Parents complaining about this in school?

I'm a school catering assistant;the lunch time supervisors encourage the children to eat but don't force them.

Realistically not all children like the food that's put in front of them,there is limited time to eat the food,the children are distracted by chatting to friends etc;the difference between the school I work at and your child's is that the whole year goes back out into the playground together.

Schools are in loco parentis. You are responsible for looking after the child while they are in your care. So yes, it is your responsibility to get a child to eat if they aren't eating well, because that's basic care. Primary school children are still very young, especially in KS1 and in early KS2.

Unless schools are going to let parents come into school to help their child at lunch, then yes staff should be doing that, it's all part of the job.

I went to a private school and our lunchtime was a set time when we all sat at long tables and ate at the same time. Once everyone was finished and the plates cleared, then we went out to play. Quick eaters learned to chat to others, slow ones learned to speed up a bit before the course was cleared. Each table was supervised by a teacher sitting and eating with us.

I think a similar system of a set eating time as a previous poster also suggested would help a lot. Fast eaters would know they had to sit and chat, and slow ones would know they had a set time in which to eat. Then everyone gets the same playtime.

My son was one of those who would not eat because he just wanted to go and play, ace I had to ask the school to monitor him a bit because he was starving and so angry by hometime as a result. Some days he was literally only eating a packet of crisps. If I only gave him crisps for lunch and no other food that would be seen as neglect, but people on this thread seen to think it's ok if it happens at school. It's baffling.

I despair of this attitude that children's basic human needs are inconveniencing teachers. Education is about much more than numeracy and literacy and if you don't know that then you shouldn't be teaching.

I was definitely force fed in the early 90s, North of England working class town with free school meals (not sure what that has to do with it though).

I was underweight, my mam had the school have someone stand over me... occasionally when very young the force fed me. It was INCREDIBLY dangerous (choked/vomited several times and had reactions to foods I was forced to eat that shouldn't have). As I got older (past infants school) they stopped physically forcing me to eat but would stand over me refusing to let me move or leave and demand I ate. Often ended in a stalemate (I couldn't eat half of what was served anyway) when time ran out and I had to go back to class which further segregated me from other children.

Its abuse of power over the most vulnerable.

I absolutely would NEVER support it being done to other kids. Its draconian and abusive.

@WillowAnn

I don’t think the staff should be saying things like “you can’t go to play before you’ve eaten” because of the negative impact this could have.

There are far more problems with child obesity in the UK than under eating - and I think children are pretty good at self regulating what they eat - far, far better than a lot of adults.

I also think children often naturally make healthy choices until adults start insisting that they eat less healthy foods like chips, or chicken nuggets.

So long as a child has access to food when they are hungry I think they are ok.

The issues come with adults forcing and applying their adult sized appetites on young children.

Jammy dodger?

Forcing kids to eat when they don't want to can cause lifelong issues with food, teaching kids to listen to their bodies is a much better way to go. If a kid is hungry one day because they didn't eat enough they will learn from that mistake, an afternoon feeling a bit hungry won't harm them. Totally unreasonable for parents to complain, school age children are capable of having responsibility for their own intake.

Well I can assure at my school in the 90s, there was no such sight. Scottish working class town, where 40% of the kids qualified for free school meals. Everybody ate their lunch and happily.

This was my experience as a kid- awful

good grief, if they are hungry, they eat, or they'll eat later, what's the big deal. They finish school at 3 in the afternoon anyway.

They are made to stay in class, and show good learning behaviour during lessons - as they should. If they want to blow steam and play at lunch time, let them play!

Would you like to be forced to sit down at a lunch table at work instead of grabbing a quick bite and do whatever you want to do during your break? Of course not.

Parents will complain about anything in this country.

I trust my child to know when they've had enough to eat and wouldn't appreciate another adult encouraging them to eat more if they didn't need or want it.

It was the one and only time I ever had school dinner. I asked mum not to send me for dinners again.

Dull day in wherever you live?

Gosh yes, I can still taste that lumpy mash deposited from an ice cream scoop and spam fritters. I would be kept at the table until afternoon lessons resumed. Primary school in the 70s.

The lunches at secondary were Michelin starred in comparison. Lasagne, ice cream, cheese and crackers.

Wow! What has that diatribe got to do with my post?

