school dinners - what sort of thing do your dc get?

[paddingtonbear1]

dd normally has school dinner. From the menus I've seen, I thought they looked ok. But over the last few weeks, when I've asked dd she's given some strange combinations - like today, she said she had a cheese sandwich and some pasta! Last week it was pasta and mash on one day. I think she does sometimes have some veg, but I'm now wondering how often. It's a canteen type system.
Just wondered what other kids normally had for their school dinners!

[whatwasthatagain]

Mine sometimes has tuna pasta bake, but more often than not it is tomato soup with a roll, or one fish finger with some beans. Considering she eats like a horse at home, and often complains that I do not put enogh things in her packed lunch, the school meals seem a bit meagre and like you say, some very odd combinations. They choose themselves, although the portions are doled out by the kitchen staff. The menu they sent home looked ok, but the reality when you see it on the board does not look that great.

[Seona1973]

DD's school has a 4 week rolling menu - there is always soup, sandwiches, baked potatoes with various fillings. They have a main course option e.g. chicken pie with potatoes and veg, fish chips and peas, macaroni cheese, shepherds pie, chicken curry, etc. They also have a snack option e.g. vegetable pizza, toastie, beef burger, pasta twirls, etc (the snack options are served with salad, beans, etc without the potatoes, chips, etc the main would be served with). They also offer puddings e.g. jelly and fruit, iced sponge with custard, pavlova, etc although dd tends to buy a biscuit for afters rather than the pudding.

DD always goes for the fish and chips, lasagne, pizza, toastie, spaghetti bolognese, etc and has a packed lunch on the days she doesnt like what is on offer.

[DramaInPyjamas]

Quite a good menu actually. Shepherds pie, macaroni, curry, pizza, salads, sandwiches, soup, baked potataoes, fish, fruit, cake, milk, water...

...but DS also comes home talking about his dinner. Strange choices like cheese and soup or potato and pizza. I think the school lets them choose their own combinations though.

[frogetyfrog]

Our schools in the area all have a 3 or 4 week rolling menu - things like cheese and tomato pasta bake, chicken korma, fish pie etc. There is always one meat and one veggie option, plus salad bar, One day a week there is a choice of a filled roll. There is always a bread of some sort.

I gave up with school dinners after dd kept coming home simply having had bread or chips. Its ok providing veggies and salad bar, but when I went in and sat with them all the children on the table I was on didnt eat them! They filled up on meat, bread and pudding. £2 for a slice of bread seemed a lot!

It would be quite possible in our school (which on paper has excellent meals) to have pasta from the main course (other stuff would be put on plate but neednt be eaten!) and cheese and bread from salad bar - hence your cheese sandwich and pasta!!

[paddingtonbear1]

Your school menus do sound pretty similar to what we have here. I looked at ours and thought I wouldn't mind eating some of it! I think there is a salad bar too. But if the kids get to choose, they won't always go for the options you'd rather they picked will they? Your set up does sound like ours frogety, I'm not sure how dd managed the pasta and mash but I can see the cheese sandwich and pasta now!

[haggisaggis]

Ours have a 3 week menu - 3 choices each day - ie chilli, veg chilli, baked potato with cheese and beans.
Then they get a Pudding - usually this seems to be a cookie or muffin.
They are also supposed to have a daily salad bar, bread basket and fruit or yoghurt.
THe fruit or yoghurt is only if tehy don't want teh pudding.
The bread apparently appears fresh on Monday and just reappears every day getting more and more stale. The "salad bar" is apparently lettuce, tomato, cucumber and pickled beetroot. Portions are small.
So in summary - the menu appears good but in reality it is not as good as it seems.

[fridayschild]

In theory we have a 3 week rolling menu. However it's cooked off site and re-heated. I tried it 3 years ago and didn't think it was tasty at all. The word from the mums in the playground is that it hasn't changed much.

DS2 says he is offered yoghurt every day. He tells me they always serve it cold to which all I can reply is that I think that's the nicest way of serving yoghurt... Sometimes he is able to remember the flavour. He also likes things with pastry, but he is not fond of custard. Once they gave him things that were shaped like fish but did not taste of fish, with chips. DS1 recognised these from the description (he has packed lunches because he agrees with me on how tasty the dinners are) and is confident that they are in fact supposed to be fish.

After half a term the novelty has worn off and DS2 is going back to packed lunches in June.

[paddingtonbear1]

hmmm it does seem that the menu is sometimes better on paper than the reality. I guess, what can you do for a whole school on £2 per head per day? I saw Jamie's school dinners and was expecting too much. dd did start on packed lunch, but I changed her over when I found out she'd been queuing for school dinner without me having paid for it! I did wonder why most of her lunch was coming back uneaten...

[piprabbit]

My DD has a 3 week rolling menu.

4 choices each day:

1. Main choice (pasta/roast/chinese chicken etc)
   
2. Veggie choice
   
3. Jacket potato with toppings
   
4. Sandwich/wrap
   
   Plus a salad and dessert.
   
   DD does have some funny combos - they can choose to have the side orders with any option so she might have ham and tomato sandwich with salad and beaked beans. But she's got to learn about making choices and I don't think she ever comes away hungry.
   
   The food has always been very good when I've had a chance to go in and share, big portions, appetising to look at and tasty.

[piprabbit]

P.S. all cooked on site by lovely staff.

