Our lunch is called ‘Community Lunch’ because we expect that all students, staff and visitors will eat their lunch together in ‘The Galley’.This encourages a positive and harmonious atmosphere in addition to increasing levels of supervision and support for our students. We promote the importance of establishing healthy eating habits from an early age, including drinking water to maintain hydration levels. Students can enjoy a varied range of meals and snacks in our onsite Galley Kitchen. Our dedicated team cook, bake and create food in-house.
We believe that a good breakfast gives students a great start to the day. As mornings can be a rush in many households, we are pleased to provide breakfast for students. Research has shown that eating breakfast prepares students for learning and the activities during the school day. The Galley opens from 7:45am to 8:20am each day, offering porridge, toast and hot drinks etc.
Our school menus will promote sustainability. This means that students will have access to a high level of plant-based options for lunch. Plant-based diets in comparison to diets rich in animal products are more sustainable because they use many fewer natural resources and are less taxing on the environment. Overwhelming scientific evidence points to the fact that we need to shift towards predominantly plant-based diets to help combat climate change. Meat Free Monday makes a positive difference and it’s a great start. Overall, the fewer animal products we eat, the better.
Chartwells is the leading provider of contract catering and support services to the education sector in the UK. We have the honour of being the caterers for The Thinking Schools Academy Trust (TSAT) and are excited to be apart of the Maritime Academy family.
Providing students with great tasting, nourishing meals that they are going to love and enjoy is our priority to ensure students grow healthy and strong with a positive relationship with food.
We have listened to the feedback we have received and have revised our menu accordingly. Take a look below at the key points for our new Maritime Menu:
To ensure that we provide delicious meals every day our team of Nutritionists review our menus to ensure that:
Providing students with nourishing meals that will fuel them for their day of learning is our priority whilst also supporting them to develop a healthy relationship with food to support their onward development.
We know that for some students, their school lunch may be their only hot meal that day and so our team of Nutritionists ensure that all of our delicious meals are packed with the nutrients pupils need to grow into a healthy and happy individual.
Maritime Academy has decided to participate in Meat Free Monday, joining over 3,000 other UK schools as well as a growing number of universities, restaurants, businesses, and celebrities in a movement that will have substantial long-term positive impact.
Launched in 2009 by Paul, Mary and Stella McCartney, the aim of Meat Free Monday is to condense some complicated issues into one simple and effective message: to ask people to have at least one plant-based day a week to help protect the planet and our future. There is more and more evidence to suggest that the growth of global animal agriculture is having alarming environmental consequences.
In a nutshell: cows = methane = greenhouse gas = global warming!
Some of the world’s leading scientific and public authorities, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, United Nations Environment Programme and World Health Organization, endorse meat and dairy reduction as an effective way of fighting climate change.
The recently published government-commissioned National Food Strategy states: “If all public caterers moved to having even one meat-free day a week, this could reduce meat consumption by 9,000 tonnes a year, saving over 200,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.” Indeed, by taking part in Meat Free Monday for one academic year, our school community alone will collectively save approximately:
On a practical level, supporting Meat Free Monday will mean that school dinners will be plant based on Mondays. The campaign focuses around Mondays because this is often when people set positive intentions and get ‘back on track’ with a fresh start to the week. Menus will be healthy and nutritious, with added fruit and vegetables, but dishes will not differ radically from what students are familiar with.
If your child has school dinners, no action is required on your part. If your child brings packed lunches, your child will need to bring a vegetarian packed lunch on Mondays. We will be consulting with students and reviewing menus on a regular basis.
Meat Free Monday is a small thing we can do as a school to make a difference, and a fun and practical way for students to become healthier, informed citizens who can contribute to a more sustainable future.