Dietary request guide for schools

Medical diet request

We work in collaboration with your school, the pupil and the parent or guardian, ensuring an open flow of communication throughout the whole process.

Unless the following procedure is carried out, we cannot take liability for any potential allergic cross-contamination.

1. Upon being informed of a pupil with an allergen, intolerance or dietary requirement, the school must provide the parent or guardian with the 'medical diets' form. This is to be completed and returned to cateringandcleaning@gateshead.gov.uk, alongside supporting correspondence from a doctor or dietician and a recent photo of the pupil.
2. A meeting will then be arranged by Gateshead School Catering, ensuring the school representative, the parent or guardian, the Unit Manager and Area Supervisor are in attendance. Due to the severity of some special dietary requirements, the Area Supervisor must be present at the meeting.
3. The current menu will be discussed in the meeting, offering alternatives where necessary. Once the alternative menu has been agreed, it must be signed by all parties. The parent or guardian, the school and Unit Manager will be issued with the menu. The Unit Manager will display the menu in the kitchen, alongside the photograph of the pupil and the special diet form.
4. The next meeting date will be in line with the annual menu change, ready for the academic year ahead.

Medical diet step-by-step guide for schools

Warnings

Manufacturers use 'May Contain' warnings on their product labels to warn consumers of a risk of cross contamination during production stage of an unwanted allergen in the final product. It is our policy to treat such warnings as 'Contain' to reduce the risk to our special diet pupils.

Any special diet menu will remove products with the 'May Contain' declaration from the appropriate allergen.

Some gluten free, milk free and egg free equivalent ingredients or dish components are dependent on supplier availability.

Where every special diet request will be considered, there may be rare occasions where Gateshead School Catering may have to reject the request based on safety concerns for the pupil, such as a high volume of allergies.

Please note, there is a maximum three-week turnaround once the initial email has been received. While waiting for the bespoke menu, the pupil can be provided with a suitable jacket potato or alternatively, a packed lunch is to be brought from home.

Medical diet form

Download a copy of our Medical diet form (Word doc, 142 KB), which should be completed and returned to cateringandcleaning@gateshead.gov.uk.

Alternative diet request

Gateshead School Catering are passionate that every pupil has the same opportunity to eat school food regardless of religious and dietary views.  

Therefore, alternative diets are extremely important part of our catering provision, and our aim is for all pupils to be able to enjoy their lunchtime experience the same as their friends without having to be singled out.

Definition: Alternative diet relates to non-life threatening diet based on religious or personal views.

The examples of alternative diet are:

• Halal
• vegan
• any other cultural or religious requirement

Note: in some exceptional circumstances we may be unable to offer a provision due to logistic and operational factors.

Step by step procedure:

1. Parent / carer informs school about requirement.
2. Parent - to complete the Alternative diet form - provided by school or requested from Gateshead School Catering cateringandcleaning@gateshead.gov.uk
3. Once the form is complete, forward it to cateringandcleaning@gateshead.gov.uk.
4. Relevant menu will be provided to the parent / carer to choose the main meal that child will be consuming. Note that in some cases where it is logistically possible, the child might have a full menu to choose from.
5. These choices must be returned to cateringandcleaning@gateshead.gov.uk
6. The choices will be incorporated onto Alternative diet menu template.
7. Once the Alternative diet form and menu template are complete, the kitchen will be briefed and the pupil will be provided with their menu offer. While waiting for this to be completed, the pupil will be offered a jacket potato with a suitable filling and mixed salad and fresh fruit

Alternative diet form

Download a copy of our alternative diet form (Word doc, 29 KB), which should be completed and returned to cateringandcleaning@gateshead.gov.uk