[Clary]

Typically it will be a choice of meat, fish or veggie option, eg roast chicken, baked fish, cheese pastie (veggie choices usually not the greatest IMO); then they can have bread; potato of some kind or pasta; veg eg broc, peas, carrots etc; salad bar which might include tomatoes, cucumber, rice salad, butter beans (DS1 fave) etc; and then pudding eg fruit salad, yogurt, sometimes a cakey type thing (not as often as the anti-school-dinner brigade like to think tho).

All mine eat a lot. Eg I was in the other Friday and DS2 had two sausages, chips, baked beans, peas, cucumber and a toffee yog. Not bad I felt. NB chips etc was because it was Friday!

[Northumberlandlass]

In our school, DS doesn't get a choice. They have what they call a family sitting. They are given their main meal (Macroni Cheese / shepherds pie / salmon / soup & roll usually served with new pots / salad / cous cous) with a glass of water. The children then help clear the dishes ready for pudding (frozen yoghurt / cake & custard / cookie / whip) or they can choose fruit or yoghurt. They then clear their dishes and go to play.

On a Friday they have chips. Usually with sausages / fish fingers and beans. Apparently Friday is usually frozen yoghurt day !

I am quite happy with our school lunches. DS clears his plate everyday and his only complaint is he can't get seconds !

[RatherBeOnThePiste]

Much the same - a good menu on paper but in reality he was having odd combinations. Also because he is in Year 6 and they always went in last there was often not much left. ( Hence the odd combinations probably!)

DS has packed lunch now.

[Chandon]

Mine look boring on paper, but are fab in reality. last week they had a taster session for the parents (idea for your school? It was sweet, they obviously took a lot of pride in their job. I like that.), where they cooked up home made meat balls in tomato sauce, a lovely veg curry (veg option), they always have salad too or sweetcorn or peas. On days when it´s pizza it is home made nice stuff, when it´s fish and chips, it´s not from frozen but hand made. Home made puds. I was quite impressed really!

The kids make their choice in the morning, during register, so the cooks know exactly how much to cook of everything.

[helyg]

My DC's school has a 4 week rolling menu, and they don't have any choices.

Meals include: curry and rice, somerset pork, roast dinner, casserole, sweet and sour chicken, fish and chips, spaghetti bolognese, pasta bake etc. Everything is accompanied by 2 veg, and the puddings all contain one portion of fruit. They have a roast every wednesday (alternating meats) and fish every friday (sometimes with chips, sometimes with pasta etc).

Everything is made from scratch on site, and the meat, veg etc comes from local butchers, greengrocers etc.

DS1 usually has seconds, sometimes thirds . Even DD and DS2, who can be fussy at home, clear their plates.

[Bessie123]

Out of interest, what company supplies the school meals? Do you think one tends to be better than the other?

[Northumberlandlass]

Our school meals are cooked on on site.
x

[mamatomany]

Mine pick some odd combinations, pasta and grated cheese or a bloody ham sandwich, it is my only criticism of the school that the food is shite.

[mumofthreesweeties]

My DC's are now on packed lunch due to the odd menu at their school. My DS in Y6 kept on complaining about the food that it was oily etc, and indeed when my DS2 started nursery there last year he put on a considerable amount of weight so we had to revert to packed lunch. They totally love it

[Smithagain]

Cooked on site - three week rolling menu. They get a choice, but only between one meal or another. Choosing carbs but no veg is not an option!

[majafa]

Small village school approx 150/200 children - Ours too are cooked on site - again rolling menu,
But having worked at my own childrens school for 16mths as an LSA, to a child with Downs,
I had to sit in the dining room with him, otherwise he would put his dinner in the bin and noone would say a word to him!!
Some of the Choices/Combinations the children would choose were just amazing, as some one else mentioned pasta and chips or just pasta and cucumber!!
BUT this only happened because the ADULTS supervising did not try to guide them.
I know all about freedom of choice and what not, but to my mind this was ridiculous, how are children of 4 upwards, supposed to make an informed choice if they are not guided?

My own children have packed lunches now.
I know exactly what they eat during the day, and that they have a healthy, filling lunch.

[paddingtonbear1]

majafa this is it - dd's school is quite large, and I'd imagine the staff on dinner duty don't have time to supervise all the kid's choices. Hence some of the strange combinations. I try and remind dd of the importance of veg, but I suspect it goes in one ear and out the other...

[majafa]

They have at least 2 sometimes 3 teaching assistants in the dining room at anyone time, plus Cook and her 2 assistants behind the counter serving, surley one of the adults is capable of giving a little guidance?

[squilly]

Our school meals look great on paper. In reality, they rarely are. I helped in the dining room for a while and the food was occasionally great, more often GRIM. I decided never to let my girl stay school dinners after helping.

Over-cooked, cheap ingredients, weird combos...definitely not for the faint hearted!

[Ineedsomesleep]

Even if the school is large, they should give her a bit more guidance than that.

Anyway, to answer your orginal question, tomorrow DS has the choice of:

Whitefish Bake or
Vegetable Supreme or
Pizza (v) then

Chips, mushy peas, mixed vegetables and salad

For pud there is

Fruit Jelly or
Fruit icecream or
Fresh Fruit

Knowing him he will choose pizza, chips, veg and icecream.

The menu should ve set up so that all the choices work together and I would be upset if I was paying £2.10 and they got offered a cheese sandwich!