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School Meals
Whilst your child is with us at Cove School, it is important that they are ‘fuelled and ready’ for learning. The best way to ensure this happens is to eat a nutritional lunch each and every day, whether it be from the school canteen or a packed lunch. At Cove, we use Aspens Catering service, who create great value nutritional meals every day! Breakfast, break and lunch services are available.
Our menu is updated twice yearly, and we offer promotions and theme days monthly to tie in with local and national events. Check the dining hall regularly for information on specials coming soon, and the weeks current menu.
More about our Caterers
We are pleased to let you know that Aspens has been chosen to provide the meal service at our school. Their menus are exciting and innovative, reflecting the very latest UK and international eating trends but with a real focus on health and wellbeing providing menus that adhere to the school food-based standards to make sure students are fuelled and hydrated for learning. Please find information below regarding Aspens and a free recipe card!
Aspens InformationFree Sweet Chilli Chicken Recipe
Allergens and Special Diets
We cater for different requirements so that all customers can enjoy a tasty meal with us. For pre-packaged food, our labelling processes have been reviewed to give ingredients and allergen information in accordance with Natasha’s Law. We continue to encourage customers to talk to us so we can work together to provide food that is safe to eat.
Contact Us
Cashless Accounts - Scopay
At Cove School, we use Scopay, which is a pre-pay cashless system. Each child will receive a letter with an activation code on their first day here so that you can set up their account. If you require an additional code (for example, so that another parent or family member can manage the account), please contact Ms Hedley on k.hedley@coveschool.uk
With Scopay, you can see what your child is buying and how much they are spending in the school canteen. You can easily check their account balance and make payments to this. It is also possible to set up an alert so that you receive an e-mail when your child’s account falls beneath a specific, customisable balance.
Instructions and Links
Click here to register a new Scopay account
Click here to login to your existing Scopay account
Instructions: Managing your Scopay account
Instructions: Setting up alerts
Student Accessing Account
Most parents choose for their children to use the facial recognition option to access their account in the school canteen. To activate this, they must (just once) have their photo taken at a till point. This photo is immediately automatically converted and stored as a mathematical template. Following this, all they need to do to use their cashless account is simply look into a camera, which matches their face to their unique template. This makes the food services much quicker and more efficient. Please be sure to give permission for the use of ‘facial recognition biometrics’ on Arbor to use this. Alternatively, please e-mail Ms Hedley on k.hedley@coveschool.uk to ask about a different option.
£3.00 Arrears Buffer
We appreciate that there may be occasions when your child needs some lunch but does not have enough money on their account. For this reason, our policy is to allow the students to go overdrawn by a maximum of £3.00, which the parent/carer must clear as soon as possible.
Any account lower than -£3.00 will result in service being refused - your child will not be able to purchase food or drink. In this case, your child will be told to ask Reception to contact the parent/carer to top-up their account.
For unusual circumstances when you know that your child does not have enough money on their catering account but you need for them to be served lunch (for example, a problem with Scopay), please call Reception on 01252 542397 and ask to speak to Ms Katie Hedley, or e-mail k.hedley@coveschool.uk so that we can work out a solution.
Procedure when leaving Cove School
When pupils leave Cove School, catering accounts need to be cleared to £0.00. This means that if money is owed to the school (i.e. there is a negative balance), this must be paid by the parent/carer. Conversely, if there is credit on the account, we need to remove this as part of our leaver process.
You can choose where to direct any left-over credit from the options below:
- request a refund, usually via BACs;
- transfer to another child;
- donate to charity - we are currently collecting for Phyllis Tuckwell.
Please complete this form to give your instruction:
Catering Account Credit - Refund or Redirect – Fill out form
Please note:
- Instructions are not processed immediately; they are done so, monthly.
- Please only complete the form once.
Refund requests must be made within 3 months of the leaver’s date. After this, any outstanding credit will be donated to the charity that Cove School is currently supporting.
If you require any further assistance with this, please contact Ms Hedley on k.hedley@coveschool.uk