By 1960 the established policy was for meals at Hatch to be communal, based on the dining room, as an opportunity for staff and children from various parts of the Community to interact. Seniors would attend first breakfast on weekdays, also all suppers. Juniors would attend second breakfast and dinners (lunchtime) on weekdays and have high teas. Seniors and juniors would together attend breakfast and dinner (lunch) at weekends.
The Community then had very little money, only limited facilities and equipment, too few staff directly looking after numerous children. Substantial cooking etc was only viable in the kitchen of the main house, the kitchen of the Paddocks and to a limited extent in the kitchen of the Nursery. Significant quantities of plates, bowls, cutlery etc and urns of hot drinks for those in the main house were only viable in the dining room and entrance hall. Even when I first was in the Colt House we had no electric kettle there, only a tiny electric stove that took 10 minutes to warm up to boil a small kettle of water for coffee.
By 1981 fully staffed and equipped family-type groups were quite autonomous, with separate breakfasts eaten in the groups. By 1984 the various groups had in turn all arranged to have teas / suppers just in their separate parts of the Community. The older adolescents unit was at Lacton Hall. The juniors of the Community had their lunchtime meal at Hatch on weekdays (when seniors were away at schools elsewhere), with the seniors and juniors of Hatch having lunchtime meals at weekends together in the dining room (without needing to expand onto one of the long tables in the hall). A few years later Caldecott School was extended to include classrooms for secondary education pupils and Caldecott was providing residential care during school holidays as well as during school terms.
In more modern times at Smeeth, the Caldecott Foundation school premises include facilities for breakfasts and lunchtime meals (both at the secondary school and at the primary school).