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Allergies and intolerances

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Original poster

free school meals for all primary schools,& banning packed lunch.

19 replies

eragon · 14/01/2014 19:00

how does your food allergic child eat school dinners?
would you be happy if the packed lunch choice was banned?

This has gone through the pilot period and will soon be starting to continue in England.

Run by the school meals trust.

OP posts:
TeWiSavesTheDay · 14/01/2014 19:06

Have you a source for packed lunch being banned?

My daughter currently has packed lunch because I did not feel their 'dairy free' suggestion was nutritionally adequate.

Spottybra · 14/01/2014 19:13

I don't recall anything about packed lunches being banned in the free school meals for KS1.

Isn't that an infringement on our rights as parents to decide and teetering closer to a nanny state? Ds will not be having free school meals because of intolerances. Dd may well love school meals when she starts.

OP posts:
asandwichshort · 14/01/2014 19:26

At our school all of the children who have allergies actually have school dinners and we have never had a problem. The LA and catering firm work out a menu which is acceptable to the particular allergy and our cook has managesdto comply without incident . I don't think they can ban school packed lunches to be honest but they can sanction what is allowed and what is not allowed into the said packed lunch (Healthy packed lunch policy)and failure to comply would result in parents being asked to take the child home for lunch.

TeWiSavesTheDay · 14/01/2014 19:30

There isn't anything in those links that says packed lunches will be banned.

DD will be eligible when the scheme starts and we'll give it a go. She doesn't have anaphylaxis though, if she did I'm not sure that I'd allow it.

TheNightIsDark · 14/01/2014 19:32

Can someone repost with clicky links please? Sorry am on phone Hmm

Original poster
eragon · 14/01/2014 19:47

you could ask on twitter @schFoodPlan @Henry_Leon

wondering how they plan to supply all children with allergies a safe school meal. looking for guidelines and cant find them. if anyone does please post here. thanks.

OP posts:
TheNightIsDark · 14/01/2014 19:50

Thanks.

It doesn't say anything about no packed lunches Confused

DS would be screwed if that was the case. He's under dietician at the moment and we have been advised to give him what he will eat and not make a big deal out of it. He doesn't eat food in sauce (gravy included although exception for baked beans) and is a PITA with meals. Unless the hot meal offerings included a non coated meat with optional gravy he wouldn't eat between breakfast and the end of school!

Jaynebxl · 14/01/2014 19:50

Can't see where you get the idea of banning packed lunch from.

TeWiSavesTheDay · 14/01/2014 19:54

When I asked prior to DD starting our local caterer seemed to have good policies 're avoiding allergens and cross contamination. Unfortunately they seemed not to consider that each of her meals would need to be checked individually to ensure she was getting enough calories/calcium etc, which is something I will address with them to see if they have worked out how they are going to handle it.

colditz · 14/01/2014 19:56

No, no, no.

No.

I have seen the slop they serve up under the guise of a healthy meal, and I'm not making my children eat it.

TeWiSavesTheDay · 14/01/2014 19:57

I was going to leave hassling them until closer to the time though, they will be concentrating on the logistics of all the rest of it first.

Fairylea · 14/01/2014 19:58

Dd just wouldn't eat if they banned packed lunch. She hates school dinners and gets anxious sitting in the canteen.

greenbananas · 14/01/2014 21:26

I know that some catering companies claim to be able to deal with multiple food allergies, but (having met the lovely but untrained catering staff at my local school, and seen them in action) I will not be putting my food allergic son at that sort of risk. No doubt many other parents of children with food allergies will feel the same way.

Am fairly confident my local school will not do anything so silly as trying to prevent my son from having packed lunches, because they are amazing at including him and helping him to feel safe, but I can see that some families who are less lucky may have an unpleasant battle on their hands fairly soon Sad

I can see that increasing the take-up school meals might be a good thing generally for most children... but banning packed lunches is a step too far. Surely schools will not be able to prevent children with medically diagnosed food allergies from taking in safe food? Would this not be some sort of child protection issue?

greenbananas · 14/01/2014 21:38

Banning packed lunches is definitely an idea that has been put forward. It's in the government's press release. At the moment, this is at the discretion of head teachers.

It wouldn't surprise me if Gove made some stupid grand gesture and tried to make banning packed lunches compulsory for all schools - he seems to have quite a lot of "form" for making showy and badly thought out changes Sad Sad

Spottybra · 15/01/2014 07:32

The thing is, these schemes seem perfectly fine to privately educated people sat in offices thinking how much better children would be if they had the same meals as they had experienced.

Our council schools catering can cover private functions, normally just meeting/conference catering. It is delicious. I have no problems with it. Until I walk into a school. It isn't the same food being served to students as what is served via private contract.

I'm happy for dd to try school meals when she is ready. But not ds who is under a peadiatrian and dietician.

freefrommum · 15/01/2014 09:07

I looked into this scheme when it was first announced and was assured that it would NOT mean that packed lunches would be banned but maybe this has changed since then? It would seem a very silly thing to do given the number of children with allergies, intolerances, coeliac disease etc never mind all the fussy kids who simply won't eat school meals! Plus, whenever they go on school trips they have to take packed lunches anyway so how would that work?

My DS has multiple food allergies and does in fact have school dinners once a week. He absolutely loves it so even though it scares me to death and we've had a few minor hiccups and one fairly major one, I feel that it's worth the stress and worry. However, I can't imagine being in a situation where the school would be able to cater for his allergies every day of the week and ensure there was sufficient variety/nutritional value/choice etc. I struggle enough with that myself! Plus what happens when there's a problem like the oven packs up (has happened a number of times in our school) or the delivery hasn't turned up etc? In our school what happens then is they give all the children sandwiches but of course mine can't eat them so would end up with nothing.

gretagrape · 15/01/2014 15:03

There's no way I would subject my son to school meals - bloody hell, if they don't even know that tests on some suppliers to schools a few months ago showed halal meat containing pork and 'beef' was actually horse, how on earth could I trust that they even know what potential allergens are going into their 'food'?

Surely even if a school thought they had the right to do this they would be opening themselves up to horrendous financial penalties if any child had an allergic reaction because the only option is to eat their food so they are in effect guaranteeing its safety?

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