The governors have had a difficult decision to make about the long-term future of the kitchen as there is simply not enough demand to prevent it making a huge loss. The kitchen deficit is starting to have a knock on impact on school budgets, which in a small school, is extremely significant and would mean the loss of staff and potentially the fourth class if not addressed in a timely fashion.
The pandemic has had some impact on numbers of course, but during the autumn term when all children were in school, only 28% of children in KS2 were paying for a meal. Myddle currently export dinners to Weston Lullingfields, but their numbers have dropped so low that it can no longer be relied upon to make Myddle kitchen viable.
The school therefore will close the kitchen provision at Myddle from September and export the meals from Baschurch. Meals have been brought over from Baschurch numerous times already when the Sara has been absent, and we know it works well. Sara and Bev will both be working at Baschurch to prepare the meals.
By moving the catering from Myddle to Baschurch, the benefits would be:
- the current staff remain employed as part of the federation team;
- Myddle would not keep running the kitchen at a deficit and having to supplement from the main budget;
- the kitchen space at Myddle could be used for other purposes providing more space in our growing school;
- there would be reduced energy bills for Myddle;
- it would help safeguard the teacher posts at Myddle when the pupil numbers drop in 2 years time.
- Myddle would only pay half the fees to the catering company.
We will still need to try and increase dinner numbers at both schools, so will be doing some surveys and research into what children and parents want. It would be really helpful if you could give some input when we send these out.
Thank you very much.