Free School Meals & Bullying

[CouldRightEatASchoolDinnerNow]

Inspired by another thread as the reason a child won't eat FSM and has to eat the OP out of house and home.

In my school, no one had an opinion on them, it was just another form of getting your lunch - some went home, some went to the shop, some bought from the snack bar, some had packed lunch, some paid for dinners and some had FSM.

We had one queue, but there was a table at the start of it with a load of cards, everyone on FSM had one and you'd flip through the box to find yours then hand it to the dinner lady at the till. I do vaguely remember tickets like the ones you win in arcades, but not sure what they were now.

Our dinners were £2.25 iirc correctly and you could choose anything, I dont think there were things not included, but you got a main and side/s and a pudding or cheese & crackers.

But no one bullied anyone over lunches, it wasn't a thing in my school, maybe because it wasn't a particularly affluent area? Aad a lot on MN are in nicer areas so those kids are more likely to feel others will shame them?

I don't remember any shame being attached to the FSM or the free bus pass that we got, or the vouchers for school uniform. I also don't know anyone that this would have been a thing at their school, as I had a lot of friends in other schools.

So if you had FSM when you were at school, was there this awful bullying that a lot on here reckon no one eats them because of?

Nobody got bullied at my school for having free school meals, I went to a London school with children who come from very well off families but also children who lived in social housing.
At my school there was one queue for everyone but the kids on free school meals got a silver disc to hand in instead of cash, this was in the 80s/90s.
At my son's school lunches were cashless, you used a fingerprint to pay, the money then came from an account I put money into, the FSM worked in the same way.
I thought some of the comments on that thread were crazy.. painting it out like children on FSM and getting the bus are similar to some sort of workhorse dickens character. I've also just read a thread where people are saying it's rude to not pay for a teenage daughter's boyfriends meal when the op has said she can't really afford it and the 18 year old can because he has a job. A lot of privilege on these types of threads.

We had to queue separately for FSM and yea we were mercilessly bullied. There weren't many of us, partly because it was a very middle class school, and partly because many just didn't eat. My friend and I used to get there first, run in and grab the takeaway packs they did (a sandwich, a biscuit and a juice with not a single vegetable in sight) and then dash out and find somewhere quiet to eat. That was in year 11 onwards because at that point my mum really could not afford to pay. Prior to that I refused them and my mum gave me money or sent me with a packed lunch.
The way things are done now is so much better as no one knows.

I think the FSM kids had a card they showed, but no one was bothered. However one family who obviously used the secondhand school shop were marginalised... but it was only part of it. If they had been "cooler" or kept their heads down types, I don't think people would have bothered. By obvious I mean they deliberately chose outdated items over more recent donations)

DDs school... FSM just means money is their account, whereas everybody else the parent puts it on.

However... they changed the school badge last year. Its going to be very obvious for the next few years who has a hand down or secondhand blazer and who has a new one in Yr7.

Can't the badges be unpicked and a new one sown on? Thats what mine were, I think my mum only bought one badge and it was put on every blazer I had. That's ridiculous if its printed on.

It’s all cashless payments at my DC’s schools now.

So when the secondary school kids are paying for their lunches it’s all done with a thumbprint and - unless the child volunteers the information themselves - no one’s going to be able to tell whether the money in their account is FSM or whether their parents have added it.

@CouldRightEatASchoolDinnerNow they are embroidered onto the pocket.
However fortunately a new blazer is only £26. The school uniform is relatively cheap... if you wear trousers. They only need the blazer tie and pe tshirt from the uniform shop.... that comes to £42 total. (Then generic shirts, trousers, joggers, shorts, trainers etc)
Unfortunately £42 is money not all families have.

Weirdly yes. At primary I remember a lot of talk about FSM and I was the odd one out as I didn’t get them and yes this was another reason to bully me unfortunately.

Do they not do the school uniform grant anymore then?

The FSM children were called the freeloaders at my secondary school, though that was years ago. I presumed things had changed since and those on FSM wouldn’t be identifiable because most schools use the same swipe card or token system for all pupils and nobody knows whether the account is topped up by parents or with free credit.?

In my day we had dinner tickets. THis is probably what you thought of OP when you said they were like the things you get in arcades.

I can't remember how those on FSM did it but I had to take in cash on the Monday morning and buy 5 tickets, one for each day.

I assume the FSM kids were just issued them without payment.

There wasn't much choice so it would be sausage mash and peas or pie and chips and then pudding would be usually a sponge pudding with custard or jelly with fruit.

It wasn't unknown for the kids who brought a packed lunch in, to swap it for a dinner ticket if it was something they particularly liked.

At my school there was a lot of stigma, only one or two in my class got them and they got called to the front every morning to get a special ticket thing. It must have felt humiliating for those children.

At my DC’s school it’s free school meals until P5 (Scotland) so no stigma as everyone is treated the same. I think once past that point (not 100% sure as my two have packed lunches) it’s a pre pay card, so parents load money on using an app and the children who qualify for FSM have the same card. I think it works better that way.

no one bullied anyone over lunches you may not have witnessed it but there was plenty of bullying over poverty and FSM back in the day.

The public shaming around it was awful when I was at school.

Never any bullying in our school. We’re in Scotland so at the start of the week fsm ‘dinner tickets’ were handed out. They were coloured cards and had a little tear off part for each day. Often in secondary someone was trying to sell the ticket so they could go to the shops with their mates. I never bought one as I knew one of the dinner ladies so it might have got confiscated. They were worth about £1 this was the early 90’s though.

Oh the FSM in my day were awful. There was no hot food at our senior school and the FSM was a paper plate covered in clingfilm usually containing a battered looking satsuma, a sandwich and some ultra cheap crisps. Taking them was seen as utterly shameful sadly.
Kids are absolute bastards at that age.

I wasn’t a FSM kid, there weren’t huge numbers as I remember but it must’ve been awful. I think a lot of them probably got stashed in bags and eaten out of sight.

It probably still goes on but with most schools now using fingerprint/cashless payment there is no way to tell who has FSM and who gets their parents to pay. Which for once is a nice thing that technology has improved on.

Not in my school. Everyone was pretty much in the same boat.

There was one family though that were picked on because they smelled. There was a kid from that family in each year and they all had dirty clothes and smelled.

The girl in my year, was in my class and she said her dad had allergies against scent, but I think they just couldn't afford to wash their clothes/themselves.

Our dinners were pretty ok! Pizza, burgers, fishfingers, sausage rolls, pies, flan, chips and beans, or 'roast' with 2 slices meat, veg & roast potatoes, we'd have a different sponge each day, sometimes choc or pink custard, and sometimes eclairs. The snack bar did the best chip rolls, and they were 25p!

Nobody would know who was FSM at my school-it’s all cashless.

I can't say for secondary school, but in all the primary schools I worked at, even as the class teacher, I didn't know who got FSM. All the children that requested lunch got served lunch, it was logged on the register, and if a child who should have been paying hadn't been, the office would get in touch with the parent.