We are Aspens Services, a market leading contract catering company specialising in school food.
We only work in the education sector so we know what our customers want. Mixing this knowledge with an understanding of what’s hot in the food world sparks creativity and excitement in our chefs. Our kitchens provide delicious home cooked food each day and cater for individual dietary requirements.
We make sure that our Food Festival menus are packed with comfort dishes and, at the same time, we help pupils to take their first steps with new tastes to explore.
We don’t just provide food, we play our part to educate children and raise awareness about nutrition, food and where it comes from, so that they can make informed and mindful choices. Feeding our future.
Menu: The school menu rotates on a three-week basis and refreshes for Autumn/Winter and Spring/Summer seasons. New menus for September will be published below, shortly.
How school meals can support your child’s diet: All children need a nutritious, balanced meal to grow and meet their full potential.
School meals need to be compliant with the School Food Standards. These were created to help children develop healthy eating habits and ensure that they get the energy and nutrition they need across the whole school day. Therefore, parents should be able to trust that the school’s menu has been developed based on scientific nutrition research.
Click on the link here to find out more about the the Governments School Meals Food Standards.
Special Diets: Special diets are an integral part of our catering provision, whether as a result of an ethical or religious belief or a food intolerance or allergy. To register any special diets as a requirement please complete and return the special diets form here to Aspens on the following email marc.wilkins@aspens-services.com as soon as possible.
Our Planet: We work closely with our clients and suppliers to be as environmentally friendly as we can. By making lots of small changes, we can make a big difference. We care about the future and continue to focus on responsible sourcing, using seasonal produce, increasing our focus on plant-based recipes, making our menus more sustainable, keeping waste to a minimum and reusing and recycling to reduce the impact we have.
Primary Children
Primary children will only access the dining hall during lunch time, where there will be a choice of three meal items. All meals (even those in Reception, Year One and Year Two who receive Universal Infant Free School Meals) MUST be pre-ordered. You will see below instructions on how to set up your child’s on line account.
If you have any queries relating to the ordering of lunches, please email SwiftKitchen@support-services.com. All other general enquiries can be directed to info@aspens-services.com
Secondary Pupils
Secondary pupils will have access to the dining hall at break and at lunch time and will have the flexibility to purchase a variety of items including hot and cold meal deals as well as snack items and breakfast. As a great addition, we now offer breakfast from 7.45am.
Pupils can purchase items in the dining hall by using either their debit card or by using their fingerprint to access the balance on their ParentPay account. Money will need to be added to the pupil’s ParentPay account to enable payment via fingerprint. If you have not received an activation letter for ParentPay, then please contact the finance office on: finance@chichesterfreeschool.org.uk
Please find below further information on examples of the food offered and the prices:
Current Free School Meals (FSM) Children
For Primary pupils entitled to Free School Meals (FSM), parents need to choose their meal via the ordering system and it will show as a zero charge on their account.
All Secondary pupils who are in receipt of FSM are able to purchase items up to a value of £2.65 per day. This allowance can be used before school or at either breaktime.
To check if your child is eligible for Free School Meals, click on the link here.
Packed lunches
If your child would prefer to bring a packed lunch into school then a lunchbox should ideally contain one of each of the following:
- Bread/Cereal – such as wraps; sandwiches; cold pasta; breadsticks and rice cakes.
- Meat/Fish and Alternatives – such as ham; tuna; eggs or houmous.
- Milk/Dairy – such as cheese spread/slices/cubes, hard boiled eggs, low sugar yoghurt.
- Fruit and Vegetables – such as fresh or dried fruits, vegetable sticks, salad in wraps.
- A treat if you wish – such as a small slice of cake or a biscuit.
- Drink – water or squash
- No nuts or fizzy/energy drinks
Please do not hesitate to contact the Finance Office if you have any queries or need any other assistance setting up your ParentPay account.