Dear Parents/Carers,
I hope you are well and that your children have enjoyed the start of the half-term break. I am writing following recent developments that you may have seen in the news regarding provision for students in receipt of free school meals during the holiday period.
You may well be aware that Birmingham City Council have now agreed to fund free school meals for all eligible students over the half-term period. The council will be making arrangements for this during the next week and are working to ensure vouchers or equivalent can be provided retrospectively to schools after the half-term break to be distributed to families.
In the meantime, the council have asked us to remind you all of the support available from Birmingham Children’s Partnership – locality contact details can be found at : https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/50224/birmingham_children_s_partnership/2156/birmingham_children_s_partnership_-_resources/2
On top of this, we have been delighted to work closely this weekend with the Northfield Food Service, who have already accepted referrals us from us for 25% of our entire school cohort to receive free hot meals for the entire family in the week commencing October 26th 2020. If you are based in the South Birmingham area, are experiencing difficulties and have not received a call from one of our senior staff regarding this this weekend, you are able to self-refer directly by e-mailing [email protected]
Given that 80% of our students are in receipt of Pupil Premium and that 82% of our students are classed as “most disadvantaged”, as part of our “Edge Pledge”, we will be continuing as always to provide all students with free breakfast, break snacks and lunches upon their return to school.
The usual reminder too that if there is anything at all that we can help with during the holiday period, you can e-mail [email protected] , access the safeguarding section of our website at https://www.theedgeacademy.co.uk/safeguarding-2/ or get in touch with us by messaging through any of our social media platforms.
If you have any further questions for me regarding this letter, please also feel free to contact me directly at [email protected] .
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Wakefield
Principal