Dear Parents and Carers

One of our aims at Broadway Academy is to ensure your child develops a healthy lifestyle.  This includes a good diet. Therefore, we will be bringing catering in-house from September 2025.

This means fresher food, more student choice, and a school lunch that actually works for everyone.

A school lunch service we’re proud of

In-house catering means:

• We can focus on fresh ingredients and balanced meals that fuel learning, energy, and well-being—because we know what our students love and need
• No more “one-size-fits-all” menus! Students can help shape our meal choices with seasonal themes, taste tests, and fun food days
• We can keep meal prices fair and make sure every penny goes back into supporting students, not external profit.
• We can now partner with local suppliers and even eat food grown on our farm and reduce waste—great for our planet and our community!
• In-house catering means our staff serve our students, creating a friendlier, more connected lunchtime experience
• We can offer students roles in menu planning, food council input, and even work experience in hospitality right here at school!

 

We’re upgrading to brand-new tills with the improvement of facial recognition – so no more long waits or till problems.

📱 Smart Tools for Parents – Through the Arbor Parent App, parents can:

• 💬 See what your child has eaten

• 💳 Top up their meal account online

• ✅ Keep everything cash-free and easy

We are introducing Facial Recognition to make paying for school meals quicker and easier for everyone.

This new system is especially helpful for students who get Free School Meals or have meals paid for from home. It’s fast, safe, and doesn’t require cash, cards, or remembering passwords—Students and staff will simply walk up to the till.

Facial Recognition is also completely contactless and hygienic, helping to keep things clean and simple. It will be used at the checkout to speed up queues, so students have more time to enjoy their food, join lunch clubs, or just relax with friends.

Our aim is to make lunchtime smoother, more more secure, and stress-free.

How the technology works

With Facial Recognition technology, students simply choose their meal, look at the checkout camera, and proceed with a quick and secure point-of-sale experience.

Facial Recognition is a biometric recognition method that works in the same way as other recognition technologies, many of you will already use this to unlock your mobile telephone. Like a PIN, a unique identifier is attributed to each student and matched at the till for quick and secure access to their cashless account.

An image of the face is captured, and the software turns unique features of the face geometry, such as the distance between the eyes and the distance from the top of the forehead to the chin, to create a unique identifier for each student.

When students pay for their meal items at the point of sale, the camera matches their unique identifier to their cashless account to take payment.

More hygienic because students will not need to put they fingers down on a reader or type a pin into a keypad.

 

How the transaction process works

1. Consent: Students must opt-in to use Facial Recognition before an image is taken. If students do not consent to using the software, the till operator cannot activate the Facial Recognition process.
2. Capture: The biometric system captures an image of the student’s face. This image is not retained, stored, or distributed to third parties, and Facial Recognition cameras are only located at the point of sale for school meal transactions.
3. Collection: The system reads distinctive features from the image and processes it through an algorithm. This process turns the image into a unique string of characters, which gives each student a unique identifier. This unique identifier is stored on a secure, encrypted database within the school and is used to verify students’ accounts at the checkout.
4. Identification: During checkout, the cashier uses the system to verify their account and process the transaction. The cashier must activate this process; the system is not live for students. A picture of the student is captured and processed through the algorithm to confirm their unique identifier and access their account. The image is not kept on record; only their unique identifier is stored.

Security of Facial Recognition

Biometrics, in this case, provides a unique identifier for the person present at the checkout. The unique identifier is created by processing the biometric capture through a mathematical algorithm, generating a unique number. Only this number is stored; the captured image is not retained. This data is encrypted using AES 256 (similar to encryption used by your online banking) and cannot be reversed to produce an image of the biometric, ensuring the highest level of security and compliance.

This letter will be sent home along with a consent form for parents to complete. Once received, we kindly ask that you fill it in promptly and return it to school. Additional information is provided on the form for your reference. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Yours faithfully

Mr R Skelton

Headteacher and CEO