We are delighted to welcome Cucina, our new catering company, to our school community.

Cucina is proud to take a hands-on and creative approach to ensure there is something on the menu for everyone in our school to enjoy. 

There is a three-week menu cycle to make sure there is plenty of variety and that it is not just the same things on offer each day. They also run regular theme days so students can try different cuisines if they want to. 

Cucina is a company packed with real ‘foodies’, whose aim is to bring restaurant-quality food into education.  Each of their school restaurants has its own trained chef and all Cucina meals are cooked from scratch, starting with fresh ingredients - many of which are locally sourced.

By creating a wide variety of tasty dishes that students love to eat, they help make meal times that little bit more special. In teaching them nutrition doesn’t come at the sacrifice of flavour, it embeds an ethos around food that sets positive foundations for life and a love of all things food.

OPAL PLAY

At Our Lady of the Rosary, we are proud to be an OPAL Play Platinum School. We achieved this award in recognition of the quality of the outdoor play provision we provide for our children at playtime and lunchtime.

OPAL Play develops opportunities for physical activity, socialisation, co-operation, coordination, resilience, creativity, imagination and enjoyment through improved play.

The OPAL Outdoor Play and Learning Programme is the result of 17 years testing and development in over 250 schools. It is based on the idea that, as well as learning through high quality teaching, children learn when they play. Approximately 20% of children’s time in school is playtime so we want to make sure our provision is the best that it can be.

One reason we value OPAL play so much is that childhood play has changed and many children no longer get their play needs met outside of school.

In 2020, the figures for primary age children are:

• Average screen time per day 5 hours
• Average outdoor play time per week 5 hours
• Percentage of UK children who only play outdoors with other children at school is 56%

There are many proven benefits for schools that participate in the OPAL Programme. These include: more enjoyment of school, less teaching time lost to disputes between children, less accidents and greatly improved behaviour.