to think schools should allow flexibility between packed lunches and school meals?

My youngest ( now 34 and would now be ARFID) had a “ sandwich” ( 2 slices of white bread and butter with no filling) everyday from year R to gcse year! He became slightly braver in the sixth form when it became a ham sandwich. If he’d gone to a school which only allowed school dinners I would have had to move him!

Well I feel lucky. Ours is totally flexible (Scotland). And P1-p5 is free for all. Quite a few choices and you can book it online or pick on the morning when they do registration. DS is p6 now so we decide at the start of the week which lunches he actually genuinely likes and then he takes a packed lunch the other days. No issues.

My friend is a school cook and I asked her how on earth they manage and she said they basically know roughly how many kids will pick each thing as the menus rotate and a lot of kids have a sandwich or a jacket potato every day anyway. They get told numbers by 9.30am. It’s a small school though, about 80 kids so that probably helps.

The school has approximately 420 pupils if that makes any difference?
Census day was always pushed really hard and made into quite a big event to get as many pp taking up lunches as possible.
Teachers said there was very little waste as kids brought in pack ups when they were supposed to have hot meals but then there were kids who forgot their lunch/weren’t given a pack up so it kind of evened out. Leftovers were given to yr 6’s because school dinner portions don’t differentiate between reception age and year 6 age!

We can book school dinners up to 9am on the day of said school dinners. My dc liked the flexibility and would look at the menu to see if there was anything they particularly wanted/didn’t want and would take pack ups accordingly.
Options are:
meat meal
vegetarian meal
sandwich
jacket potato

Scotland

if you wish a school meal if must be ordered by 8am on the day.

We book a term in advance its a two week rotation and you can pick from a meat dish a veg dish sandwich or lunch from home for each day. You can switch it about via the office. Previously you chose on the day which was easier

It's completely flexible at my son's school. The children either say they have a packed lunch or order what they want for school lunch during registration each morning.

Mine has a limited diet so takes a packed lunch with a ham sandwich every single day.

The school I work in let children swap and change as they want. Works well because parents get the menu in advance so can decide which is best. Most stick with the same thing every day but some swap and change. Some in eyfs/ KS1 will bring a packed lunch but instead of having it try the school meal knowing they have the packed lunch as a back up (always agreed with parents!)

Blimey we could only change every half term when i was a kid!

My daughters primary allows you to choose day by day, the kids choose their meal option or packed lunch each morning with the register.

its a 3 week rolling menu.

Day to day no. But on a weekly basis yes.

Mine are grown up but I remember that you could choose each week whether they took packed lunches for the week or had school meals. Or you could pay by half term blocks in advance to save admin time. You were encouraged to do this because it helped the caterers to plan and secure more affordable ingredients.

It was not possible to choose school meals for part of the week, but it worked ok because there were always familiar items the menu such as jacket potato and baked beans with cheese if your child did not like the main or veggie main of the day. Could you suggest the kitchen offers something like that as a ‘safe’ fallback?

And please don’t tolerate fussiness unless they have a diagnosed condition. Most kids would live on nuggets and chips given chance, including mine, but as a parent it’s your role to take care of their health by encouraging them to eat a wide variety of foods.

We have total flexibility. At the morning register they ask each child if they are having school lunch or packed lunch that day. And a choice between the daily option or the jacket potato.

Our infant and junior schools both let you pick on the day.

They're fairly big (3 and 4 form entry) - maybe it is easier to predict the numbers?

We have flexibility.

DS' (y2) school did hot dogs, corn cobs and waffles with ice cream on that day this year and heavily promoted it with the children. DS came home and said we're having hot dogs next week because the school needs money for lunches, I thought he was insane until a teacher friend explained to me! The children were all bouncing into school that day shouting hotdog day to each other 😂
They usually provide healthy hot lunches generally

My youngest is 20 now so it's a while since I had a primary school aged child but we could mix and match back then. We used to order a week at a time and got online, where I coukd see tge menu and ingredients. My DS has multiple food allergies and some days there was nothing suitable on the menu for him so I sent packed lunches those days. He had school meals about 80% of the time I'd say but some days there was nothing or just a jacket potato and salad, which was ok once but not several times in a wee. So he had a packed lunch from time to time. It worked fine and it suited me better than having to provide packed lunches full time, plus made it easy for the school too as they weren't faced with DS needing any special provision.

Perhaps the real issue is the catering company or whoever makes the school dinners. Improve that and it will be much less of an issue, if children are refusing to eat anything on a particular day that could be the cause.

We have great flexibility. They pick one of 3 options at 9.30ish if they're having school dinners. They just turn up with a packed lunch otherwise. The only meal they have to give advance warning for is the Christmas lunch they do in December.

All food is cooked on site. We're in Scotland. It's free regardless of circumstances for the first 5 years and then just over £3 a day for the last 2 years of primary (unless you're eligible for free school meals).

But how would school police this?

I should probably explain I am old and things may have changed but my DC would have just eaten their packed lunch at playtime or before/after the sit down lunch bit.

I can see you would need fairly confident DC to carry this off though. Mine wouldn’t have given a shit 🤣

Decided termly (or maybe half-termly) and you stuck to it when my mine were at primary a few years ago. Outstanding state school in London btw. It was fine. All this drama about it being impossible for the kids to cope if they don’t like a meal!

I went to state school. For both primary and secondary, we had the choice of school dinner (no choice - either meat eating or vegetarian and if you said you were vegetarian, that was what you got, no option to change from day to day) or you went home. Packed lunches were not allowed.