School Meals
Our Primary School menus are carefully developed to appeal to children and provide the perfect balance of essential nutrients – and to offer them the chance to try a few dishes they may not have tried before. Your child can choose from two main meal options provided every day, each one accompanied by a vegetable choice, and including a daily vegetarian dish. Jacket potatoes with an assortment of popular and tasty fillings are always available, too, served with an attractive side salad. Additional salad and wholemeal bread is also on offer each day along with a dessert of the day, a selection of yogurts, cheese and crackers and fresh fruit. A range of cold drinks are also available.
Special dietary requirements
If your child has a special dietary requirement – such as diabetic, coeliac, low fat and dairy intolerances or a food allergy - we will be happy to plan and provide a school meal that meets your child's needs. We can also adapt menus to meet religious needs. Find out more about special diets, please click on the link. If your child suffers allergies or needs a special diet you must inform the school in writing or by email to: portobelloprimaryschool@gateshead.gov.uk; please complete an Alternative and Medical Diet form and return to school ASAP.
Highest standards
As a parent, you can be reassured that our menus meet – and exceed - national standards for school lunches. That’s because we understand how the right nutrients can positively affect a child’s mood, behaviour, health, growth and ability to concentrate in lessons. We also know how a well-balanced diet now helps to establish healthy eating habits for the future.
To maintain our high standards, we only use ingredients which are fully traceable and which come purely from local and regional suppliers. This not only reduces food miles, it also gives our chefs the freshest quality ingredients to work with.
We also demand the highest welfare standards. All of our eggs are free range and meet RSPCA Freedom Food standards, all fish is Marine Stewardship Approved (MSC), cocoa, sugar and bananas are guaranteed Fairtrade, and all meat and poultry meet the Red Tractor assured quality standard. We do not accept foods which are known to contain GM (genetically modified) foods, MRM (mechanically recovered meat), modified proteins, and specified flavourings and colourings.
Please note some schools may sometimes vary their menu slightly to the published menu.
Fun meal times
Our meals times can be great fun. We occasionally run themed events as a way of injecting a bit of laughter into lunchtime – with our catering teams usually more than happy to get all dressed up for the occasion!
It’s not unusual to come into a school dining room and find all the catering staff dressed up as superheroes, or Halloween monsters, or pirates, or figures from history.
Special menus
We also put on special menus to celebrate certain events like Chinese New Year, American Independence Day, Halloween and, of course, Christmas.
School Meal Payments
All school meals are to be paid for weekly. termly or annually in advance using School Gateway as of September 23.
Meals are £2.90 per day as of 17th April 23.
School Gateway, is a secure parent engagement software.
All school related club bookings, dinners bookings and payments go through School Gateway as of September 23 – it is the central hub for our parents so make sure you download the app for free.
Just search School Gateway in your App store and download.
Apple iPhone users, download the app here:
Android phone users, download the appschoolgateway.co.uk/iosdownload here: schoolgateway.co.uk/androiddownload
Your login details will be automatically generated using the contact information we already hold, so please make sure the contact details we hold for you are up to date. You can check and change these details by sending an email to portobelloprimaryschool@gateshead.gov.uk.
If you have any questions or would like some more information, please see the School Gateway site here: https://schoolgateway.co.uk/.
You can also login to the online version of School Gateway via this site if you do not have a smart phone, although we do recommend using the app if possible.