School meals

South Tyneside Council's school catering staff are highly skilled and experienced professionals who are passionate about the meals they provide.

The staff go out of their way to offer guidance on how best to choose a balanced meal every day, as well as encourage children to try new dishes.

We know how important good food is for your child. Great quality, freshly prepared food is a vital part of the school day.

Children who eat a balanced, healthy diet are more likely to be alert in class and have more energy to enjoy an active lifestyle.

Our menus have been specially designed and tested to make sure your child gets all the nutrients and vitamins they need in their lunch time meal, as well as carefully controlling the amount of fat, sugar and salt. 

Our menus feature old favourites such as chicken curry, mince and dumpling and roast meats with all the trimmings.

With each new seasonal menu cycle, we introduce new dishes so that our menus always feature exciting new tastes to tempt every child's palette.

Best possible ingredients

Great quality food as part of a balanced lunch can positively affect your child's:

• concentration
• mood
• behaviour
• health
• growth
• ability to learn in school

That's why a fantastic, freshly-cooked school meal is so important and why we use the best possible ingredients supplied by local and regional suppliers.

This not only reduces food miles, it also means that our school meals are consistently excellent.

Our local purchasing policy encourages more produce from small local suppliers and this helps to support our regional economy.

As well as the freshest products, we also demand high welfare standards from our suppliers:

• All of our eggs are free range and meet RSPCA Freedom Food standards
• All fish are Marine Stewardship Approved (MSC)
• We buy Fairtrade products whenever we can.
• Most meat and poultry are Red Tractor assured quality standard or similar quality mark.

All menus are subject to availability.