Like many schools in Hampshire, we buy in the Hampshire Catering Service who employ our cooks and organise menu choices. We are lucky to have a large kitchen on the joint school site where our meals are cooked and prepared.

Our school caterers are award-winning caterers, managed by Hampshire County Council Education Catering, formerly known as HC3S. Visit the pages on their website for their menus and other information. News | Hampshire County Council (hants.gov.uk)You can also keep up-to-date, by following them on social media.

Follow and review us on  www.facebook.com/hc3seducation

Follow and tweet us on www.twitter.com/HC3S6

Education Catering, Your Award-Winning School Caterer

With over 30 years of school catering experience, our successful ethos is to provide healthy, local, responsible sourced food that children love. Our tasty, freshly cooked, nutritious dishes help your children flourish and reach their potential. As part of a balanced diet, our lunches provide a third of a child’s daily calorie intake, to aid concentration levels and give them energy to focus and to play.

We know that providing award winning meals isn’t enough and so, at Education Catering we go that step further, by helping schools and the wider community to encourage children, parents, carers to live healthy lifestyles and think sustainably.   

That’s why both our ‘Ready Steady Cook’ and healthy eating/lunchbox sessions, the later in collaboration we Public Health England, are fun, engaging and available in your area. Our added value ‘Food to Flourish Classroom’ resources help teachers educate children in an innovative, food related fashion that cuts across the curriculum.

Where opportunity arise, and in a Covid safe environment, we bring live cooking and food related workshops to the classrooms. Sometimes, through partnerships with our suppliers and other local food organisations, outside of the classroom, creating sensory filled memorable experiences.

Celebrate with us throughout the academic year as we support, VegPower’s Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign encouraging children to eat more vegetables, Nutrition and Hydration Week and National School Meals Week; key events in the food and drink calendar which are lots of fun.

Our menus are:

Does your child need a medical special diet to eat lunch at school?

If so, you need to create an account to register your child for a medical special diet.

Once you have created your account, we will be able to review your medical evidence with our NHS dietician in order to devise an adapted menu for your child's school lunch.

Living with allergies comes with its own set of rules so when it comes to food, as education caterers, we want to make this as easy as possible for you as a family. Our staff are trained in food safety and regularly update their skills on allergens. We never underestimate the dangers of food allergies and intolerances and that's why we work hard to get it right.

More details can be found Special diets | Hampshire County Council (hants.gov.uk)

Universal Free School Meals

ALL four to seven-year-olds in state-funded infant schools in England are entitled to a free hot meal at lunchtime every day.

Free meals are available at Portway Infant School to ALL children. The menu provided by Education Catering has two choices each day (including a vegetarian option) and children choose and order their meal (red or green) with the teacher at morning registration. If your child is not having hot meals they can bring a lunchbox.

A child is eligible for free school meals if their parent or carer receives one or more of the following benefits:

• Income Support
• income-based Job Seekers' Allowance
• income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• the guaranteed element of State Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit, provided you are not also entitled to Working Tax Credit, and have an annual gross income, of no more than £16,190 as assessed by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (Parents who are made redundant or start working less than 16 hours per week, may find their children are entitled to free school meals for a limited period.)
• Working Tax Credit run-on - paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
• Universal Credit (provided you have an annual net earned income of no more than £7,400, as assessed by earnings from up to three of your most recent assessment periods)

To check if your child is eligible for free school meals and to sign up if you are, is a really simple online process. Just go to https://www.hants.gov.uk/en/educationandlearning/freeschoolmeals/juniorsecondary and click on "I would like to check for free school meal eligibility". You will be asked to input your national insurance number and date of birth. This is an easy online service that will give you a quick answer to see if your child is eligible.