Calderside Academy

School Meals

Children of parents who receive the following benefits are entitled to a free lunchtime meal for their child:

  • Income Support,
  • Universal Credit (where your take home pay is less than £610 per month),
  • Job Seeker’s Allowance(income based),
  • Employment and Support Allowance (income related),
  • Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit (where your gross annual income does not exceed £6,420 gross per annum as assessed by the HM Revenues & Customs),
  • Child Tax Credit only (where your income does not exceed £16,105 gross per annum as assessed by the HM Revenues & Customs) or receive support under Part VI of the immigration and Asylum Act 1999.

We would encourage parents of children who are in receipt of any of the above benefits to take up this opportunity of having a meal provided for their child when they are at school.  Arrangements are in place so that children who receive free meals are not singled out and we encourage all children to remain in school at lunchtime.

Healthy eating is something that the school supports and a range of meals are available at lunchtimes.  We would encourage your child to remain on the school premises at lunchtime.

Parents/carers of children on special diets should notify the school of their requirements. Packed lunches may also be eaten in the dining area.

Calderside Academy operates a cafeteria system with a wide range of attractive meals and snacks available.  The system is called “Web-bite”. Under Web-bite the system uses “swipe cards”. The swipe card (Young Scot Card) contains a photograph of the pupil who owns the card.  Pupils are discouraged from using cash as this can slow down the service.

At interval or lunchtime the card is handed over at the counter. The assistant will check the photograph and then swipe the card through the machine to deduct the value of the meal being issued.  The card is exactly the same for young people who qualify for free meals.  Every day, our computer system will automatically credit £1.60, the current free meal rate, on the card.   Pupils entitled to free meals can deposit extra money on the card by cheque or through the Rev Machine

There are two ways to deposit money on the swipe card, which is then used to pay for school meals.  Coins (£1, 50p, 20p or 10p coins) can be paid into a Rev Machine (Revaluation Unit) at any appropriate time and the amount is recorded onto the card. Alternatively, a cheque, payable to ‘South Lanarkshire Council’, can be handed over to the school catering manager during the morning interval. The value of the cheque will then be added to the card.