University College School

At University College School, eating healthily means the provision of balance between current eating trends, good nutrition and fresh home-cooked food.  This applies to all catering that we provide to pupils, including morning tuck shop, lunch and all other services. 

We also provide an excellent 'Costa Coffee' facility as part of the 6th Form Centre offering a High Street brand at value for money prices.

Where required, UCS also provides special event catering to support sporting and cultural activities taking place at the School.   

The healthy eating programme, entitled “Eating for Life”, adopts strict criteria that far exceed Government guidelines and recommendations. We fully understand our responsibilities in educating, encouraging and promoting a healthy diet as well as the role we have in laying down the foundations for each individual child’s future health.

We know that UCS pupils are likely to be familiar with a wide variety of foods and ingredients.  Our menus have been developed to include the latest food trends and incorporate an excellent variety of dishes that we know that the pupils will enjoy.

We take pride in using only fresh quality ingredients and do not use convenience or processed foods.  We know that our menus provide a healthy nutritionally balanced diet and each menu is approved by a nutritionist.

We confirm that we do not use any GMO foods, nuts or nut products in the production of our menus and we avoid foods that contain artificial colourings and flavourings.

We use seasonal products and ingredients and communicate good ideas and best practice throughout our business to assist everyone in achieving our goals.  We do not have any allegiance to any specific suppliers.  However, we do implement controls to ensure that only unsalted butter, low salt, low sugar baked beans and similar healthier products are purchased, in line with our food policy.

At UCS we believe it is our responsibility to encourage pupils towards a balanced diet by creating attractive, nutritious menus and informing them how to eat healthily. This has led to the introduction of the Eating for Life programme.

EATING FOR LIFE PROGRAMME

GIMME 5

To encourage the consumption of at least five portions of fruit and vegetables each day, the Gimme 5 programme is promoted daily.  While our Blue cards identify dishes on the menu, those items containing a portion of vegetables and fruit are highlighted with silver stars.

UNSALTED

Highlighting the dangers of too much salt in the diet and explaining the recommended daily maximum salt intake levels, our “Unsalted” programme is hugely successful. 

Every member of the catering staff involved in cooking food is  trained, off site, in how to adopt new methods of flavouring and cooking without the use of salt.

To raise awareness, menu items, that contain salt, such as bacon and ham, are labelled using our “Halt the Salt” stickers.

CALCIUM IS COOL

Our “Calcium is Cool” programme aims to raise awareness of the importance calcium plays in diets.

Most bone building occurs during childhood and it is vital that plenty of calcium is present in the diet. Too much salt in the diet causes calcium to be lost from bones and therefore this programme works extremely well alongside our “Unsalted” promotion.

“Calcium is cool” emphasises the foods rich in calcium available at mealtimes and informs of the dangers of not eating enough of these foods.

BRAIN FOODS

Pupils of all ages at UCS need to “Eat Right to stay Bright!”.  We provide food that stimulates the brain and understand that the right diet improves concentration, helps study, assists memory and prevents sluggishness.

VEGGIETASTIC

”Veggietastic” is an ongoing promotion designed to deliver an interesting interactive and mouth-watering introduction to unusual vegetables, at the same time as emphasising how important they are in the diet. 

A seasonal “guest” vegetable is offered every week in addition to the usual fresh vegetable menu choices.  Explanations of origin, vitamins and mineral content as well as interesting facts are promoted alongside the tastings.