School Lunches

School Meals – Parent Pay

Aberdeen City Council schools are now using a new system for school meals, called ParentPay, which is the online payment service for school meals. This system has been rolled out to all schools from January-March 2023.

ParentPay provides customers with a seamless school meal service enabling parents/ carers to make fast and effective cashless top ups for school meals at any time of the day, view meal selection and receive support and advice from ParentPay. All of this is accessed through a secure online ParentPay account.

Cash top-ups at the school are now no longer be available , therefore, it’s important that parents activate their ParentPay account as soon as possible to allow them to continue to pay for school meals.

Further information on ParentPay can be found here:

School Meals ParentPay | Aberdeen City Council

Current School Menu – April 2023 – October 2023

School Menu Information

Free School Meals

Pupils are eligible for free school meals if their parents or carers receive one of the following benefits:

• Income Support
• Income-based Job Seeker’s Allowance
• Pension Credit (Guarantee Credits)
• Any income related element of Employment and Support Allowance
• Child Tax Credit, but not Working Tax Credit, with an income of less than £17,005
• Both Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit with an income of up to £7,920
• Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• Universal Credit with a monthly earned income of not more than £660
• Universal Credit, with a single parent/carer working less than 16 hours per week with an annual earned income from employment of less than £17,005
• Universal Credit, with both parents/carers working less than 24 hours per week with an annual earned income from employment of less than £17,005

Pupils are eligible for free school meals in their own right if they are between 16-18 and fall into any of these categories.

All pupils in P1 to P5 receive free school meals when in school.

Where a child is in P1 to P5 and parents meet the eligibility criteria above, the parent should apply for Free School Meals in order to receive vouchers during holiday periods and access to the Scottish Government Scottish Child Payments’ Bridging Payments.

You must provide evidence of the qualifying benefit each year in September. If you stop claiming the benefits you must notify the school. If you receive a free school meal to which you are not entitled, you may be asked to pay the money back.

Apply For Free School Meals

Free School Meal Vouchers During Holidays

Vouchers are paid to families in receipt of free school meals during holiday periods. Vouchers will be sent by email or mobile text message for each child in a family in receipt of free school meals due to low-income.  Vouchers are issued to the main contact for the child.  We use the information held by your child’s school to issue vouchers so please ensure your contact information is correct at your child’s school.

Vouchers are only available for children in Primary 1 to Secondary 6 in receipt of free school meals due to low-income.

The periods where vouchers are paid are:

• February mid term
• Spring holiday
• Summer holiday
• October holiday
• December/January holiday

Vouchers are not paid for school closure days or occasional holidays.

Vouchers are paid every two weeks and have a value of £25.00.  These vouchers are redeemed online and can be used at most supermarkets.  Vouchers should be used at the time they are received. We regret that we are unable to reissue vouchers or voucher codes which have expired.

If you would have difficulty in accessing technology to redeem your vouchers, please contact your child’s school, who can request that alternative arrangements are put in place.

You can find details of how to contact your child’s school here

Vouchers are only available where a family meets the criteria for free school meals due to low income. More information and details of how to apply can be found here.