Pastoral Care

Food

Millfield catering company Thomas Franks provides a variety of locally sourced, popular & nutritious choices at every mealtime. These options allow students to try foods from a variety of nationalities and to tailor their dietary choices in line with the academic & sporting demands as well as their likes and dislikes.

Thomas Franks is a family-owned catering partner with a global reputation for serving exceptional food made from locally sourced produce. Thomas Franks uses distributors based in Somerset & surrounding counties to source the best quality local foods for Millfield. Thomas Franks promote seasonal scratch cooking, allowing in-house chefs to create their own recipes, in line with nutritional guidance. 

Breakfast

Breakfast is served from 7:15am - 8:30am with staggered entries for houses. Everyday there is a variety of cut & whole fruit with yoghurts, cereals, & porridge with toppers on offer. Hot staples include toast, baked beans and boiled eggs. There is additionally a hot breakfast and breakfast special which change daily. - Example Breakfast Menu.

Lunch

Lunch is served from 12pm - 1:45pm with staggered entry, but also the option for students to attend at a time that suits them best, given their extra-curricular commitments. Lunch includes a hot main option, vegetarian option and additional option on the third counter. In addition, there are two hot vegetables, pasta, jacket potatoes, sweet potatoes, and jacket toppers as standard. On the salad bar there are freshly baked breads, soup and a range of build your own, composite salads and solo proteins on offer. Additionally on the ever popular desert counter, students can choose from a hot desert, jellies, fruit, yoghurt pots and baked goods. - Example Lunch Menu.

Supper

Supper is a relaxed informal service, running from 5:30pm - 7:00pm. Students dress leisurely and enjoy time chatting with friends. The provision is similar to lunch, with the same variety across two hot options, with similar hot options, salad bar and desert bar, again allowing students the choice of options. - Example Supper Menu.

Beyond The Dining Hall

The Thomas Franks catering team is led by Contract Director Neil Haydock (Formally of Watergate Bay Hotel). Within his team work an exciting group of driven innovative chefs led by the Executive Chef and front of house team led by Operations Catering Manager Sarah-Jane Newman. The catering team deliver daily dining hall service of over 3,000 meals and also food provision across boarding house treat nights, headmaster's events and other functions most notably including the Summer Celebration and Winter Balls.

 

In regard to added value, Daniel Alcock (Nutritionist) works onsite within the catering team to support food provision and also with the sports, teaching and pastoral teams to deliver educational sessions, 1:1 consultations and deliver best in class nutrition support at Millfield. When running science based 1:1 and group sessions, to ease student concerns, he often runs tastings and tours of the kitchen and is on hand, with the catering team, to support students in and out of mealtimes.

 

Within the academic year the front of house team & nutritionist deliver a series of exciting nutritional, themed and seasonal pop-ups in the dining hall. These include themed menus for World Book Day, Boosting Fibre Intake, DIY Yoghurt Bowls, Maximising Dining Hall Dietary Intake, Old Milfieldians Themed Menus and Local Supplier pop-ups to enhance student understanding and nutritional intake. 

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Allergens

Allergen awareness is paramount with strict protocols in place to ensure the safety of every child. Allergen champions are in place to support students, oversee safe working practice and maintain due diligence. The team both internally audits processes and Thomas Franks central team maintain regular audits to ensure that processes are being maintained. At mealtimes alternative options for students with allergies are always available with the EU 14 allergens displayed for each dish daily

Medical Centre

The Millfield Medical Centre, located at the heart of the Millfield campus between the main school area and the majority of the boarding houses, can treat a complete range of illnesses in exactly the same manner as any other surgery. It is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week during term time by a highly competent and dedicated health care team consisting of seven fully qualified nurses and a health care assistant.

Other services offered by the Medical Centre include:

• Asthma clinic

• Travel clinic for vaccinations/malaria tablets etc

• Teenage sexual health clinic

• Eating disorder clinic

• Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) testing annually

• Minor injuries clinic

• Minor surgery clinic

Dental Care

All routine dental care should be undertaken at home during the holidays. Private emergency appointments can be arranged as required. The private dental insurance scheme offered by the school will cover the cost of these appointments. Orthodontic treatments can be arranged on a private basis only.

