Or is 30 minutes too short for school lunch?

My school (as many schools) cut down lunch break during Covid.

at the time students weren’t supposed to have physical contact with each other at lunch or at break at it was a bloody nightmare trying to make the boys in particular stick to it.

we set up separate outdoor areas and indoor areas for each year group to keep them apart but it was still hard.

post covid we extended the lunch break again but there were so, so many behaviour issues. Fighting, vaping, etc etc. so it got shortened again.

supervision at lunch time is a big issue in most secondaries. You can’t get people to come in and do it, most primaries tack it onto a morning or an afternoon TA role.

Yep, our school is now on a thirteen minute break and a thirty five minute lunch. It’s awful.

It is very businesslike in many academy trusts.

My DCs school had a 30 min lunch break staggered as the school canteen was too small otherwise. Supposedly it reduces bullying. There wasn't time to queue up for a school dinner unless you were first in the queue.

DS1 changed schools in year 10. His new school had an hour for lunch and less bullying than the first one. Much better.

Its 30 minutes at the school my DC attend. My DC complain they have to choose between eating and going to the toilet, the queues for the toilets and the canteen are both really long and eating is not permitted in the toilet queue. There are 270 pupils in one year and 3 years are on lunch at a time. There are 6 cubicles in the girls toilets (there are other toilet blocks in the school but they are kept locked out of use due to behavior issues). I was there for a parents evening last week and the sanitary bins were full to overflowing as clearly the demand exceeds the provision. If they are in either queue still when their break is up they are sent back to class. It feels so awful to me to be sending them to this every day.

Back in the 80s our school had 1hr 20 mins lunch, a lot of local pupils went home for lunch. I did. There were clubs during lunchtime. The catchment covered villages up to 15 miles away so after school clubs were limited. School started at 8.50 and finished at 4pm.
Locally the schools seem to start a bit earlier and be done by 2.30. Even primary has longer day than secondary.

Numbers and supervision seem a bit weak as a reason, we were the 60s baby bulge. My old school now has about 500 pupils, that was not far away from one year group in the 80s.
If behaviour is so poor now compared to then discipline is clearly a major problem. It not like each generation doesn't have its proportion of feral kids.

My.secondary school would stagger lunch breaks. Year 7, 9 and 11 had break at the same time (but year 7 had a separate canteen). Then after 30 mins had form tutor time. And year 8s and 10s would have form tutor time then have lunch. Year 7s and 8s had their own canteen, 9, 10 and 11 shared one but because it was staggered it didn't take long to be served. Terrible school but I actually think they did a great job with lunches.

Over reacting more like

Nope. Merely responding to your childish comment

DDs have 35mins. Its fine.

Only 2 year groups (total 400) in the lunch space. (2 sittings,but Yr11 have their own common room) with 3 food outlets. Plenty of toilets.

It means school finished at 3pm... then there's the Extra curricular available until 5pm. Also the library and computer rooms open until this time. Result... everyone can access these and still get home at a decent hour.

I compare my DDs School life balance to mine, and its fantastic.

Oooh touched a nerve there 😂

It’s too short, but lots of state schools do it as it removes the problem of supervising students during unstructured time. Independent schools tend still to have 1 or 1.5 hours for lunch to allow for extracurricular stuff. Plus, they can afford more supervision. State schools finish earlier as a consequence, but supervision isn’t the schools’ problem then.

It was a 30 minute lunch break when I was at secondary school and it meant that a lot of kids didn’t have time to buy lunch - especially if the teacher kept the class back for a few minutes as the queue would already be too long to get through. I think it’s fine if it’s planned well with split groups though. DCs primary has 1 hour for the youngest and then 30mins from year 2, and I do think that isn’t long enough for that age.

Apparently schools have shortened lunch breaks to cut down on bullying and behaviour issues. They don't want kids socialising.

It all went downhill when many schools stopped calling it school dinners.

My teens complain about not having time to queue and eat at lunchtime. Longer would be better.

My secondary school had 30 minute lunches, with three sittings. For those on school dinners, this sometimes meant spending the bulk of your lunchtime queuing up for food, and having to bolt it down in the last five minutes. However, even 30 minutes was excruciating for socially anxious me, who may as well have had a target above my head saying, "Pick on me!" I hated school!

It was a novelty to go to sixth form, where lunches were a whole hour.

@Dablabyour school certainly didn’t teach you any manners, did it? FYI, we had two school buildings with identical kitchens/dining rooms so no one had to rush lunch. The teaching was and still is excellent, as was lunch time supervision. Leaving the school grounds was permitted. HTH

Hello France calling.... Two hour lunch break is standard, and sacrosanct here.

My dd chose the only secondary school in our area that has a one hour break which is from 1.30 to 2.30 pm (then they have a one hour lesson after lunch and go home). It was a big selling point as I totally agree 30 mins is not enough.

At DD’s school lots of clubs run in lunch break and it means kids actually attend - if the clubs ran after school they probably would just peel off and go home. Detentions for minor rule infractions are also done in lunchtime.

But a lot of kids just enjoy having time to unwind with friends.

And it means that since clubs and detentions are usually at lunch, kids aren’t missing buses and trains and also they are walking home in a pack rather than dribbling out at 4.30pm which I dislike for security

I saw the lunch time eroded from 1 hour 10 minutes to 30 over the 28 years l taught in the same secondary.

It’s to do with behaviour and not being able to get lunch time assistants. It’s way too short, my Audhd ddcouldn’t cope with 30 minutes.

Also, kids don’t chat all day. Not in my lessons they didn’t anyway.

It's partly due to supervision, but largely down to behaviour control. Too long and they get into trouble; also gives them more time to go off-site and get into trouble in the local community. Extreme example but 2 of our pupils once went and held up the local petrol station! 😶

Would have been an issue at my school as most extra-curricular clubs ran at lunchtime due to the majority of children having to get the school bus home. DS's school has 45 minutes but allows them to bring a packed lunch to clubs. One school we looked at for DD had 30 minutes (not necessarily a problem) but was staggered for each year group so the year 7's were at 11.30 which seems too early. Even worse was year 11 at 1.30 as school finished at 3, that must make for a very long morning!