Sending in a snack and drink for reception

[JofraArchersFastestBall]

Hello, please excuse the inane question, but my son is starting school next week and I'm wondering if I should be sending in a snack and drink for break time, and if so what I should send?

I was going to put an apple and a refillable water bottle in his book bag. Is that enough or will he need something more substantial?

Reception kids get fruit but he definitely needs a water bottle. I used to send my kids in with fruit and they’d decide if they liked mine or the schools offering best. Don’t send anything other than fruit. Reception have their lunch about 11.45.

At our school there is a drink of milk and a piece of fruit provided by the school at morning break. I'd assumed it was universally government funded for that age group along with the universal free school meals as it's not a school with a huge amount of money.

sending a water bottle is probably mandatory!

my guess would be if you send an apple it will come back each day uneaten...

I’m sure that would be fine. You may want to ask the school what they provide. Water bottle is a definite must. Our school provides fruit and veg at snack time. All under 5s get free school milk as well.

Make sure you label the water bottle with his name!

Definitely a water bottle. In my experience there's a water bottle tray/box in the classroom where they are kept. As PP have said, fruit (and milk I think?) is provided in you are in England.

Fantastic, thank you all. I'll make sure he has a named water bottle and won't worry about snacks.

Check with the school re-snacks
if you have to send an apple is definitely a good bet, think something that can be eaten using just one had
granola bars are also good
learn from my mistake and don’t send a pot with strawberries/berries - break time is outside and pots got in the way of playing (according to my DD) as anything that could not be eaten while walking was not worth it (she never told me that much, but came back uneaten)
water bottle is a must, label it, have a spare… they tend to go missing and appear a week or two later…

I work at a school. Definitely send him with a full drinks bottle, he should be able to re-fill this up in classroom if needs be. Otherwise he'll have to wait until he can have a cup of water at lunchtime in dinner hall - 98% of our children bring in snacks. The school may have a policy (you might be able to contact them the day before to double check). Some children have an banana/apple, others crisps, biscuits, cereal bars.

They get fruit. Milk is for under 5s, but some schools need to apply for it otherwise the school can’t claim it - which just involves popping in a few details on a website. We do for our school anyway. Ask your school about it if you’re unsure.
Just send him in with a water bottle.

Refillable water bottle. Make sure that he can easily open and close the lid himself. Teach him to check that it's closed properly (he'll forget and every single child has incidences of their school bag getting flooded by a leaky water bottle, but it's worth a try!) I work in primary school and have lost count of the number of flooded bags/sodden reading books I have sorted out after some child happily shoved their bottle in upside down! Make sure the bottle is clearly labelled with name, you wouldn't believe how many children bring the same make or colour of water bottle and they tend to all get put in a tray together in the classroom for easy access. We bless parents with very obviously labelled bottles.

Early years and KS1 children get free fruit/veg snacks and they get milk in early years. You can put in extra snacks if you like. Most of the schools I've worked in only allowed fruit/veg snacks from home like an apple, carrot sticks, box of raisins etc. However, where I work now they can bring in anything so they bring in crisps and chocolate bars, which I'm not enthused about but I'm not in charge!

My son is a very busy boy (adhd) and always hungry. So I send him in with a sandwich/wrap for his break time. He eats that along with a piece of fruit which is provided by the school.

The school lunches are very small portions so his break time snack doesn't stop him from eating his lunch.

We found that a mini carabiner clip on the outside of the book bag minimised the chances of the contents getting drenched by a leaking water bottle. Yes to a spare. Although I seem now to have a house full of half water bottles that don’t fit to make whole ones…

I think you'll need to check with the school tbh. Try an email to the office as it may get seen Friday.

Our schools you weren't allowed to send anything in yrR-2 as they had the fruit/veg at snack. But it sounds like other schools are different.

I work in Reception part-time; he needs a labelled water bottle, milk or water and fruit is provided usually before playtime, and they're normally first in for lunch at 12. They're encouraged to drink water throughout the day at appropriate times (so they get to know that going to get a drink during work time is discouraged, unless they have a cough, etc)