School News 4th May 2023
Thank you Thornford School Kitchen
We are incredibly lucky to have school meals made on site at Thornford by a small dedicated team who are passionate about providing nutritious and good quality food to our pupils. As well as cooking meals for Thornford School, the kitchen also provides hot food for two other rural primary schools in neighbouring villages and for a local pre-school.
The kitchen is part of the school community and able to plan the menus around various events that are taking place in school. They provide a whole school Christmas lunch where all pupils, staff and Governors eat lunch together. The kitchen have just made almost 200 cupcakes for a special Coronation picnic lunch, which are shown in the picture!
The school gardening club will often visit the kitchen door with produce that they have grown, whether this is potatoes, raspberries, tomatoes, apples, herbs or a wonky carrot the catering team receive the fruit and vegetables with delight and these are then incorporated into the menu, so the children are able to eat the produce that they are growing!
On a daily basis all children have four choices for main meal and three choices for dessert, at least one choice is always vegetarian and the choices cater for a wide range of tastes. The kitchen willingly provides for specific dietary requirements and cooks separate meals for children who are dairy/lactose intolerant and those who require a gluten free diet, or for those who have dietary requirements based on their religion. This is carried out with the catering teams’ usual effortless way.
Despite the rising costs of ingredients the team has maintained the high standard of meals, cooking dishes from fresh seasonal ingredients. The team are fully conversant with the need for a balanced diet and consider the macro and micro nutrients of the menus that they are creating.
The diversity of the meals on the menu are a combination of meals that children like, as well as these ‘favourite’ meals, new dishes are also added to the menu to broaden the food experience of the children. As Thornford CE Primary is a Church of England School, the kitchen endeavour to cook fish every Friday. A roast meal on a Wednesday is also a weekly fixture.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the kitchen team for their hard work and dedication!
