Your Catering Service

Derbyshire Catering Service are proud to provide the catering service at Aldercar High School.

Our Promise to You

We are committed to providing you with nutritionally balanced meals that exceed government legislation on school food and also meet the strict quality criteria required to ensure that our menus are accredited with the Food for Life Served Here Award. The meals we serve are freshly prepared on site and use fresh, locally sourced ingredients which are free from undesirable trans fats, sweeteners and additives. Most importantly of all we serve foods that you enjoy.

The Service

At Aldercar High School we have a spacious dining area with a large counter serving a selection of:

  • Traditional meals
  • Sandwiches/wraps/baguettes
  • Jacket potatoes
  • Hot and cold pasta
  • Home-made desserts, fresh fruit, yoghurt
  • Drinks

For those students in a hurry, there is a pre order system called “Grab and Go” in place, whereby a packed lunch can be ordered at break time to be collected at lunch.

There is something on offer to suit everyone’s tastes. Our menus are carefully planned to provide maximum taste, premium quality and fantastic value that can be enjoyed before school, at morning break and lunchtime. Items can be purchased individually or as part of a meal deal. A meal deal is a two course hot meal and drink, two choices of hot main are available daily. Or alternatively, a deli option consisting of; your choice of sandwich/jacket potato, dessert and drink.

The current meal deal price is £3.55 giving students outstanding value for a fixed price (correct as of June 2024).  This comprises of a main dish (up to £2.50) dessert and drink.

The Menu

Involving all the right people, we have created a menu specifically for you and your school. We have a process to safely provide medical diets to those who need it. Just contact Katie Woods on 01629 536702 or email katie.woods@derbyshire.gov.uk for further information.

The menu is written to reflect seasonality, running on a 3 week cycle. Make sure you check the menu boards and view our latest promotions in the dining room as we regularly have special theme days to introduce new and exciting flavours from around the world.

Our meals are cooked by trained chefs who use ingredients from sustainable and ethical sources. So you can be assured that our meals really are the very best they can be.

We use:

  • British farm assured meat
  • Fair trade products
  • Free range eggs
  • Reduced sugar recipes
  • Wholegrain products

To meet the Government School Food Standards, we are unable to serve:

  • Chocolate bars/confectionary
  • Crisps
  • Nuts
  • Fizzy drinks – unless they contain more 50% fruit juice and are combined with carbonated spring water.

Please visit our website to find out more, alternatively if you have a query please fill in the “contact us” section: www.myschoollunch.co.uk/derbyshire

How to Pay

Payment for your meals couldn’t be easier. At Aldercar High School we use a cashless system. This means that a personal biometric account will be set up for you, so whether you enjoy free or paid school meals what happens at the till is the same for everyone. Free school meal allowances are allocated to accounts on a daily basis and for those paying cash, money is loaded up using the revaluation machines. The machine is cited towards the back of the dining room next to the menu boards.

Parents can also make payments via the secure online payment system called Parent Pay. This system allows payment using credit and debit card to be loaded straight onto your account.

The benefits of using a cashless system are:

  • Convenience of paying for meals
  • Discourages the misuse of spending dinner money in the shops on the way to school
  • Reduces issues associated with cash such as bullying, loss of money or theft
  • Queuing is reduced due to increased speed of service
  • Reports of student purchases can be created

For more information about Parent Pay visit:  https://www.parentpay.com/