Collingwood Media College began their partnership with Dolce in 2012 under a Franchise agreement. Due to substantially higher staff pension contributions in the area at the time, a Franchise agreement was originally setup to enable the school to move away from the Local Authority catering whilst retaining their current staff members who had become valued members of the school community. Since then issues surrounding the local pension contributions have been settled and in 2017 Collingwood switched from the Franchise agreement to a full service contract, whereby we were able to keep on board and retain the members of the school kitchen following a smooth TUPE process.
Throughout the contract with Collingwood, the focus has purely been on continuously improving the offer available to students, introducing a wider range of tastes and flavours and expanding the meal offer within their secondary school environment. A provision has also been put in place to enable those students requiring any special dietary requirements, including separation on plates, to have access to a range of menu options, encouraging more students to opt in to the school meal service.
Recently Collingwood were approached by a local Pupil Referral Unit who had no hot school meal provision available on site or the equipment to provide such a service. Dolce, with the support of Collingwood, implemented the successful provision of a satellite service, utilising the equipment available to produce an extra 30 meals a day and enabling the unit to introduce a hot school meal offer for the first time in the school’s history.
Several initiatives have been implemented at Collingwood Media College over the course of the past 7 years, including extra hospitality for sporting events directed at parents and a hugely successful and popular work experience programme. Over the past 4 years several students have spent between 6 weeks to a whole term shadowing our cooks within the school kitchens on either day, morning or afternoon release. Students have been trained in several key skills including; Health & Safety, storage and preparation procedures, knife skills, time management, cookery & baking and general kitchen duties. A positive impact of the work experience programme has been the noticeable improvement in student’s confidence and we actively encourage students to participate wherever possible.
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