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

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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?

Ours go up after to get pudding
But no they don't have to ask

Yes, good manners. We always asked at home as well as asking to leave the table.

Where have good manners and expectations gone?

My entire primary school had about 260 kids in it, compared to my local which has 950 and is roughly the same size

I don't know why they don't let the kids have smart phones really, and just Deliveroo their own individual orders

Half the kids where I work don't like the puddings anymore than they like the mains!

Hot dinners have to ask, packed lunches don't (which is weird imo).

There's a general rule once they've eaten half their main we can say yes to pudding but tbh you get to know the children and who eats what or how much is normal for them so it's very much a judgement call on each individual child. Personally I'm very averse to forcing anyone to eat.

I've had school puddings. We're often offered leftovers and I rarely accept (only if it's choc crunch!). Most puddings are not THAT nice due to the restrictions around what goes into the food.

Puddings don't have half the E numbers etc they had in my day, so not as tasty and small portions too (looking back to my lunches at Primary school on the day when we had liver for main and chocolate Krispie cake with fake cream on top, I don't eat liver, didn't eat chocolate in those days, so just ate the cream on my pudding and any other cream from friend's puddings!)

We were trained to sit quietly until all the table finished their main course, then we were given pudding.

Unfortunately the metal jug of custard would be skimmed down the melamine- topped table ( wet from spilled water) rather than handed, so it aquaplaned brilliantly - once landing in the lap of the girl at the far end...

Liver! Still love it.
We were given ox heart too. That was rather less pleasing...

I wouldn’t be happy with children being coerced into eating all of their dinner if they didn’t want it. Trying a bit of everything would be enough.

@AgileGreenSeal I don’t think any schools make them eat all their main, but try and encourage if they have hardly touched it, and will keep an eye on children who consistently leave most of their food, so can let parents know they aren’t eating much at lunchtime

If this wasn't a rule you'd see most of the kids eat one bite of their dinner then go straight for the pudding 🤣 you want your child to eat nothing but cake for lunch? Hardly healthy is it.
I always laugh when I see people online claiming kids should be allowed to eat whatever they want whenever kind of line of thinking 95% of kids would eat nothing but ice cream and haribos if you actually followed that through. No thanks ticktock influencers I'll keep "emotionally blackmailing" them into actually eating a proper Meal

I was not only talking of school desserts more in general, it does depend on the school as well some are better than others.

No, it's not. Nowhere else have you mentioned that anyone has to clear their plate. See, total projection.

We will have to agree to disagree there then won't we? As for me if there is veggies and none has been eaten then no they don't understand the difference enough to make an informed decision.

On the other hand nor am I of the "clean your plate brigade". So if a good effort has been made then yes dessert is fine.

I also do not serve dessert daily.

One of the main benefits of the universal school meals is that it encourages children to try foods they previously haven't liked or never tried before. It's good practice to encourage children to try the main course and eat as much as they want before moving to the pudding.

As an aside, children who have barely eaten at lunch rarely cope well in the afternoon lessons so any encouragement is a good thing.

To clarify, I do not advocate forcing or shaming.

Just asked DS1...same rule at his school. Personally, I'm happy as DS2 is fussy and would go straight for pudding otherwise!

Wow I opened this thread expecting to hear that no this wasn’t normal and I’m really shocked
what an awful foundation for our children’s relationship with food.
either the pudding is for everyone, or if it’s so bad for them that they need to earn it then don’t offer a pudding.
Food imo is not something you need to earn (and based on whose opinion? What makes them the expert on children’s nutrition?) nor do you need to finish food you don’t want. Also your child left some chips, I’d be annoyed if someone said my dc couldn’t have some fruit for their pudding because they didn’t eat enough chips?!

Can I ask why they are served their pudding with their main course. I know it's not the point of the thread but just asking as that seems so unusual.

My local primary school has exactly 2 hours to feed 950 children.

They don't have the time or the space for kids to be queuing up twice.

Because in most schools they are trying to give all pupils the chance to eat in an hour and having them go back for a pudding Just isn’t realistic

I have a child who just wants to play. If school didn't ask them to show that they had had some main he'd just eat the pudding and then dash out and be starving shortly afterwards.
School don't expect clean plates. They do expect kids to have at least tried some of it.

Some people are overreacting. It’s not like the olden days when children had to stay at the table until they had eaten every morsel on their plate. There is gentle encouragement if they haven’t really touched anything but they won’t be stopped eating their pudding if they don’t want to eat their main

Yes, we highly encourage the eating of the main food before the eating of the pudding.
Most of our reception class kids seem to be able to exist on fresh air. If they ate the pudding first that would be all that got eaten!

Interesting thread.

We avoid labelling food good and bad (or healthy and treat food) as a similar experience in my own childhood left me with an unhealthy relationship with food and diet. A nanny encouraged me not to (always) give now 3yo DS food in order and sometimes just to give him everything and the variety in his diet improved.

We are trying to choose a school now and school menu at our catchment school is full of UPFs (nuggets, hot dogs, burgers, pizza, etc) and the puddings tend to be better or certainly no worse than the mains. So I guess it depends on the school. I'd be pretty pissed off if DS was denied apple crumble because he hadn't eaten chicken nuggets.

I always think looking at breakfasts around the world is a really interesting way to look at food in general. I used to live in Asia where curry for breakfast was usual. Why do we label things suitable for breakfast? Or pudding? Why can't we eat sweet things first?