Does your child skip lunch due to queues?

[Schoolcanteen]

DC’s school has 1,600 pupils. Lunch is at 1.20 -2.20 for all of them, so many are ravenous already. There is one period after lunch, so I understand why many might just wait until they get home or get something on
the way home, due to the queues and late lunchtime. The canteen opens at 8.10, but the playground line up to go to class finishes by 8.20, so it’s a bit pointless trying to get something for later. How hungry is your child and have you made the reluctant switch to packed lunches? Is our school an outlier in trying to cater for this many kids in such a short window or is this just how things are? There are also a few food vans dotted around, but the queues are very long too.

When my DD was at secondary, there was always huge queues for the loos as well. DD mostly brought a packed lunch to avoid the canteen chaos.

I did a lot of supply, both queuing and staggering have advantages and disadvantages.

Long queues means some will not get a meal but staggering often means kids out side classrooms while others are still in class.

One school I was at had a lunch break in the middle of a lesson! Crazy idea.

I'm thinking back to my own school days and we actually had two dining places.

What would now be year 7 - 9 are in the 'junior dinging room' which was the original canteen that could be divided in to three classrooms. We had rota of which class were fed first so you didn't really queue until the group in front of you were eating.

The school had quite an extensive extension built with two common rooms with a kitchen in between them. One was used as a senior dining room.

I can't imagine a school having two separate kitchens these days but a split serving location surely makes sense?

I've seen what look like garden sheds be used in playgrounds to serve fast food type dinners that students eat walking round the play ground.

I wonder if something similar to the way some Japanese schools operate could work? The class has a few children who go to the kitchen to get the heated trolly that they take back to the classroom. These children are all wearing PPE and they serve the food.

I don't think that would work with children but trollies that go around the classrooms might work. Sorry early morning ramblings.

Our school has diners for each year. Year 7 only, 8-9, 10-11 and sixth form.

Still queuing as it’s lot of kids to feed in 30 mins

Mine go in shifts to the lunchroom but it’s still a rush as their lunch time is short. We get our DS14 to take a sandwich in so at least he eats if the queue is too long to wait

Mine just started secondary school. Only 800 students. Tiny compared to the other schools above. They get 40mins at lunch and 20 mins morning break. DC takes a packed lunch with the option to buy lunch a couple of times per week. (It's just too expensive for what they're getting).

DC said the queues are ridiculous and does lunch clubs as well. So only usually has 15mins to eat. Has decided to maybe buy a snack a couple of times per week rather than lunch due to how long the queue is.

They can eat in the canteen or several covered outdoor spaces. So far DC has only ever eaten outside because the year 10/11s are usually always inside. It's going to be savage in the winter.

Same at my daughters school. They only have a 30 minute lunch. After the first full day of her not getting time to get lunch, and her friends giving her some crisps she is now packed lunch.

She has to make it though.

This was the same when I was at a large school 15+ years ago. Everyone had the same lunch hour and staggered times where introduced for when you could go queue up, but the people from previous times would still be queueing so anyone with later times would never get to order. Everyone either brought packed lunch or waited until after school to go get food.

At least yours get an hour, my DS only gets 30 minutes! He often queues for 27 minutes and inhales his food walking to the next lesson. There have been many complaints for years, but nothing has ever changed.
Other DS has 40 minutes for lunch, but will at least take packed lunches. He eats standing in the field though because he can't handle the noise from the queues in the dining hall.

I think it’s a universal issue. My DC’s secondary have a lunch for lower school and a lunch for upper. That still makes around 600 kids queuing and waiting in a 40 minute session.

She said the queue is shorter at break (no free school meal children) so she gets something hot then and I pack her snacks to eat at lunch. Also works out cheaper because a sausage roll is £1.20 but a ‘lunch’ meal is £3.

The thing is that the teachers get to eat in peace. Maybe alongside some marking or planning, but they aren't starving all day despite using far fewer calories. TAs, less so.

Idk but I skipped my packed lunch every day of secondary school because there was nowhere to eat but the canteen and it was considered embarrassing to go there and eat. I actually don’t remember a single one of my friends eating lunch for 7 years.

Back in the depths of history at my big comprehensive 1500 pupils in the early 80s we had a longer lunchtime IIRC around 1hr 25 mins, we finished later as a result so finishing at 4pm. Aged 13-16 I went home for lunch. I only occasionally stayed for lunchtime clubs and queued for food but it wasn't that long and still got food and ate. It was a 10 min walk home. We moved when I went into 6th form and 6th formers could eat in the common room.

I remember how if your year had the last queue time you just didn't get time to eat. For various reasons I think lunch skipping is really common at secondary school.

Our school has cut lunchtime to 30 mins and it’s a large school, so yes the children struggle. Mine have to take packed lunch unless their lesson before lunch is next to the hall, which isn’t ideal. I have one child who has after school activities straight from school lasting all evening for a couple of days a week and has packed dinner, so it isn’t ideal that they can’t get a hot meal at lunchtime.

I never had this issue when I was at school.

Secondary schools are a nightmare for this.

Theoretically, our school has forty minutes for lunch (1:20-2) but they blow the whistle ten minutes early so really it’s half an hour. Break is a paltry twelve minutes (should be twenty.) I hate it; God knows how the kids feel!

My dc secondary school is now a 30 minute lunch break reduced from 40 minutes last year. Absolutely impossible to get lunch. And toilets are only unlocked at break times which also means huge queues

My ASD and ADHD child wasn’t coping with the huge queue or the noise level so now has a priority pass that allows him to go to the front of the queue. He was having to run from the lesson before lunch to the canteen and the queue was still long. He eats in the lunch club classroom which is for those with SEN, or outside
Theres 2 canteens for around 1500 students and the year 7s go earlier but its still overwhelmingly busy and the queue very long.
He could take a packed lunch but gets free schools meals and prefers a hot lunch.

What has it got to do with teachers? They don't have any say over lunch arrangements. When I worked in massive secondary schools, I never set foot in the school canteen and had no idea who was in charge of lunch logistics. The form council rep would take any complaints to the school council and presumably their complaints were passed on.

I think we need to seriously question where we normalise that children are less well fed than the adults. Personally, I couldn't sit down and eat a meal at work knowing that children as young as 11 are skipping lunch because there is no point in trying to queue and wolf down your food.

I think it says a lot about where we are heading as a society.

Mine take a packed lunch because of this. The queues are astronomical, they only get 30 mins for lunch as it is and by the time they reach the front there’s nothing decent left. That said, they stagger age groups so don’t make them all go at once.

What would you have us do though? I’m genuinely asking, not trying to be in any way provocative.

Honestly? All teachers to say the timetable needs to change so children can eat properly and you aren't prepared to work until they are afforded this basic humanity. Or allow children to bring food and eat in your classrooms to make up for the fact they aren't given a decent meal time.

All problematic, yes. But we are starving kids to get grades at this point.

There is only 30 minutes for lunch in high schools here. Mine don’t eat at school as just no time.

@Lexibletheflexible even if we did (and I think you may be underestimating how difficult that would be in huge secondary schools with no staff room, part time teachers on different days, at least two different teaching unions and some not even in a union!) SLT aren’t going to pay any attention!

Do you think your anaesthetist is responsible for the hospital food and do you question a nurses morality when you see them in a privileged position of eating their pack lunch? Or do you think that maybe the crapness of the hospital food is the responsibility of administrators, budget holders and the catering team? It is no different in schools. Teachers are responsible for the education bit, not the catering. They bring in a pack lunch or go to Tescos, just like the kids who don't like the lunch situation. Some raise it as a one of the many concerns they have about schools.