Guess what packed lunch item got confiscated and handed to me at the end of the day?

[WhatWasGoneFromTheBox]

DD aged 8 almost 9 (end of July), Year 4. Has SN incase it's relevant.

Packed lunch of:

Leftover Chicken in a white roll
2 finger kitkat
Sliced up grapes
Cucumber Sticks
Babybel
Carton of juice
Dip Pot of ketchup (for the sandwich)

Usually school don’t take items off children because the HT says she used to send her own DC to primary school with packed lunches and she hated having stuff taken from their lunch boxes – it’s a mainstream LA primary but higher than average number of SN/EHCPs according to most recent ofsted (December 22) so they’re generally understanding about fussiness/SN issues. DD has only once before had something confiscated.

So what did the lunch staff take issue with from DDs lunch?

There’s not much difference between Fanta and juice, both are full of sugar.

How do people still not know this stuff?

Like they read the title and think oh good, Discussion on the discovery of Lanthanides and Actinides.

😂

I think the OP is having us on. C'mon OP fess up!

7 pages and the OP still hasn’t said.

OP - guess who your husband is sha*ng? I’ll let you know in 7 pages of comments. Maybe.

This isn’t true right? It sounds completely bonkers and my child is due to start next year so I have no experience, but I assume it isn’t true.

Suggest you read OPs posts. She has said

FFS.

That is all.

No child of mine would have any food taken from them more than twice, because the school would be having a firm polite warning from me the first time and a solicitor's letter the second. (I make an exception for items that are really a health and safety issue, such as whole nuts for under 7s or when there is a person with severe nut allergy in the school when this has been advised to parents in advance or in an emergency situation.)

In my opinion, it's theft (from the parents who paid for it) and extremely unethical to take food from a child for such trivial (and in this case unscientific) reasons by unqualified (in nutrition) staff. And no-one's business but parents' what is in a packed lunch. This nonsense needs to stop and for it to stop, you younger parents need to work together to make it stop, en masse. (So sorry you have to deal with this - we didn't!)

There's at least one other topic where on Mumsnet and elsewhere it is being pointed out, and utilised with good effect, that it is illegal for a school to remove parental rights without a court order.

Well, do a parent's rights not include choosing what their child will have to eat? i.e. school dinners as per the advertised menus, or something provided from home?! So, try putting it in those terms - that the school is unlawfully removing your parental rights by 'policing' your child's lunchboxes, and that you won't stand for it.

[Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and I haven't tried this approach myself because my children went to school before the complete madness took over.]

I really hope there has been a misunderstanding, because this is awful if true. Removing the perfectly healthy main part of a child's lunch and leaving them hungry for absolutely nonsense reasons? What on earth?

I’d be formally complaining and asking to see the dietician qualifications of the lunch staff who are policing the pack lunches. Schools should be talking to the parents if they have concerns about what is being provided, not confiscating food from a child who has had nothing to do with what’s packed!

remember healthy food only

Apart from the issue of right (or not) to police children's lunchboxes (as above), the other crux of the matter is that these people aren't actually qualified in nutrition, plus they don't know what else is going to be provided at the rest of the daily meals or the weekend or in the holidays, won't have assessed what this individual child's metabolic needs are, or even whether they have PE or an active afterschool club that day, and seemingly don't understand that there is no such thing as "unhealthy food" per se, because it's the balance that is required across the entire diet that is important. Children's nutritional requirements aren't the same as adults' and children particularly need a decent amount of calories to get through the school day and the meal was balanced (or would have been!) enough while also being enticing enough to also get eaten in the relatively short amount of time available.

To those Head Teachers who are far too involved in every bit of minutiae like this, often incorrectly, just get on and teach will you?

I'm guessing grapes - were they sliced horizontally rather than vertically?

Oops! Missed the update! Would never have guessed that! How bizarre!

FFS.

It’s just a joke meanwhile your school canteen serves pizza chips with cake & custard for afters!

Why not just put it in the OP you insufferable oath.

Reminds me of a fellow school mum who was a paediatrician tutting at my dd having oj which wasn’t watered down. (And now the girls are teenagers and mine has no fillings and hers has 4.)

People are a so hostile about 'guessing game' posts, lately. If you don't like them, why bother engaging? Just need a place to dump a little of the day's rage?

And to the point of the thread, confiscating food shouldn't happen unless it somehow poses an actual immediate danger (...somehow?) to the child. Otherwise, what's wrong with sending home an annoying note about the complaint? At least then the poor child doesn't miss out on part of their meal.

I don't think any of that food is unusually high in salt and some salt is necessary anyway, especially in this hot weather.

My son once got a juice taken off him and I know my sisters children’s school aren’t fans of babybels? Is it one of those?

Sorry I totally missed the uptake too. Ridiculous!!!

It’s not so much that kids individual lunchboxes are being policed for most schools.
It’s that school is saying for example (as is the case in our school) ‘our rules are no chocolate, sweets, crisps, cakes, biscuits or nut products in packed lunches’
That's the rules of the school. You know that before you agree to send your child there. Nothing to do with taking away the ‘parental rights’ Don’t like it, find another school.
Its difficult to know what to do.

insufferable "oath"

😂😂😂

The juice; kids should have water mostly and plain milk.

Got to love autocorrect and an inability to edit posts on MN.