School meals

Family dining

Lunchtime is a key part of our school day. We eat lunch ‘family dining’ style, during which children learn to serve themselves and each other (as opposed to having to queue at a counter to collect their food). We all sit down as a school and eat together; adults eat the school lunch with the children to encourage and model good conversations. We serve each other food and help tidy away together. We value this time and see it as a key learning opportunity.

Free school meals

All children from Reception to Year 2 are entitled to school meals, free of charge. We aim to be a very healthy school and see eating as a way to reinforce our values and commitment to a high-quality education. We know that the climb to university is long and hard, so we provide our students with nourishing and healthy meals to keep them going. We have devoted significant additional funding to our catering (beyond what the government allocates to us) in order to provide quality school meals for our students.

You can find our family dining menus and allergen information in the download section of this page.

Listen to some of our students explaining our family dining style approach in this video:

If you live in Leeds and receive any of the following benefits you can claim free school meals for your school-aged child:

• Income Support

• Income based Jobseeker’s Allowance

• Income related Employment and Support Allowance

• the guaranteed part of Pension Credit

• Child Tax Credit – as long as you have a yearly household income of less than £16,190 (as assessed by HM Revenue and Customs) and do not get Working Tax Credit

• Working Tax Credit run-on (paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit)

• Universal Credit that you applied for on, or after, 1 April 2018. As long as your income is less that £7,400 a year after tax, not including any benefits.

To find out if you are eligible, please visit Leeds City Council - free school meals.

Registration is completely confidential and it will not affect any other benefits.

Once you have your eligibility confirmed, you will receive an email. Please provide this to the academy so we can update our records.

Cashless catering and MCAS

What is MCAS?

MCAS provides a simple, safe and convenient way for parents and carers to make payments without students needing to bring cash into school.

Through MCAS, parents can pay for:

• School meals
• Educational trips and activities
• Uniform purchases
• Music lessons
• Other school-related fees

Funds can be added to an MCAS account using:

• Debit card
• Credit card
• Cash via PayPoint stores

Once funds have been added, the balance is immediately available for school purchases.

We encourage all parents and carers to use MCAS wherever possible to support a smoother and more efficient payment process for everyone.