Going home for lunch

[MoonriseKingdom]

A school thread reminded me that when I was in primary school (in the 80s) there was at least one child who went home for lunch everyday. I’ve not heard of that happening in years and I was wondering if it was still a thing and if not when it stopped being allowed?

I’m also curious if anyone here went home for lunches at school? My parents both worked full time but I would have loved to not have a school dinner. Did you get a cooked lunch at home? How did you feel - did you wish you were at school playing with your friends? Now I’m a parent it feels like it would be a pain to have to do the school run that many times!

I went home every day in Primary 6 and 7 as we moved house and it was so close. Home made soup and semolina and peaches were a favourite. Or maybe pie and beans and Eve’s pudding and custard.My mum worked evenings and was always home in the day. I loved it and it was very common at the time. I’m a teacher and no one ever goes home at my school.

I went home for lunch! Not all throughout primary school but probably for the first three years or so, so mid 80s. My dad used to leave his work, pick me and my brother up and take us home. Then we'd have lunch (usually sandwiches) and he'd drop us back at school on his way back to work. What an absolute faff it must have been! I think maybe my parents just didn't want to pay for school lunches for two kids.

I taught a child recently who did. Didn't last long. I think the child felt they were missing out on what was going on at school.

That sounds lovely!
My mum was a teacher so although I never got to go home for lunch I did love the holidays when she was at home.

I can’t imagine many people get long enough lunch breaks to do that now! I certainly eat at my desk and don’t really stop except to make a coffee

DD is Yr10 and throughout primary one of the children in her class went home for lunch every day.

I went home for lunch as my mum was a cm. It was lovely to go home, see mum, watch the kids midday tv and have my lunch. We only lived 5 mins walk away and sometimes my bf came too. It really broke the day up and I loved it. The good ole days when lunch was 12pm until 1 30!

Yes, true. We lived in a really small place though, so Dad's work to school to home would have been a 10 minute drive if that. Doable in a rushed lunch hour!
I think now more people who work outside the home have much longer commutes so it wouldn't be practical.

Loads of primary kids still do it where I am in Scotland.
The secondary ones go down the town to Subway, bakery or chipper to buy the most unhealthy rubbish available.

Yes every day in senior school
My back gate opened onto the school field. Me and my friends would go to eat lunch and smoke at my house.

It happened at my school in the mid/late 90's.

A few at primary, only those who lived really close (or were badly behaved). Loads at secondary.

I always loved too far, but would have loved too. I went for lunch at 6th form when I had a free period after lunch.

In primary, you had to answer the register with either "school dinners", "packed lunch" or "home dinners" depending on what you were doing.

I had a couple friends who went home for lunch that was in late 90s early 2000s in secondary school, years 7-13 (A-levels)

A handful went home for lunch when my DC were going through the primary years

Since the introduction of the free buss pass for under 22s we have lots of high school kids taking the bus down to the high street and back again at lunch - it’s a total nightmare for ordinary passengers and no doubt the driver. Lots of complaints about it but not much can be done.

I used to go home from Primary school, and actually did quite a bit in secondary (1 hour lunch break and 15/20 minutes between home and school in secondary).
I really don’t know how I’d have coped with school without those breaks. Sad my children couldn’t have the same - infants would have been easily manageable but wasn’t really allowed - secondary when my eldest was there if you lived very close you could get a pass, but by the time my last one left the place was like Fort Knox.

It was very common to go home for lunch when I was at primary school in the 70s. It was either school dinners or going home - no packed lunches.

I started teaching about 30 years ago and found that it had changed to school dinners or packed lunches and no going home.

I had a lunch pass to go home. Most of my friends did too. In reality it meant eating packed lunches in a waste ground close to school and smoking, or occasionally going to the local shop for a bag of chips to share and pooling leftover money for cigarettes. We could buy them singly then, or pool money for a pack of 10.

When I was teaching infants in the 80s and 90s, we had 1 hour 15mins at lunchtime.
That has been cut back to either 45mins or to 1 hour in infant schools generally.
Unless you live next door to the school, then you'd be hard pushed to be able to walk home, eat lunch and walk back in time.

Plus statistically, fewer adults have a lunch break.

I was a late 70s, early 80s primary school child.
I went home for lunch most days, and I had something like soup.and a sandwich. Definitely didn't have anything like a home cooked meal. But I remember being a real home body, so I'm thinking I probably went home just because I could.
I occasionally had a school lunch, and genuinely loved them, esp of it was a mac and chips day. I also occasionally did packed lunches, and had a sandwich, some soreen my wee plastic flask which had a cup-a-soup in it 😆