Food Policy

Healthy food is a prerequisite for a healthy life - and a healthy outlook. Healthier pupils are more likely to perform better and less likely to miss school through illness. Children who are pumped up on the additives and sugar in junk food find it hard to concentrate on learning. These issues have become the subject of much media interest recently, but have always been at the heart of the Brighton Steiner School food policy.

Therefore children who bring packed lunches are asked not to include crisps, chocolate, sweets, cakes, pre-packaged juices or fizzy drinks, or pre-packaged cereal bars. Instead they bring wholesome food such as nutritious sandwiches, flasks of soup, fruit, seeds, vegetable crudités, cheese and crackers, plain yoghurt. The school has a nut-free policy.

School lunches consist of freshly made baguettes, home-made pizza (once a week), baked potatoes or soup.

In the kindergartens, a hearty snack is provided mid-morning: a different wholegrain for each day of the week. Youngsters tuck into brown rice with tamari, home-made bread, toasted millet, porridge with honey from the school's own hive, and vegetable soup they themselves help to make.

Dress code

There is no official school uniform at the Brighton Steiner School but we do have a few guidelines about what is appropriate to wear. We ask that pupils do not wear black, apart from footwear, and that no-one wears logos. This is to discourage an unhelpful focus on status, and difference between pupils. During the summer, we ask that bare shoulders and midriffs be avoided. Long hair must always be tied back.

Television

The use of electronic media, particularly television and computer games, by young children is strongly discouraged in Steiner schools. Most parents who feel uncomfortable with a total ban allow television and computer games at weekends and during the holidays only. Guidelines regarding electronic media should be discussed with the class teacher.