Latest News
Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.
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Free School Meals (FSM) vouchers
Mon 27 Apr 2020Dear Parents and Carers,
Free School Meals (FSM)
Since the closure of our schools we have kept a kitchen open to offer all free school meals children a daily lunch. This is still available to collect from 12-1pm from Monday to Friday.
We understand that travelling to school on a daily basis has been tricky for some families due to distance and COVID19 isolation. After further discussions with the Bath and Wells Trust we are pleased to now be able to offer either a £15 weekly voucher OR a daily school lunch for eligible children. Please note this does not include ‘Universal Infant Free Schools Meals’.
If you would like to change to a voucher please can you email juniors@stsaviours.bwmat.org by 9am on Wednesday 29th April.
The voucher scheme is a Government scheme where the schools request the voucher and this voucher is then transferred directly to families via the company EdenRed (https://www.edenred.co.uk/reward-recipients/Free-School-Meal-Vouchers/). You may have seen in the news that the roll out of this system has not been smooth and some families have not received vouchers for weeks after the schools have applied. We will process our end as quickly as possible, but we will not have control of how quickly vouchers are issued. You will still be able to continue to collect a packed lunch from school until the day you have received your voucher.
As explained in previous emails and on our Facebook page the ‘Tuesday Food Parcels’ that many of our families collect from the Infant School are NOT linked to the Government FSM scheme. Therefore, this new arrangement does not affect collection of these parcels and you can still collect a parcel (through a previous or new self-referral) whether or not you have requested a voucher.
Best wishes,
Mr Beament
Executive Headteacher
St Saviour’s Schools
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Food Parcels
Fri 10 Apr 2020We need you!!
Working together with FareShare South West, we are hoping to increase the volume of food that can be used for our FREE community food parcels (currently distributed on a Tuesday).
Through delivery and direct collections from the warehouse, we should be able to offer all our ‘Free School Meals (FSM)’ families a weekly food parcel AND offer further parcels to other families and individuals who need extra food during the COVID19 crisis.
In order to organise this, we have set up a referral system and we need your help.
Types of referral:
- Self referral - do you need a weekly or one off food parcel?
- Third party referral - do you know someone who needs one? (e.g. elderly neighbour, isolated family, key worker)
Please note, all families on our FSM list have already been contacted and these families DO NOT need to re-refer themselves, unless they want to make changes.
We will not ask for proof of need, proof you are a key worker, or ask questions. We will trust all referrals and we just want to help as many families as we can.
Once we have organised our distribution list, we will aim to also keep a limited number of parcels available for ‘walk ins’.
We are also looking for helpers who could walk or drive deliveries to local people.
If you need to refer (self or third party), or if you could help with deliveries, please email juniors@stsaviours.bwmat.org with the subject ‘Food Parcel’, or send a message through Facebook.
If referring, please include the following details:
Name:
Contact number:
Collection or delivery:
Address if requiring delivery (we can’t guarantee we can deliver and if at all possible, please collect from school):
We will try to accommodate as many referrals as possible.
Thank you in advance and please share this message.
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Easter Update
Sat 04 Apr 2020Dear Parents and Carers,
Microsoft Teams over the Easter Holiday
We will be muting all ‘Year Group Teams’ over the two-week Easter holiday and children will not be able to write comments on these groups during this time. We will keep the three whole school groups going over the holiday, so children can keep engaging and sharing their progress with ‘Gardening and Planting’ and the ‘Egg Box Challenge’. Children will also still be able to engage with and discuss Harry Potter in the group ‘Mrs Eve reads Harry Potter’.
Free School Meals (FSM) over the Easter Holiday
We have put in place arrangements to continue free school meals, over the Easter Holiday (excluding Good Friday and Bank Holiday Monday). A packed lunch ‘take away’ can be collected from the Infant School between 12 noon and 1pm. This is for all families with children that are entitled to FSM from the Infant and Junior Schools. These packed lunch ‘take aways’ will also continue after the Easter Holidays.
The Government has stated that ‘During these challenging times, we want to ensure that pupils eligible for free school meals can continue to access support if they are not in school. In the first instance, we are encouraging schools to provide meals or food parcels through their current food provider’
Working with the Bath and Wells Trust and our catering provider (Edwards and Ward) we have managed to keep a hub kitchen open at St Michael’s Junior Church School that will deliver to St Saviour’s Infant Church School and therefore we do not need to issue vouchers at this time.
Please take advantage of your free school meal by collecting it at the times above. It will also give you an opportunity to share any issues or concerns you might be experiencing at home that we could help with.
Food Parcels
We are working hard to organise additional weekly food parcels for our families and our community. We are working with FareShare South West, organising a team of staff volunteers to accept deliveries to school, collect deliveries from the warehouse, pack parcels and distribute parcels to our community.
Currently the volume of these deliveries is varied. Sometimes there will be enough for 50 parcels, or it could be only 10. Most deliveries arrive on a Monday and will be packed for distribution on a Tuesday.
This is separate from the Government’s Free School Meals (FSM) and will be organised and run by St Saviour’s Schools volunteers. We plan to organise it in the following way.
If there is small and limited number of parcels:
- We will announce on Facebook and Twitter that we have limited food parcels (usually on a Monday afternoon)
- We will phone families on our FSM list and invite them to pick up a parcel
- Any parcels not collected will be offered to our community on a ‘first come, first served’ basis - this will be announced on Facebook and Twitter (usually on a Tuesday afternoon)
- We will rotate the offer to our FSM families on a weekly basis
When we have more parcels than all our families on our FSM list:
- We will announce on Facebook and Twitter (usually on a Monday afternoon) the number of parcels available
- Through this announcement we will invite all FSM families down to school for collection at a certain time (usually this will be late Tuesday morning). We will not make individual phone calls.
- Any parcels not collected or remaining at the School after the allotted collection time will be offered to our community on a ‘first come, first served’ basis - this will be announced on Facebook and Twitter (usually on a Tuesday afternoon).
You can visit our Facebook page and Twitter page without being a member of Facebook or Twitter, but we do advise following both accounts and turning on the notifications so that you do not miss an update.
Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/StSavioursBath/
Twitter link: https://twitter.com/St_Savioursbath
If you are self-isolating or cannot leave your house, please message us on Facebook or Twitter and we might be able to get a food parcel to you, depending on our volunteer capacity.Best wishes,
Mr Beament
Sophie Hunt
Mrs Simmons
St Saviour’s Junior Church Schools
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