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The meal register is the kitchen’s record: for each pupil, on each meal day, whether a meal was served. It is separate from the attendance register. A pupil can be in school and not eat — they brought food, or the family has not paid for meals — so attendance cannot stand in for it.

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Recording a day

For each pupil on a feeding plan, mark whether they were served. Notes can be attached where a day needs explaining. The register records who took it. Only days marked as meal days on the term calendar can carry a meal register. A day the kitchen was closed is not a day anyone can be recorded as having eaten.

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Why it matters

The kitchen

Yesterday’s register is the best estimate of today’s numbers. It is what stops the kitchen cooking for a hundred when seventy will eat.

The bill

Meals served are what reconcile against what a family prepaid. See Feeding invoices.

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Pupils with sponsored meals

A pupil whose meals are sponsored — a feeding plan with a zero price override — still appears on the register and should still be marked as served. They eat; the school simply does not bill them.
Do not set a sponsored pupil’s plan to None to stop them being billed. None takes them off the register entirely and the kitchen will cook one portion short. Use a zero price override instead — see Feeding plans.

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Reconciling prepaid meals

A family who prepaid for a term and whose child ate fewer meals — through absence or withdrawal — is put right with a credit note of kind FeedingReconciliation against the feeding invoice. The register is the evidence for the figure. See Corrections.

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Who can do this

The edit_attendance permission.