Cornerstone Dining Club

Our dining service sits at the heart of the school day. It is a family-dining experience that allows children of all ages to come together to enjoy a high-quality meal, expertly cooked by one of our fully qualified chefs. Our whole-school food culture promotes neighbourliness and community spirit, we find that this is great way for children to develop essential social skills that are rooted in friendship, respect and kindness.

A Family Dining Experience

Across the Trust we have implemented a dining club service which has enabled us to drastically reduce the cost of our school dinners for children across the school. We believe that eating in school should be a pleasurable experience: time spent sharing good food with peers and teachers.

We have reduced the cost of a school meal by means of an upfront payment covering each day in a half or whole term. A school dinner can be purchased for the reduced cost of £1.80 per day rather than the average cost of £2.50 in other schools. This is a saving of £4.50 a week or £171 over the school year! This is only financially viable if enough families sign up.

These meals are prepared by our fully-qualified chefs Steve Hodge, Steven Barlow (BCPS) and Paul Christian (WCPS/MCPS), all of whom have many years of experience in the catering industry.

Meet our Chefs

Steve Hodge

Steve Hodge

Steve, our head chef, has over 24 years experience. He trained at Exeter Catering College and has worked at Exeter University and the Officers’ Mess at Lympstone. He has cooked for many dignitaries and Royals.
Steven Barlow

Steven Barlow

Steven joined us in 2019, he started his career at 14 when he began working in his father’s hotel and later went on to serve for the Royal Marines in the Officers' Mess as the Head Chef. He did this for 27 years before joining us.
Paul Christian

Paul Christian

Paul joined us in 2019. Before this he worked for Exeter University for 18 years, fulfilling many roles including Head Chef (and even cooked for the Queen) Paul also worked at the Marine Camp in Lympstone.
Karl Davies

Karl Davies

Ed Leonard

Ed Leonard

Darren Wheelhouse

Darren Wheelhouse

Below you can view the current menu, allergen information and proceed to fill out your child’s order on the dining club form. You will receive a confirmation email containing your choices.

Autumn 2021

Information for the autumn term dining menu is available via the links below

The school food standards

  • Help children develop healthy eating habits.
  • Ensure that they get the energy and nutrition they need across the whole school day.
  • Cook food that looks good and tastes delicious.
  • Talk to the children about what is on offer and recommend dishes.
  • Eliminate queuing.
  • Serve the food in a pleasant environment where they can eat with their friends.
  • Provide a wide range of foods across the week including a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, pulses or types of meat and fish.
  • Use fresh, sustainable and locally-sourced ingredients
  • Talk to them about what they are eating.

The School Dining Club has become a national case study and is featured on the School Food Plan website where there is information and examples of good practice www.schoolfoodplan.com