Free school meals and dietary restrictions

[Albadross]

DS starts school in Sept and has an egg allergy - not anaphylactic and treatable with Piriton. I asked Chartwells to let me know which menu items don't contain egg but they won't tell me, they want a form signed by the headteacher and a letter proving his allergy. The only letter we have is from 2014 so I've sent this with the completed form to the school to ask for the head to sign.

I'm wondering if it's because they're concerned about legal action? I would've been happy to just choose the meals that don't have egg in, seeing as his reaction is just vomiting hours after. I also wondered if it means they wouldn't cater for vegan children because there's no medical/religious requirement, and what they ask in terms of 'proof' for those. Seems a bit of a faff!

Or was this before infant free meals and not a free school meals child? In that case of course no obligation.

That sound pretty unrealistic, Bugger.
If you can't cater for him by avoiding all the fatal and airbourne ingredients like nuts in whole school, and using separate utensils/pots in the kitchen cannot avoid him making him really ill, how can he cope with normal school life? How about residue of what children ate at home? Or what other children are having at lunch hall?

All very genuine. I got to know his Mum quite well. It was only ingestion that made him ill - severe vomiting and diarrhoea. He ate in the dining hall but at a nearby separated table and food provided only by his family.

He was in KS2 by the time universal free meals were introduced for KS1.

In our case there's usually a lot to choose from, since many of the usual school meals don't have eggs in. He'll be having the veggie stuff anyway but I wasn't sure if they'd use Quorn, or plain soya meat substitute (Quorn contains egg). I had expected to just be told the ingredients so I could choose which meals he would get from the menu like everyone else, but tbh nothing was mentioned about allergies by the school and I had to go hunting on the Chartwells site looking for info.

Food labelling laws updated in 2014 state that food service business must be able to provide information about 14 allergens to the consumer. Presumably if they don't tell provide you with a list of allergens in each dish on a the menu, they are not compliant with the law.

At my dcs school they are able to cater for ds who has a severe egg allergy (anaphylactic and reacts to airborne)
They are unable to cater for dd who requires a wheat/gluten free lunch as it's "not cost effective" and they cannot provide the carb info for us (dd has type 1 diabetes and we carb count) so she is unable to have school lunches