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Our Open Events for September 2026

Open Evening - Wednesday 24th September 2025 - 5.00pm to 8.00pm (no need to book)

School in Action Morning Tours - By Appointment Only

Wednesday 1st October - 9.15am to 10.30am - FULLY BOOKED
Thursday 2nd October - 9.15am to 10.30am - FULLY BOOKED
Tuesday 7th October - 9.15am to 10.30am - FULLY BOOKED
Wednesday 8th October - 9.15am to 10.30am - FULLY BOOKED

 

Healthy Eating

Maritime Academy - Community Lunch

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.

View our menu for Years 7-9

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.
 

Introducing Innovate – Our Caterers

At Maritime Academy, we believe that every pupil should enjoy healthy and nutritious meals to support their learning. 

We partner with a catering specialist called Innovate, a member of Impact Food Group, who offer quality food choice, flexibility and speed at the heart of everything they do. 

Their food is inspired by the best and most fashionable high street concepts, fusing fantastic quality food with the industry's leading quick service style food markets and cafes.

Impact Food Group believes that it's important to treat students with more respect and to help them make more sophisticated decisions about the food they eat. 

Their message focuses on their ability to be more than a school canteen, and continually look at ways to provide restaurant-style school food that's well cooked, presented, and helps to build a better knowledge of food.
Our kitchens will use the best technology to serve students quickly, ensuring they have time to enjoy their meal to keep them ready to learn.

Meat Free Monday

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!

Please see Meat Free Monday’s Impact Calculator for more information.

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:

  • 142,065.45 bathtubs of water saved
  • 536.12 tennis courts of forest saved
  • 78,184.82 car miles of greenhouse gases avoided

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.