School complaining about dd perfectly normal packed lunch.

[Juk3]

The class TA came out to talk to me yesterday (from a distance) to discuss dd unhealthy lunch and the lunch box policy. The dinner lady assigned to dd raised it and the TA did say she wasn't in the class room during lunch so was just passing on info she had been given. She asked me to have a look on the website for the lunch box policy and try to adhere to it if possible, she was perfectly pleasant and I took my telling off but after reading the policy dd's lunch has not broken any rules. I try to make a variety of different lunches as I wouldn't want to eat the same thing every day myself. If I list yesterday's and today's lunch below could you tell me what's so bad about them as I just don't get it. I am wondering if the there has been a mix up with kids not that I will bring this up with school.

Yesterday:- grilled chicken breast with mayo on a mini wrap with lettuce, cucumber and tomato.
Carrot and red pepper sticks with a single serve pot of humous.
Pot of honeydew melon.
A tube yogurt.
A square of homemade shortbread.
A bag of sliced apple (she usually will have this at break).
Carton of juice

Today:- sliced boiled egg sandwich on 50/50 bread with crusts removed.
Pot of sliced red grapes.
2 mini cucumbers and celery sticks with a single serve pot of humous.
Small bag of mini pretzels.
A bag of sliced apple (usually eaten at break)
Carton of juice

She is 8 (9 in dec) in year 4 perfectly normal height and weight.

Somehow these dinner ladies have become nutritionists. I’ve had these run ins too when my son was in school.

This really annoys me. The lunches sound perfectly fine.... why can kids on school dinners have cake and custard but packed lunches not have a biscuit!? X

Sounds perfectly fine, wish my kids would eat that. They so picky...

Do you deliver? ( can you do my lunches )

😁

I'd swap the juice for water but otherwise that sounds bang on. Don't suppose you want to come and make my packed lunch do you??

Maybe calculate the sugar content of juice, yoghurt, shortbread in one go in addition to the melon and see if it meets health guidelines eg for healthy teeth? The rest sounds super healthy and delicious. Also high sugar lunches affect some children’s concentration and behaviour so would that be an issue in the general policy being low sugar and fruit juices, some of which may have E numbers?
It’s surprising because in some schools the school dinners and packed lunches sound significantly less healthy.

Sounds fine to me...if you could leave out the yogurt (and all milk/lactose products), not put any mayo on the chicken and leave bread unbuttered I'd quite like the lunch for myself!

Both days show good ingredients like fresh salad vegetables and fresh fruit + fruit juice & homemade bits. The dinner lady is either mistaken, confused which lunch belonged to which child or has her head up her arse. I don't see how the lunch boxes you describe could be faulted & if your daughter is happy with the contents & daily variety I'd say you are doing a grand job at providing her with all the nutrients she needs to stay healthy

We wouldn’t be allowed the carton juice. Only water allowed. I can’t see what else would be the issue.

Ludicrous waste of everyone’s time.
Why did you meekly accept a ‘telling off’?

No lunch police at our school, thank goodness!

They have got you mixed up. That sounds a perfectly lovely lunch. I work in a school, I have seen some absolutely shocking lunchboxes, and that definitely isnt one of them!!

Seems a bit petty. Dd seems quite healthy - lots of fruit and vegetables- and quite a lot of food. Do they have a rule against biscuits or juice? That's all I can think of. Some schools only allow water or milk.

So what exactly do schools do if you break the law and give your children, gasp, items that are not on the 'packed lunch policy document' or even worse give a packed lunch that is completely non-compliant? Do they take the food away from the child so they have nothing to eat? do they fine you? This stuff makes me really cross, ok if the child has a weight problem and is just bringing in a mars bar I get it but deal with that child not a child who might have 1 small banned item. Ridiculous, thank god my children are passed primary age.

Those look like awesome lunches to me. Ask what the heck the problem is.

Bizarre. Those lunches look lovely.

Yeah it’ll be the juice. Or the mini packets - apparently supposed to avoid individual plastic packaging according to our school rules... But sounds like a nice lunch to me!

@LanaDelBoy

shiny What's the thinking behind "no egg for breakfast"? Haven't heard of that before!

I knew a child whose egg allergy was so severe, that she would go into analphyatic shock just by touching skin or a table that had the merest trace of egg residue on it. The child that the poster mentioned is likely the same, so not having egg for breakfast is to eliminate any possibility of her dc having egg on his or her fingers and transferring it to surfaces the child with the allergy may then touch.

I got quizzed over a single malted milk biscuit (dd’s favourite!). Rest of her lunch was salad, grilled chicken, hummus and pitta fingers with a cube of cheese and a pot of plain Greek yoghurt! I responded by asking what the school desert option was!

Ah this sort of thing drives me CRAZY. Provided you are not giving your child nothing but chocolate and crisps, it’s nobody’s business. The way to give a child a complex about food and what they are eating is to ban every treat food, label it as unhealthy and load it with guilt. Kids need energy. Mine has a savoury snack and a cake or small bar almost every day - perfectly normal weight. I had the same and similarly always have had a normal BMI. If your kid is eating enough fruit and veg and isn’t overweight, this is not an issue. If a child starts putting on weight then you reduce the snacks a bit.

The first day she has:
Pot of honeydew melon - sweet
A tube yogurt - sweet
A square of homemade shortbread - sweet
A bag of sliced apple (she usually will have this at break) - sweet
Carton of juice - sweet

Too much sugar. Just give one sweet thing.

Most schools don't allow pretzels (too high in salt) or shortbread (too much sugar and fat). Yes they then give crap to the kids who have school meals including too much sugar and salt.

Cripes, your lunchboxes should have got past any test from the lunchbox police.

I remember hearing of kids at my girls schools eating Nutella sandwiches with chocolate bars and crisps.

I'm not even sure they even got pulled up.

It's so OTT these days! DS started in reception this year and his free school lunches consist of 1 day hot dogs, 1 day pizza, 1 day chip butty always served with a cookie or bun, how can schools have the cheek to inspect lunches!

Ffs nothing wrong with those lunches at all - they have more crap in a school dinner!

Bloody hell thats really healthy! My boys take a packed lunch and my youngest gets only likes certain fruit and won't even try salad, and it wouldn't matter if I didn't put anything else in there he still wouldn't eat it he would just go hungry. He has crackers, cheese, a mini packet of cookies and crisps with some strawberries and raspberries. Their school never says anything about their lunch boxes anyway but if they did I'd be stuck because he won't eat anything else.
I don't get what they can do anyway, would they really take a child's food away?

@AestheticWitch she is having fruit, it's not as if she's sending in a sharing bag of haribo

Is it an allergy thing as hummus has sesame .. a child I cared for had a massive anaphylactic reaction to sesame in humus once while at nursery ..