am wondering if its worth getting annoyed that school are bribing kids to pester us to buy school dinners

[gigglinggoblin]

ds wants school dinners cos a letter got sent home today saying if he has them on 4 certain days he wil get a free world cup football chart and stickers. i suppose 4 times costs less than £7 but i would also have to pay for ds2. and i dont really want them having school dinners for lots of reasons. it just seems really immoral to be bribing kids this way. the council knows they are going to come home and pester parents. cant decide if i should be mildly irritated or really quite annoyed. cast your vote :)

[SenoraPostrophe]

I'd only be annoyed if the meals are crap really. If they're good then they can just have a snacky tea on those days and you're only a little bit or no worse off surely?

[Twiglett]

is it actually cheaper to provide a packed lunch?

[helsy]

I'd be annoyed.

[foxinsocks]

I think it's wrong and I would be annoyed.

what happens to those kids who can't have school lunches (allergies, health reasons etc.)?

[gigglinggoblin]

but how do you know if the meals are crap? you only have schools word for it and they are hardly going to say yes! i do know for a fact that ds2 would only eat crap and that i would have no way of regulating it. and its not the money, its the fact that the council are using pester power to up their sales. i expect it of cereal manufacturers but it seems a bit worse coming from school

[Berries]

annoyed

[robinpud]

The school meals service is in such a state I wouldn't bother getting worked up about it unless you want to see it go.
Although lots of councils have embraced healthy eating like religous converts, the kids are not impressed and uptake has fallen off HUGELY in a lot of counties. If they bother listening to Jeanette Orrey they will know that it took them 5 years and a lot of work on the parents.So you can't blame them for clutching at straws in an attempt to keep the numbers up.

[mrsbang]

I understand where you're coming from but my first thought was my boys would love that (they have dinners anyway).

As for the meals, think we're quite lucky. Our primary school have an excellent dinner lady and the school encourage parents to ask questions aobut the dinners, and occasionally have days where parents can come in and have a dinner alongside the children.

The staff tend to have a school dinner with the children too.

[mrsbang]

HAS an excellent dinner lady........

[SenoraPostrophe]

yes - I suspected the bribery was a last resort attempt to get them to eat school meals now they don't serve chips every day (if they serve chips AND have resorted to bribery that's another thing!). I doubt the school would lie if you actually asked them how many days a week the kids can choose chips would they?

[SenoraPostrophe]

both of my kids eat things at nursery that they never eat at home btw.

[gigglinggoblin]

the food isnt really an issue - i dont want them to have school dinners every day but the odd time is ok.

i just expected better of a school service than to resort to bribery, and especially as my kids school is classed as in a deprived area i think its a bit crap to use pester power. am not going to go in ranting or anything, just wondered what other people made of it

[kipper22]

maybe, if you're in a deprived area, the school is trying to target the children who are rarely given a decent meal. The bribery may encourage those who are entitled to free school meals to pester their parents into completing the paperwork. Just a thought.

[DominiConnor]

Is it possible that the council is doing a re-launch of the meals service ?
Although you may be giving good packed lunches, packed lunches seem often to end up being junk food.

Personally I wouldn't have a problem being bribed to do a good thing, and perhpas pester power can be used as a force for good. The question is whether it is good, so is the food improving ?

Too many kids are programmed to demand crap food. If you can fight this football, or a boy band or "Evil Thugboids from Zorg (TM)", then great. sounds more intelligent than the many bits of propaganda put to kids.

The impression I get from gigglinggoblin is that there is an issue beyond that of just the food quality ?

[Tortington]

i think its out of order - what if you cant afford school dinners? i couldnt afford school dinners when they were in junior school - not for 3 kids - and you could sya in your leter ( if you write one) what about people with 3 kids? how much is that a week? £20? i couldnt afford £20 per week on school dinners for three kids when i could do a packed lunch for £7 PW for three.

i think its outragous to segregate sections of the school like this.

there should be an option to buy the england gear for those who dont take school dinners

[Rhubarb]

£20 a week for school dinners for 3? Really? It's a lot cheaper over here! I think we pay around 1 euro a day for dd, and she gets stuff like foie gras, rabbit stew, seafood, pasta carbonara, couscous, etc. She gets a starter, main and a dessert with bread.

I'm going to really hate going back!

[Tortington]

i dunno what it is - am guessing just over a pound per day per kid.

i give mine ( all in senior school) £1.50 each.

and i started doing that last week for the first time.

i did it becuase am a bad mummy who never has time to shop so ended up paying the local co-op some god forsaken amount ( robbing bastards) for the packed lunch stuff.

[Tortington]

half a soggy turkey twizzler over here rhuby - with a carrot end and one pea

[Rhubarb]

I'm soooooo considering home ed! Only that would make me worse than mc so I can't!

[Tortington]

she needs other kids to socialise with anyway on a daily basis - i firmly believe that it helps then when they go into the wide world. but home edders are going to slay me ...right about....now

[Rhubarb]

I agree, she needs to mix. I just hate the education system, I hate school meals, I hate the conformity of it all! And any new school that she goes too will come to hate me I'm sure of it!

[gigglinggoblin]

its £1.65 per day, per child. they say they are only given chips once a week but they do give potato smiles and stuff which i dont consider to be any better. i have no idea what the food quality is like as they send home menus but they dont have any info about what ingredients they use. ds1 would eat ok, but ds2 despises fruit and veg, the only way i get him to eat it from his lunch box is bribery and if i dont know what he is eating then i cant do that. i am 100% certain he would only eat the processed crap and puddings if he had school dinners.

but thats not my actual objection, my objection is that a school full of kids are now coming home to hassle their parents to get them a free world cup sticker chart and stickers and parents may or may not be able to afford it. i assume the whole county will have the same thing, but it just seems sneaky and the sort of thing i would expect from macdonalds, not a local authority who is supposed to be doing whats best for our kids.

[Tortington]

i agree - send in a letter of complaint.

[Rhubarb]

Complain! Long and hard!

[peasinapod]

Buy him the stuff any way . The school is wrong but this way you keep the upper hand .