial disadvantage during their education as a result of home circumstances. Students don’t have to take our meals if they don’t want to but, if they are on our Free School Meals register, then they qualify for all sorts of other financial benefits throughout the year.

When it was introduced in the 2016/17 financial year, schools receive £1,320 for every primary-aged pupil registered as eligible for free school meals at any point in the last 6 years.

ParentPay

Payment of school meals is through ParentPay, the more convenient way to pay for school meals, breakfast club, trips and much more.

Making a payment is very straight forward and no card details need to be stored in any part of the system. Once your account is activated you will be able to make payments whenever you like, 24 hours of the day, safe in the knowledge that the technology used is of the highest internet security available.

You will be issued with a unique username and password.  Visit www.ParentPay.com  and use this username and password to log in. When you have logged in you will be asked to put in your name, your email address and to change your password. The next screen will ask you for a mobile number and an alternative email address – these are not essential so if you wish, just click continue. The final step is to log into your email account to verify the email address you put into ParentPay. After you have done this your ParentPay account will be ready to use and your username will become the email address you verified.

If you already have a ParentPay account, all you will need to do is to log into your existing account and click on ‘Add a Child’. Two boxes will appear into which you will need to type the new username and password your child will have brought home. This will merge the two accounts into a single one.

When you start to look around the ParentPay site you will see that there is a button to click on to view the menus and eventually there will be the online option to choose which meal your child would like to order and on which day. We will let you know when this option becomes available.

You will be able to see any balance on your child’s lunch account.  To add funds you just need to select  ‘Add to Basket’ , then type in the amount you wish to pay and click the checkout button. The money added will become available immediately and all transactions that are made on the account will be available for you to look at from then on.

If you don’t have a computer at home you will still be able to access ParentPay using your username and password on a family’s or friend’s computer.

Thank you for your support in the change to using ParentPay and I hope you find it a far more efficient way to pay.

Milk Scheme

We have updated our milk scheme in order to comply with the new School Food Standards which say that all children should be offered milk daily.

We register all children who are automatically entitled to free milk such as those under 5 years of age and those currently entitled to free school meals.

Parents or guardians of children 5 years and over also have the option to purchase milk for their children to have in school and can do this through registering with Cool Milk for subsidised milk, at a cost of approximately 28p per day for a 189ml carton.

Should you wish to register your child for milk please visit Cool Milk online and search for our school.

Please bear in mind that as soon as your child reaches 5 years old, they will no longer automatically be entitled to free school milk.

Cool Milk offer various payment options and you can choose the amount you wish to pay and the payment process appears quick and easy.

If you have any queries regarding registering for milk, please contact Cool Milk directly on 0800 321 3248.

Breakfast Club

Breakfast Club is open from 8.00am every morning and is available for F2 children upwards.  The cost is £3.05 per session and your child will receive fruit juice, cereal and toast.  After breakfast the children take part in supervised activities and are then taken to their class in time for morning registration.  Bookings and payment can be made via www.ParentPay.com