You are making a huge and quite erroneous assumption that I was assuming anything of the sort. I wanted to know how OP knows that this is what happens because, otherwise, there's really no point in having a discussion about it.. OP might work at the school, they might have friends who do, they might have heard it 2nd, 3rd, 10th hand, they might have been told this by their child. For what it's worth (though it's none of your business), I believed what my children told me, unless I had a good reason not to. It's a good starting point for all sorts of reasons. I was also a lunchtime supervisor briefly about 20 years ago so I know that you cannot make a child eat anything, nor should you try to. Just to make my point clear, as you seem to need a micro explanation, I wasn't assuming any of the things you tell me I was.
I would still like to know how the OP knows this though.

I wonder if the parents complaining have slow eaters? The kid sees their mates going out to play and finish up early because they don't want to miss out? Therefore not eating enough for them. But not much can be done about that.

There are 300 children eating lunch in my school hall. Five staff. With all the will in the work, they wouldn't be able to monitor what every child was eating! Have you ever been in a school hall at lunch time OP?? 😬🤯😆

It should be left to the kids (and parents should talk to kids and find what they ate that day, was it enough etc).
In my DS primary, the main concern seemed to be getting them in and out of the lunch hall as fast as they could. Not enough space for everyone so allotted time slots. This included qeueing and hand wash time. Plenty of hurrying them along. Lots of food ending life in the bin.
Packed lunches often returned home part eaten (ran out of time) and very hungry kids. This was an improvement on the school dinners provided by a franchise and with a lovely looking menu but in reality the quality of the meat was pet food. The portions were suitable for toddlers and food was undercooked (part frozen) or overcooked.
Many parents have (and still complain). HT does a cursory check , occasionally parents are invited in to share lunch (and kids state lunch never looks like this on normal days) was treated to raw chips though so they. Didn’t quite cover up 🤭
My DC and friends often revisit memories of these (not) lovely lunchtimes with much laughter.

It depends how old they are, learning to eat/ decide what you need and when full is an important life skill. I think chats at home about fuelling the body etc would help if parents concerned their child is not eating enough in a rush to play. If I still worked in school and parents expressed concerns id probably drop it in to the conversation with the class i.e. it's important to eat at lunch before you play as body needs energy etc but wouldn't monitor unless very young.

My primary school regularly kept me in for the whole of the lunch break for not eating my disgusting lunches. This was back in the day when grey lumpy mashed potato, peanuts on salad or mint custard was a thing.

I remember having to sit on the same table as the head master to make sure I ate it, which I never did or stupidly would get caught throwing it under the table.

My mum marched up to the school one day to complain about it, but the school never budged.

I would expect schools to gently encourage children to eat, but would not want children being kept inside until they'd finished

I'm still traumatised from being in first primary school. The little boy sat opposite me clearly didn't feel well and was being told he had to eat him packed lunch, vomited all over the table. So no, I think as others have said they need to eat to theor appetite.

Wouldn’t want to go back to my school days in the 70s where there was a ‘naughty table’ for kids who didn’t finish their lunch. They’d sit there crying and missing out on playtime with a plate of cold congealed slop in front of them.

As ever, schools can't win either way. I used to cover lunchtimes when we were short of MDSAs and honestly, you'll get parents who moan that we haven't ensured their child has eaten enough and others who moan that their child ate the whole lunch and then didn't have time to go out to play!

Some lunchboxes were huge! Way more than I'd eat and yet some children were told by their parent/carer to eat it all. Poor things!
You then get the children who eat painfully slowly but are hungry enough to want to eat it all. So what should we do? Tell them they can't eat it all because otherwise they won't get any fresh air, or allow them to sit for ages nibbling like a snail?

We sometimes suggested to send a packed lunch in if the child didn't like the school dinners but that obviously didn't usually go down too well because the school dinners are free. (Infant school)

At my school, school dinner children would have to put their hand up before they could eat pudding and we'd see how they'd got on with the main part. Sometimes we'd make a fun game of trying to encourage to eat a bit more veg or whatever but they were never forced!
Similarly, packed lunch children were encouraged to eat some of their sandwich or whatever before they ate their crisps or chocolate bar etc. Surely that's what your average parent would do at home?

There's a middle ground between policing every morsel of food eaten and encouraging children to eat enough food so they aren't tired for the afternoon learning session.

But as with most aspects of school, we simply can't please all of the parents all of the time!

The only child of mine who was watched whilst he ate at school and I had daily reports of what he had eaten sent home was my younger son.
He has anaphylaxis and in his case it really was a matter of safety.