St. Mary's Grammar School, Magherafelt

Letter to Parents - January 2008

"... a health promoting school ..."

Parents Forum

St Mary's is a Health Promoting School. We encourage our students to make healthy food choices when they are in school. To this end we provide both breakfast and lunch service in Cafe Bordeaux and reinforce healthy eating messages across the curriculum.

Research has shown that the benefits of healthier eating in school are:

Healthy growth and development
Better health with less infection
Improved concentration
Better sports performance
Better behaviour

Information from Mrs M Carr - Health Education Co-ordinator

Since September 2005 sausage rolls, crisps or confectionary have not been available in St Mary's and as expected The New Nutritional Standards for School Lunches and other food in Schools (DENI 2007* clearly states that these foods may no longer be served in any school. The standards are very detailed, however we would like to assure parents that we have been meeting the standards for several years and will continue to provide a wide range of suitable foods for our students.

We will continue to provide our breakfast service which includes cereals, juice, pancakes, grilled bacon, toast and scones; at break time a wide range of fresh sandwiches, scones, pancakes etc will be also be available for students to purchase.

In order to encourage more children to snack on healthy food, we plan to continue to sell fruit and milk at competitive prices. At lunch time our students will continue to have a wide range of dishes available to them from the cafeteria. We plan to sell fried foods on one day a week only.

We would ask parents who provide a packed lunch to consider what their son or daughter eats when they are at school. Since the Nutrition Standards state that only water, milk drinks and fruit juice be sold in schools, we would ask parents who are providing lunches for their son/daughter to please refrain from sending fizzy or sugary drinks to school with a packed lunches.

*The New Nutritional Standards for School Lunches and other food in Schools (DENI 2007) is available by visiting the DENI website