Bladon House School, Pegasus School and Alderwasley Hall School are now working with the Derbyshire based company ‘School Catering Support’, in order to improve the quality of the food services and Domestic service provided to young people across the three sites.

Managing Director of ‘Schools Catering Support’ Claire Lovett is an Ambassador for the Food Trust and takes great pride in working closely with the School food trust to delivery support throughout the education sector.

The School Food Trust were established by the Department for Education and Skills in September 2005. The remit of the trust is to transform school food and food skills by promoting the education and health of children and young people and improving the quality of food in schools. It has a special section for those working in Special Schools in order to meet the challenge of those students with special dietary requirements.

The new operation is being managed by Stefan McCran, Group Manager. Stefan has been welcomed into the SENAD family and has held face to face meetings with the site Managers and Head Teachers to help understand the individual school/student requirements. From these discussions menus have been designed to meet needs. Moving forward Stefan will be working closely with the Schools to develop the menus and domestic services over the coming months and plans to introduce four exciting new menu cycles in the school year, in line with seasonal produce.

All meals within the menu are nutritionally analysed to ensure they meet the required nutritional content but have been designed to be modern and appealing to young people, encouraging them to try new foods. One such new addition is the introduction of ‘Pasta King’ which is a unique pasta concept that uses an innovative method of presenting pasta as a healthy and tasty modern offer. Their schools sauce ranges have hidden vegetables and meet the nutritional guidelines for England, Scotland and Wales. 

In addition the schools will also be producing fresh yoghurt that will be made on site and served with fresh fruit, fruit syrups and breakfast cereals. The yoghurt is a tasty alternative to the pre-packaged yoghurts and contains the health bacteria that we are reminded of so frequently in the media.

Stefan has also worked with staff to improve the use of communications systems into the school restaurants and in the residential homes in order to maximise the young people’s social & educational experience.

All domestic and catering staff are now employed by the SENAD Group as opposed to an external catering company, acknowledging the importance of their role in maintaining the well being and development of the young people.

SENAD have also invested in the upgrade of equipment within the kitchens items including walk in fridges, steam convection oven and dishwashers. In addition the Group have invested in additional staff to both the catering teams and domestic teams across the schools to ensure the highest standards are able to be achieved.