Food parcel from school

[buddybean]

My 5yo DD has been poorly and has not been attending school since Tuesday. Today someone from school came over to see her and gave us a food parcel. I am confused why did they give it? I couldn't ask them straight because my 1yr old was crying like crazy and they just left saying hope to see her at school tomorrow and this is a food parcel for you. What do I do with it as it has stuff that I do not use except for the tea bag and sugar! Do I return it to them? I'm new to this whole thing as she just started school.

@buddybean it does seem daft for them to be sending out parcels randomly as (like yourself) not everyone needs them or will use the food in it. It's actually quite wasteful as not everyone will have the means to return the parcel/pass it on/donate to a foodbank so it could potentially end up being chucked away.
Hope your little girl feels better soon 💐

OP, this is the teacher being diplomatic.

Why are you ignoring everyone who's telling you it was definitely a welfare check. You need to address the amount of time DD has off. Get her back to the GP, you can't just keep taking "she's fine" as an answer from them and keeping her off school.

The charity I work for issues food parcels. This is not how it works.

I think they probably take them for all welfare checks now. Quicker and easier to drop a food parcel off than find out the family are struggling and have to go back and pick it up and some schools also have a surplus of stuff depending on which charity / church they are linked with.

I'm not on a low income but as a single parent if DD was ill I'd struggle to get to the shops (DD was at Primary pre-deliveroo days) a staple food parcel like that would be great for cobbling a meal together until I could get back to the shops.

It's possibly also to diffuse negative situations, People don't like being checked on but it's harder to be unpleasant when you've just been given something for free even if you dont know what it is yet.

You can't get the school to believe your Dds frequent illnesses because they have to follow government policy and staff aren't allowed to use their commonsense. You should be sending in evidence of GP appointments though even if it's an emailed screenshot confirmation of an appointment from your phone.

@WillYouPutYourCoatOn it can be how it works though. My old school used to send parcels home to students for all sorts of reasons.
We had one family whose parents both had serious illnesses involving hospital stays and sent them home food and gifts for all children in the family at Christmas etc they weren't on low incomes but they did need a bit of TLC

Sometimes it's nice to be nice.

There may be exceptions.

This is a welfare check. OP got told this by the school, but now seems to be ignoring this and is more concerned that anyone might think she's "poor" and returning the food.

Her DD is missing chunks of school.

If your child has had multiple absences for minor illnesses then yes, it was a safeguarding visit to check on the welfare of your child. The staff have a duty of care to make sure that a frequently absent child isn’t being abused, they will have visited to see the child and ensure their safety.

@WillYouPutYourCoatOn I am not ignoring anything. I did speak to the teacher about her progress at school and the teacher told me she's quite happy with her and no concerns. I also told her I'm worried about her missing the school and her being poorly quite often is not helping to which the teacher said there's a bug going on and only half of her class could make it this whole week!

Being poor is not a sin. I just want the parcel to reach a needy family rather than being wasted by lying in the cupboard!

At our school we sent all students with a food parcel - we knew some parents wouldn't want it but those who didn't just sent it back

@ADHDASCBAMEWoman that just seems a very time consuming and wasteful way of distributing food.
Some won't need the parcels or won't use what was sent. It might not be practical or convenient/easy for them to return to the school, donate elsewhere, pass on etc.
A lot will sit in peoples cupboards before finally being chucked away.

It's probably a mistake. I'm a Foster Carer and my FS is at college. He's classed as a vulnerable DC because he is looked after. He got sent vouchers at Xmas and Easter even though we are not short of money. He also gets £15 per week on a card he can use at college. He is embarrassed because one of his friends just misses the finance cut off for the free college meals but his parents don't put money on his card and sometimes he only brings an apple. FS sometimes buys his friend a wrap or jacket potato and filling. I did enquire if he was really entitled to these vouchers at Xmas and Easter but told after all DC who fulfil low finances have been given vouchers they have some money left and decision was taken by college to give to all looked after DC vouchers and weekly money too.

I would email the school and say you thank but we don’t actually need the food parcel. See if they can accept it back, or donate it a food bank.

Hope your DC feels better very soon.

@AdoraBell this thread is from months ago. I expect that food has long been eaten by now.

Is it any wonder that schools have no money when they spending it on food parcels for teachers and families who don’t need them? Jesus.

Ah, I missed when the thread was started 🤦‍♀️