Primary School Special Diets

Special diets are diets for pupils with a medically diagnosed requirement; not just a dislike of certain foods or food groups. It is our policy to provide a menu for those pupils with medically diagnosed food allergies, food intolerances or a medical condition which affects eating requirements. The Catering Service understands that some people have particular sensitivities to certain foods that non – sufferers would find harmless. When someone has a food allergy, their immune system reacts to a particular food or food groups. 

We recognise that severe allergies can cause life threatening reactions and that food intolerances do not involve the immune system and are not generally life threatening, but can make the customer feel poorly.

It is our policy to safely provide special diets by operating a rigorous food safety management system as part of our central HACCP system, which identifies the appropriate controls and working instructions required for the provision of special diets.

The organisation provides all necessary training and instruction to Catering management and frontline staff and monitors its effectiveness. The provision of special diets will be regularly audited and if applicable corrective measures put in place.

Parent/guardian responsibility:

• To inform school of their child's allergy or intolerance and provide supporting medical evidence relating to their child's condition.  This can be provided as a letter from their GP or a consultant paediatrician, together with any information received from their dietician.
• To seek medical or dietetic advice if they consider their child to have a medical condition that affects eating requirements.
• To provide as much information as possible to their child's school to assist in the provision of a suitable menu.
• To discuss the menu with their child and/or dietician to assist in making suitable choices.
• If necessary to meet with the school and catering supervisor to discuss the menu provision

Allergens

Allergen information shall be available and easily accessible to customers, in accordance with the Food Information Regulations (FIR) 2013, for all foods, for the following list of allergens:

• Celery
• Cereals containing gluten
• Crustaceans
• Eggs
• Fish
• Lupin
• Milk
• Molluscs
• Mustard
• Nuts
• Peanuts
• Sesame seeds
• Soya
• Sulphur dioxide/ Sulphates