Increasing Your Schools Dining Capacity To Cater For Free School Meals

A recent announcement by Jeremy Miles, Minister for Education and Welsh Language, confirmed that Free School Meals are going to be made available for all primary school children in Wales. This announcement, made following consultation with the Senedd, has been met with widespread approval across the Welsh government.

It means that many primary schools across Wales find themselves having to accommodate more pupils in their dining area at lunchtime. While some are choosing to hold separate sittings to optimise the space available in their school cafeteria, there is another, more effective way to increase your school’s dining capacity.

Making the most of your dining area

Serving school lunches restaurant-style over multiple sittings can be difficult for staff and pupils alike. Some kids will be feeling rushed to finish their lunches, while others will be expected to wait. Those on the last sitting will be expected to go straight back to class on a full stomach. Your kitchen and dining room staff will be working twice as hard, having to clean tables between sittings and make sure there’s sufficient food for everyone to get what they want.

By introducing space saving dining tables, you can get around the problem of feeding all your pupils at once by fitting more tables and benches in the same space, without giving up on comfort. Here at Versa Design, we have created a couple of innovative products that can help you achieve this.

Space saving dining tables

Our Benchmark tables are designed to be easy to set-up and fold away, however busy your dining room is. Each table can seat up to 20 students, with an adjustable table top height, meaning everyone from Foundation to Year 6 can be sat in equal comfort. Their slimline design and integrated benches mean they take up less space in the dining room allowing you to fit more tables to accommodate your pupils. Best of all, they fold up and stack away into half the space of most other tables on the market, with six Benchmark tables taking up a footprint of less than 1.6m x 2.24m (5ft 3″ x 7ft 4″).

Wall mounted dining tables

As well as our Benchmark tables, we also offer our revolutionary Wall Pocket system. These handy devices involve storing your dining room tables in their own cavity mounted to the wall. They can be unfolded and set up in a matter of minutes and, like our Benchmark tables, the Wall Pocket system takes up less space per table than a similar set-up from other manufacturers. When lunch time is over, these tables are easy to clean and fold back into their cavities, freeing up your dining room for other activities, making it truly multi-functional.

Get in touch

For more information about out Wall Pocket system and or Benchmark tables, or to find out how we can help you make the most of your school dining area, get in touch with Versa Design today. Call the team on 0330 030 0330 and see what we can do for you.