This is the amount of food Doncaster Council education bosses reckon children on free school meals should get every two weeks during lockdown

Education bosses at the authority said today providing free school meals for children who are out of school during lockdown is one of the biggest pressures facing Doncaster schools.

And officials issued a picture of the sort of spread that they are currently looking to provide to pupils at the borough’s local authority-managed schools.

The comments come after families raised concerns over some of the packs that they have received to feed their children from Doncaster schools. There are concerns that some were too small, contained out of date food, or had food that children would not want to eat.

Doncaster Council issued a picture of what it is currently handing out through its own school caterers, in packs expected to last two weeks.

Leanne Hornsby, Doncaster Council’s assistant director of education, said: “As a local authority we have been working hard to support Doncaster schools during what is a very difficult time for them.

"One of the biggest pressures has been around providing free school meals for those children who are learning remotely.

"We have asked all of the schools across the borough to follow the DfE guidance and they have made decisions on the best way to do this for their own families – some have chosen vouchers and others food packs.

"In addition to this we have also issued local guidance from the Local Authority on what we would expect to see in any food packs being provided by them and to support them in managing those supplied by their catering contractor.

“For Local Authority managed schools we offer an in-house catering service. Doncaster school catering are supplying ambient product food packs as there is no guarantee receiving pupils have fridges. Also this allows schools to distribute two or three weeks supply together to reduce parents/carers having to collect daily from schools and therefore less need to be out of their homes.”

The picture shown is an example of the council-issue box which is for a 10 day provision, it added.

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