St Birinus School offers a wide selection of hot and cold food options to Students and Staff.

At St Birinus School, we are proud to offer delicious, nutritious and excellent value school meals provided by our excellent Catering Team. The team’s professional high standards, cheerful service and delicious food ensure that lunch is a highlight of the day at St Birinus School!

The Catering Team pride themselves on a high standard of hygiene regularly undertaking food hygiene and allergy training to ensure that their skills and knowledge are up to date.

Breakfast

Breakfast is available every morning from 8am for students and staff who arrive early and need a good breakfast! Free porridge or cereal is available for everyone.

Break and Lunch

There is an exciting range of hot and cold food on offer at break and lunchtimes with the menu changing regularly. At lunchtime, the hot choices include a traditional style menu, hot sandwich of the day, hot pot of the day and jacket potatoes. In addition, we offer cold sandwiches and salad options as well as desserts, fresh fruit, and yoghurts.

At breaktime students can choose from a range of hot items, pretzels, snacks and drinks.

All food choices are imaginative and varied, including an excellent range of vegetarian and vegan options and our drink selection includes chilled fruit juices, water, milk, soya milk and sparkling juice drinks.

Food and refreshments are served from 2 catering outlets at the school, the school canteen and a grab and go outlet adjacent to the playground are both open for break and lunchtime. Students break and lunchtimes are segregated with years 9 & 11 having break at 10:10-10:30 and lunch from 12:30-13:15. Years 7,8 & 9 have their break at 11:10-11:30 and lunch from 13:30-14:15.

The main catering provision for the Trust’s Sixth Form students is also based at St Birinus and is open from 10:00 until 13:15 serving a wide range of confectionery, drinks and both hot and cold food.

Free School Meals: If you are in receipt of certain benefits it may be possible for you to claim a free school meal for your son. If you think you qualify please contact the school reception,either by email reception@st-birinus.oxon.sch.uk or by calling 01235 814444

Paying for School Meals: St Birinus School operates a  cashless catering system through Parent Pay.  Parents have an account where they can pre-load dinner money and can also check what has been purchased. This reduces queueing time and means that our students do not need to bring cash into school. Biometric fingerprint scanners use students fingerprint as identification and are linked to individuals parent pay accounts.

Cashless Catering at DGS: All 6th Form students are welcome to use the catering facilities at Didcot Girls’ School, but need to be registered on the cashless system first. Girls are registered automatically because they are on roll at Didcot Girls’ School, but the boys need to be added manually. You will need to complete a cashless catering biometric consent form to register, your son can collect one from the SIMS office or Pupil Services at DGS. Once registered, we will scan your son's thumb print at the tills and provide log in details so that you can add money to the account online via 

www.parentpay.com

Cashless Catering Consent Form and Letter

Free School Meals

The Government recognises the benefits of providing a healthy meal to students eligible for free school meals and as a Trust we are committed to ensuring that students are able to choose from a range of nutritious options. 

If your child is entitled to a free school meal,  we will provide them a healthy meal that they can have at lunchtime and they can choose one of the following options: -

• Lunch Main Meal of the Day, either option 
• Jacket Potato with topping 
• Hot Sandwich of the Day 
• Hot Pasta Pot of the day 
• Sandwich/wrap (codes AA – C) or Salad or Cold Pasta Pot

In addition to the above they can also choose one of the following:- 

• Dessert of the Day 
• Yoghurt 
• Fruit 
• Whites Bakery Item (cookie, muffin etc.) 
• Drink 
• Crisps 

Where pupils are eligible for free school meals and are receiving remote education, the school catering team will provide a good quality lunch parcel in lieu of the above. 

If you child is eligible for free school meals and would like to purchase additional items, please ensure that their ParentPay meal account is in credit. 

If you have any questions regarding catering, please email catering@ridgewayeducation.com

Reducing our environmental impact

The catering department is committed to minimising single-use plastic and reducing our environmental impact in the following ways:

• Re-filling stations for student water bottles (including jugs of water and beakers available in the dining room)
• Compostable takeaway containers and cutlery
• Waste oil from the fryers converted to bio fuel
• Plastic-free packaging for sandwiches
• We use a local butcher where possible and source sustainably-caught fish and farm-assured British meat for food on our menus.