Is it normal for primary schools to make children ask permission to eat their puddings?

[ShoopShoopShoopShoop]

DS has started reception. New parents were invited to lunch. Lovely.
The head teacher then told us the rules. They have to eat their main, then raise their hands and ask permission to eat dessert. And if the teacher decides they've eaten enough main they're "allowed" to eat pudding.

My DS just sat down and ate his biscuit before I realised, then ate his dinner (he left 2 chips).

Anyway whoops 😬

Is this normal though?

It’s probably quite old fashioned but our Reception children do similar.

Yes, very normal. Many little ones, left to their own devices, would eat little or no main with the temptation of pudding in front of them!

Yes my DCs primary school does this. I don't think its really strict (DS told me with glee that he was still allowed pudding on friday after leaving some of his peas).
I'm happy with it. Its the same rule we have at home.

Yes normal. As above, if they didn’t have to eat their main first they wouldn’t!

All schools my kids have been to have done this

Our school has got rid of daily puddings, apart from fruit which I'm glad about. I think they don't ask them but encourage them to eat mains first.

My dd has ASD and ARFID and most days only eats the dessert we’ve made it very clear they are not to make her do anything in any order or even have other food on her plate so if she picks yogurt and bread every day and nothing else so be it as those are safe foods ! They shouldn’t be creating a situation for any child where the dessert holds value and needs permission? Surely if it’s healthy eg yogurt or fruit why does it matter what order it’s eaten in if it forms part of a balanced meal

Yes that’s normal. These days they get their pudding at the same time. When I was at school you went up for pudding separately so there was no temptation to eat pudding first. It’s to stop chn filling up on sweet stuff first. Personally I think puddings have no place in school lunches unless fruit or natural yoghurt.

I agree. Lots of children would absolutely only eat the pudding if given the choice. I don't think it's a terrible policy as it also enables the dinner staff to keep an eye on who is not eating much so they can report back to the class teachers.

I agree and I was so pleased when our school decided to only offer yogurt and / or fruit

We do it at our school too. Its more to do with keeping an eye on how much the children are eating than anything, so we can feed back to parents if there are any problems. One little boy last year barely ate any of the cooked lunches,we were able to let his parents know and they switched him to packed lunch which worked better all round.

Also, if a child hasn't eaten very well the Reception teachers might give them a piece of fruit when they go back to the classroom/keep an eye on them to make sure they aren't ill, etc.

Our kids have to show their main plates and go up to get dessert, so same principle; they need to have eaten enough to get puddings.

We spoke to them when Ds2 was in Reception, as he hated some of the mains and they weren't letting him have dessert at all, in the hope it would encourage him to eat. He ended up repeatedly not eating anything, which was apparently preferable to him eating dessert. We now send packed lunches.

Yes they have to at my DCs school. However it is such a non event in their lives that I didn’t know until I asked them for this thread.

Apparently you don’t have to eat all your main but you do have to show you’ve made an effort to eat some. Seems reasonable to me- assuming of course that they make exceptions on a case by case basis for individual needs which it sounds like they do.

Normal in our school, and we have the same rule at home. You don't fill up on puddings.

Yes, this was normal in first few years at DS’s school. I think some kids would just eat pudding to take the edge off their hunger and not bother with the main if they didn’t try and enforce it a bit.

It's hard to appreciate til you've seen it just how little some children eat of their main...as in two forkfuls in KS2. With encouragement they will at least eat a little bit. Medical issues aside, I don't believe any children hate, to the point of not being able to eat, all of say plain pasta, a plain piece of bread, sweetcorn, cucumber and chicken . It's reasonable to ask them to choose at least one of those things to eat so they're not absolutely starving. Our puddings are still served separately, as a point of interest.

I'm more surprised that the staff have time to say yes or no to each individual child.

I'm also curious to know what happens to the puddings that aren't eaten. Surely there must be a huge amount of waste each day, as lots of children will only eat a small amount of their dinner.

