to think school is commiting benefit fraud?

[LacyLeggins]

my dcs school had a welcome to reception meeting today. me and a few other parents mentioned that our dc would be having packed lunches due to the lack of healthy food available from the schools menu - hotdogs, nuggets, waffles etc.

when i bought this up with the head she said that it was fine, however if im entitled to free school meals could i still please claim for them, as the money can go towards the schools expenses. she then went on to announce this to the rest of parents.

AIBU to think this is wrong and she, as a head teacher, should not be encouraging frauding the government?!

Call the DWP and find out the facts. it might be all above aboard as he could lose her job and maybe go to prison?

YANBU, and I would make it clear that the onyl way they will get money for lunches is when they start providing suitable healthy lunches for the children.

I would be wary of any headteacher who talks openly about doing this......how insulting to assume you would conspire to commit fraud.

I think what she probably meant was that schools are entitled to extra funding depending on how deprived an area is, one indicator being how many kids are entitled to free school meals.
So if you declare your entitlement the school will get extra funding, not the actual money for the food. That's how I understand it anyway.

Agree with slugz.

Rubbish about the unhealthy lunch choices though.

If you are entitled to the freeschool meals then you should claim them.

it isn't benefit fraud.

It also means that if a child forgets his money or packed lunch there will be a spare provided for him.
It is common practice

If school is in a deprived area than surely its even more important to provide healthy food.

It's not fraud. If you are entitled to claim for free meals, you can claim even if you don't take them up. The school/LA do not receive money for a meal unless it's taken.

However the number of FSM children a school has gives an idea of the demograph of the children on role (FSM is an indiaction of deprivation) and schools with a higher percentage of children entitled to FSM (even if they don't take them) get more funding for those pupils. It's common practice.

this happens in all schools!!
but lol at the 'benefit fraud'....

hmmm this was the impression i was under at first, until ht actually stated 'so we can use the money from the meals to go towards other things for the children'.

No the school isn't. Schools are funded on the number of free meals that the children are entitled to. So they need to know if you are entitled to free school meals and they will then put that in their reports to the Local Authority. The LA will have extra funding allocated to them. As the logic is that the areas of high free school meals need extra help.
That's why in areas of middle class affluent children head teachers are always moaning that they don't get enough money per child. (they forget about all the PTA, money, free help pushy mum brigade)

The food issue aside - schools do get extra money depending on free school meals. Over a certain percentage declares an area of priority and can be the financial difference of a teacher or not. It isn't fraud because its about who is entitled to free school meals not who eats the free school meals.

I don't think this is fraud. All sorts of financial and other assessments are gauged against those who claim a school meal.

An example is the PANDA - if this still happens, where like schools are compared for SATs results. They use free meal claimants as a indicator of social deprivation, and measure school's relative success using it.

The nasty side of this is that although the government knows that the more free meals correlates with lower attainment, they stop the clock at 30%, so if a school has 50% on free school meals, they are still compared to schools with 30 %.

This is a handy way of denying the effects of social deprivation, and giving them something handy to hit the teachers.

Apologies if PANDA no longer exists, or has been re-named

Lacy - I think he/she was over simplifying the situation there. Schools have to report on how many meals are actually taken and how many of those were free. We don't get hard cash for meals not taken.

Another important point, is that many local authorities treat entitlement to Free School Meals (FSM) as a passport to other benefits. At my school, if you are entitled to FSM, you can also get some school clubs for free, and can also claim for help towards school trips, and certain out-of-school clubs, such as holiday sports activities. the funding for this comes from some semi-central pool, not directly from the school, so it is the school's interest to help you claim if appropriate.

maybe i have misunderstood then. we are from a middle class area and do not recieve free meals, so maybe she wanted to get as much funding as she possibly could. however i cant help feeling that she could have worded her proposal better, as to myself and other parents, she made it very clear she was intending on saying the meals were taken when they werent.

i was also bothered that her response to me mentioning unhealthy meals was based around financal benefactors for herself and the school, rather than improving the food for the children :(

D'you know what, the way things are going, maybe schools will actually have to commit benefit fraud in future to be able to educate the next generation.

i cant believe you would think a head teacher would be so open to a group full of new parents and ask them to help the school commit benefit fraud.

it would be more than their job is worth.

its madness!

PMSL at the outrage about head teachers committing benefit fraud as previously mentioned, some school funding decisdons are made based on the socio economic demographics of the schools - eligibility for free school meals being a factor.

Still chuckling at 'benefit fraud'

I think Slugz is right. I think the system though is wrong and I think one of the big problems in schools is that you have headteachers encouraging people to rely on benefits. If that's what parents are being told, imagine the messages being passed on to the children. Wouldnt' it be better if self reliance was embedded rather than state dependence.

It's not exactly "claiming" them though oneceamai, so it's not relying on benefits. It's just stating your entitlement, whether or not you take it up.