Catering
Our school canteen is very popular and offers a wide range of fresh food and drinks for breakfast, at break time, for lunch and after school
At Bishop’s Hatfield Girls’ School, we strive to provide students and staff with high-quality food that is both nutritious and satisfying. Our menus are carefully crafted to meet a wide range of tastes, dietary needs, and budgets, ensuring there’s something for everyone—whether it’s comforting family favourites or trendy high-street inspired concepts.
Our students and staff have the option of purchasing food from our on site main restaurant, our sixth form café or an external mobile pod.
In Easter 2025, we introduced an improved dining experience in partnership with our caterers, Innovate. With high-street-style food concepts such as Street Vibes (globally inspired), Trattoria and Naturally (vegetarian and vegan diets), Innovate are aligning with contemporary taste whilst offering value for money. At the same time, we are modernising the catering space to make it more appealing for pupils.
A Modern Dining Experience
We’re enhancing the dining experience with exciting, innovative food options that appeal to young people while maintaining a focus on quality and value. Students can enjoy a variety of culinary options, including:
- Main Meal: from roast lunches with all the trimmings, global cuisine days, fish and chip days, and theme days, accompanied by a daily soup, salad bar, chilled and hot grab & go range, and hot dessert. The ‘Main Meal Deal’ remains available at a set price of £2.70 but with even more choice.
- Street Vibes: Globally and street food inspired dishes, bringing the flavours of the world to our menu without compromising on nutrition goals.
- Hot Grab and Go Items e.g. subs, paninis, toasties, pizzas, noodles, and rice pots. Items are designed to provide students with a filling and tasty grab & go alternative to a main meal, served with a serviette or in a portable container.
- ‘Naturally’ range – designed to cater for the increase in vegetarian and vegan diets – a wide selection of filled sandwiches, baguettes, bloomers, bagels, and wraps, plus a selection of salad pots, protein pots, homemade sushi, and mezze boxes. This is in addition to our hot vegetarian meals.
- Deli bar – Build-your-own salad with a choice of proteins, toppings, dressing options. This sits alongside a carvery station and a selection of baguettes and soft rolls.
- Sandwich, baguette, and roll selection – our range includes, Simple, Premium, and New York Deli, with daily specials on offer.
- Breakfast service includes a range of hot breakfast items, breakfast pots and filled rolls, freshly baked pastries, yoghurts, smoothies, juices, and hot drinks.
Our catering space is also undergoing a transformation to provide a vibrant, modern dining environment. We’ve expanded our food offerings and introduced a streamlined galley-style service, reducing waiting times and improving convenience with extra tills and barcode scanners.
Destination Dining at our External Pod
Our external pod, the Lunchbox, offers the Street Vibes food concept, bringing a variety of global flavours reminiscent of popular eateries like Wagamama and Itsu. Each month, we will feature a new international destination, along with hot and cold Deli2Go options.
New Sixth Form Brewhouse Concept
We are introducing a new stylish bistro-style café for Sixth Form students, offering a separate menu in a more mature dining environment. Highlights include:
- Sushi and Mezze Platters
- “Buy by the Inch” Sub Sandwiches
- Hot Street Food: Noodles, burgers, pizzas, and more
- Cold Deli Selection: Fresh, grab-and-go meals
- A variety of snacks, drinks, and home-baked treats
Food Quality & Sustainability
We are committed to sustainability and high-quality ingredients. Our meat is Red Tractor accredited, our fish is MSC certified, and all our eggs and mayonnaise are British and free-range. We prioritise British produce and source much of our fresh food within 30 miles of the school.
Food Allergies & Intolerances
Should parents or pupils wish to discuss the caterer’s approach to allergies or require any further information, then please contact our Chef Manager, Mr Avraam, directly on extension 205 or send an email to admin@bishophatfield.herts.sch.uk for their attention.
Menus & Tariffs
Check our menus and tariffs below:
Promotions and meal deals
Payments
To make it quick and easy for the students to pay for items, we have a till system which interfaces with our payment system, Wisepay, and so enables parents to allocate money to their child’s account and monitor expenditure.
In order to prevent any excessive expenditure, a limit of £7 per day has been put on all pupils’ accounts. However, if you would prefer a different limit, this can be set for individual students.
Please see our Frequently Asked Questions below for more information about our biometric catering system and Wisepay payments. Any queries should be directed to the Finance Office (finance@bishophatfield.herts.sch.uk).
Cashless Catering Frequently Asked Questions
How do I set up an online payment account?
All pupils were sent information on the school’s online payment system, Wisepay, when they joined the school. This included information on setting up the account and how to use it. This online payment system allows you to pay for all activities such as school trips, music lessons and other events. If you did not receive or have lost your log in details, please contact the Finance Office finance@bishophatfield.herts.sch.uk
How will my daughter be enrolled on the system?
All new pupils are registered on their first day at school by the Finance Office and it is important for you to have returned the consent form (which was part of the admissions pack) prior to enrolment. If you strongly object to your daughter using her finger to access the system, we can allocate her a 4 digit pin number.
Will the system also be used by sixth formers?
The system is available for all pupils and staff, including sixth formers and visiting sixth form consortium students. However, sixth form students have the privilege of being able to pay with a card as well as having access to snacks at any time between break and lunch. The school is unable to accept cash payments for school meals.
What information is stored when the pupil’s finger is scanned?
When the finger is scanned, the system is detecting small differentiating features and converts them into a numeric code; it does not store an image of the fingerprint. As with a credit card, this code is then used to associate the user with their account; every time their finger is scanned, the system recognises the code generated and knows which account it relates to. The code is kept within the system but cannot be converted back into a fingerprint or used for anything other than identifying the student within the cashless catering system.
My child has Free School Meals, how do they get lunch?
The system knows which students qualify for a Free School Meal and their account is automatically loaded with their entitlement, in time for lunch each day. When they identify themselves at the till their balance shows this amount, plus any other credit you have loaded onto the account. Payment for their lunch is deducted from the Free School Lunch allowance. The account is refreshed every day; unspent balances cannot be rolled forward at the end of the day. Please note that pupils will need credit on their accounts in order to buy breakfast or break time snacks – please top up using Wisepay.
What happens if my daughter does not have enough money on her account to pay for her lunch?
She will still be able to get lunch. Pupils who do not have enough money to purchase lunch should come to the Finance Office where we can apply an ‘overdraft’ facility to her account for that day. We will email parents to advise them of this and the account must be brought back into credit before it can be used again, by topping up via WisePay or at the cash loader machine.
How will we know how much is left on my daughter’s cashless account?
The online payment system information updates to WisePay at the end of each day. Parents may then log in to the system to check their daughter’s balance and view a list of her purchases. Pupils also see their balance when they visit a till. Payments made via Wisepay are transferred into the Cashless Catering system every 15 minutes so you can top up during the morning and your daughter will have access to that money by lunch time.
How do I find out what my daughter has been buying on her account?
When parents log into Wisepay, they are able to view the last 25 items purchased by their daughter.
If I put enough money on my child’s account for a whole week, what’s to stop them spending it all at the beginning of the week?!
The system has a £7 daily spend limit. If you wish us to set a lower daily limit for your daughter, please contact the Finance Office.