I asked DD and she said “Um, I forgot, I don’t know.” So no idea; feels familiar from my own childhood but goes against what we do at home – I don’t like pudding being treated as a reward for eating a main course as it sets up a psychological battle that savoury food is a slog/punishment/not nice but you battle through it for the fun part. In any case DD will eat pudding then a main course quite easily, or have the yoghurt/raisins/biscuit part of a lunch box at a cafe then the sandwich and veg sticks, so would potentially be furious if she were policed like this. Then again, she likes rules and going with the crowd. I don’t think it’s a great policy but I don’t suppose schools have much choice when up against fussy eaters and slow eaters, and the need to get them to eat something fuelling and nutritious. School puddings are nutritious and low/no sugar anyway, though.

Them asking gives a chance to check how much they have eaten so if nothing has been eaten class teacher can be told incase they seem hungry during the afternoon - also allows for patterns to be noticed. If Fred always orders pasta but never eats it we can talk to him about maybe ordering something different!

@wings There is a higher ratio of staff to the new reception chn this term. Yes there is a huge amount of waste daily. But you can’t force chn to eat. Lots of waste comes from parents because they order a meal or school packed lunch and then send their chn in with a home packed lunch . We try to eat some in the staff room but it’s overwhelming sometimes. I hate waste.

Why would you not want this to happen? Do you give your son pudding first at home?

In the old days we used to go up for mains first then up again for puddings. Schools are rammed full now so not enough time to get everyone through, so they get a tray with everything on at once.

My dd would only eat the biscuit given the choice and then would be hangry and on some sort of sugar come down about 40 mins later so I appreciated this rule.

So interesting to read this thread because they definitely don't do this at my DC's school. She's in yr1 now and she's often told me last year of other children who were eating their puddings and not much of their mains and asking me why they were doing that. She's quite 'rule'-orientated so can't see her ever doing that, even if there's something she doesn't like she will just eat the bland component of the meal at least e.g. bread before her pudding. But I do wonder if our school don't have that rule does that mean the kids are being supervised less whilst they eat? Not so big an issue for older children but I'd want to know if my reception age child for example was repeatedly barely touching their lunch.

Also at home we have the same rule generally away, dessert isn't offered unless the kids have eaten close to all of their main meal (excluding any component I know they don't like). However I appreciate it's a bit different at home because when I cook I know I generally make meals I know they like so if they're not eating it then I know they're just full and then they don't need any extra. Whereas not necessarily the case at school especially for children who are very fussy eaters.

There is a higher ratio of staff to the new reception chn this term. Yes there is a huge amount of waste daily. But you can’t force chn to eat.

It might work when you have extra staff for reception. I'm just not sure how it works when the staff ratios are much smaller. In our school there's often 2 MDS staff for 60 children.

I also appreciate there will always be waste if children don't eat it. But if they have to eat a certain amount of their dinner first, then there must be a lot of children who don't actually get a chance to even try their puddings?

This is so old fashioned. Please ask the school why they are communicating the idea that the savoury course is something to be endured and that the sweet course is a prize to aim for. It’s teaching unhealthy thinking about food.

Its been trendy for a while now to think the way you do, and without exception every parent i know who has taken your approach and 'not rewarded with pudding' has ended up with quite a picky eater who has no incentive to try things.
In practice, telling children they need to try a bit of the main if they want the pudding actually works very well, and no it doesn't end up with kids who view savoury food as a' slog' 😂
There's a reason schools do it, if you let children just graze on fruit/yoghurt (fruit is naturally full of sugar!) many fill up on these and don't eat enough of the starchy carbs, proteins and veg that they need for a balanced diet.
Sometimes you do need to bribe them a bit to try new foods! I did, and now mine love a whole range of veg and really nice savoury flavours, and these days as they get older puddings have just diminshed in value as they love loads of different foods.