Caring for sick students

The Millfield Medical Centre houses 15 beds that are covered 24 hours a day, and a self contained isolation unit. This means for those children with severe or highly infectious illnesses they can be comfortably looked after by trained professionals away from the boarding house reducing any risk of spreading the illnesses. In the event of minor illness, boarders are normally nursed in their boarding houses, with full back-up from the medical staff. Close liaison is maintained between housemasters/housemistresses, medical staff and the parents of sick children in all cases, although the right to confidentiality is given after the age of 16.

Physio Clinic

We offer a Physio Clinic run by chartered physiotherapists located at both the senior and prep school. Services provided include assessment, rehabilitation, injury prevention, concussion assessment/management and pitchside medical care.

CELS (Character Education and Life Skills)

CELS is Millfield’s name for PSHEE. It covers all of the statutory requirement of Personal Social Health and Economic Education (PSHEE). It is a vital element of the development of a student at Millfield and is compulsory for all students.

The course delivers an awareness of how to gather confidence, resilience and strength for the challenges and opportunities ahead of our students. CELS is concerned with supporting the social, health and economic realities of our students now and in the future and at Millfield we do that in an age-appropriate manner. It is evidenced that a solid CELS curriculum increases academic attainment as well as health and student well-being. Student well-being and a strong curriculum is an integral part of a school’s successful safeguarding culture.

The programme is delivered within three broad themes that repeat throughout the year:

• Health and wellbeing
• Living in the wider world
• Relationships and sex education (an extended, single sex, house-led session for Lower Sixth is delivered by the nurses and sex education leads)

The curriculum aims to:

• Promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of students at the school (SMSC)
• Allow for the individual character to develop in line with the whole school values of brilliance, authenticity, curiosity, kindness and positive disruption
• Prepare students for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life through providing a current and useful health education and opportunity to have open discourse about their concerns
• Instil qualities for life that underpin academic or sporting success in the curriculum and the overall psychosocial wellbeing of the individual
• Uphold fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs
• Work in line with Gatsby benchmarks

• Help shape an inclusive and harmonious school culture

The resources for the CELS programme are produced, reviewed and coordinated by the Head of Department, Ms Sweny. Please contact her for any more information here.

Religion & Spiritual Life

Spiritual Director- James Stephenson 

stephenson.j@millfieldschool.com

Spiritual and Moral Development in the Millfield Community
Millfield believes that true education must be concerned with spiritual and moral development. All students of the school, irrespective of their religion, are encouraged to explore and develop their own faith, and learn from that of others, in an atmosphere of generosity and tolerance. This finds its fullest expression in our delightful Start of Year Service, held in the magnificent setting of Wells Cathedral.

Worship – provision for Christians and those of other faiths

The Spiritual Director is responsible for the ongoing spiritual life of the community. Although this doesn’t simply mean running services, the rhythm of regular worship is tremendously important to those who are committed. What really counts are efforts at nurturing these services as a space for spiritual, social and moral development. Short addresses have a key role in this respect – the issues tackled are almost always aimed at a broad audience and have general appeal, so that those of any religion or those of none are equally at home.

The school chapel is dedicated for use as a place of worship for all faiths. So, in addition to Christian services, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists have the opportunity to meet and contacts with local leaders of these other faiths are nurtured with a view to mutual visits. Roman Catholic students attend Mass in Glastonbury and can be confirmed every other year. An Anglican Confirmation course runs every twelve months.

Spiritual Support
Reflecting the open ethos of the school chapel, the Spiritual Director is available for all members of the school, irrespective of faith. At various points in the day, students and staff may drop into the office under the chapel or into the spiritual support house across from the school gates. Some come by arrangement, others on the off-chance, most because they need someone to listen to them and advise.

Chapel – a brief history

The chapel chalet is the oldest building on the Millfield site. It was built in 1882, a couple of years before Millfield House. The Clark family, of Clarks’ Shoes’ fame, owned the land. This plot was the highest point on the family estate, and had been the site of a windmill in former years - hence the name ‘Millfield’. In the latter years of the 19th Century, a daughter (Alice) of the Clark family  contracted tuberculosis. A common practice at the time for wealthy people was to send family members infected to Switzerland to live in a mountain chalet, where the robust winds were known to have healing properties. The family decided to build a Swiss-style chalet on the highest point on their own land where their daughter could be cared for, lying on the open air upstairs balcony area facing the prevailing westerly winds. The indoor area downstairs and above was allotted to those caring for her, where they could live and cook her meals. The treatment appears to have been effective and the girl recovered. The chalet was a place of care and cure-a marvellous precursor of its later life as a spiritual support centre!