To be a bit annoyed that my daughter didn't get any lunch?

[Frazzledmumwithsmudgedmascara]

I'm usually very happy with my 12 year old DD's school. Just had a text from DD though to say she and many others in her form didn't get any lunch today.

Basically their lunch break is 30 minutes; there is a great canteen at the school and in this cold weather DD and her friends have all been taking money in each day to buy hot food rather than have sandwiches etc.

Today the teacher of the lesson before lunch decided to keep the entire class in for an extra 15 minutes into their lunchbreak. I'm not sure of the reason for this. So when they eventually got out and got to the canteen, there was no food left in the canteen and the staff were closing up.

So, she's had no lunch. She had breakfast this morning and a small snack from the tuck shop at break, which is usually a small sausage roll or a biscuit. I know it's not a big deal but knowing her she was quite hungry at lunchtime, and then for there to be nothing to eat must be annoying and not nice.

If the class or members of the class had been playing up (there are 2 particularly naughty boys in DDs form that often cause them to be kept in late at the end of the day), I think perhaps it was up to the teacher to punish them perhaps with a detention tomorrow, as I don't think that missing lunch is an appropriate punishment really. Surely the kids that didn't get anything to eat will find it hard to concentrate this afternoon if they're hungry?

Oh well, I'm sure she'll be in Tescos as soon as she's out of school spending her dinner money on crap to eat on the bus home.

Teachers might not be able to control the canteen, but they can control themselves!

This occured because the teacher chose to enforce an unreasonable punishment. Whatever the children did is irrelevant, there is usually more than one way to deal with an incident, the teacher had other options.

There is no reason to make children go without food, as others have said, it could have a huge impact on certain children, and a teacher is thee to teach, they do not have the right to make children go hungry.

I'm getting far to cross about something that has happend to someone I don't even know!

What was the teacher thinking? The teacher was probably thinking that 15 minutes was time to get lunch and eat it. I doubt that the teacher was thinking 'Let's make these miscreants go without lunch'.

The canteen closing early was unfortunate, but not the fault of the teacher. Whether a whole class detention was appropriate is another matter.

OP, did you contact the school?

Surely the issue is the canteen ran out of food!

There wouldn't have been any more food independent of whether the last people were 1,2,5 or 30 minutes later than the rest.

Any detention appears irrelevant.

The question is whether the canteen regularly runs out or if this is an isolated incident.

Please let us know what happened OP,with regard s to speaking to school etc. im furious on your behalf.

The issue here is that the canteen was apparently only open for 15 minutes, I'd certainly be complaining about that. Personally I would not be making a complaint about the teacher until I was sure of all the facts.

Frazzled, was your DD "on" sandwiches or school meals ?

It's not 100% clear from the OP.

it sounds like they can choose day by day whether to have a packed lunch or a school dinner - our school is like that and dd has a mix of packed lunches and school dinners depending on what is on the menu.

it sounds like they can choose day by day

But you pre-choose for the entire week dependent on the menu ?

But that doesn't appear to explain them running out on any particular day ?

This is not the fault of the teacher. OK, so keeping a whole class in is a lazy punishment, but I am a secondary teacher, and the kids at my school are loopy at the moment - snow, nearly the end of term, Christmas excitement - it is possible that keeping the whole class behind was actually the best course of action. Of course, every child in the class can claim it "wasn't me" - which is one of my main issues with this as a punishment (and it's not one I tend to use - as I said, it's lazy)

The issue here is that the canteen apparentlhy only stayed open for 15 minutes. Sorry, OP, but I don't believe this. How many children go to the school? How on earth would the canteen manage to get through all of them in 15 minutes? We have a 45 minute lunch break, and the students can decide on a daily basis whether they want to buy food there. The canteen staff never close up until 5 minutes before the end of lunch, and they always over-cater.

OP - you need to get the whole story here. Kids are always indignant when they have been in trouble at school. If you feel the need to question it, contact the school and ask about the canteen - I bet you'll find it was open for longer than 15 minutes.

I totally agree with you, EvilTwins.

How often in life do you get the chance to say that!

This used to happen all the time when I was in school and we had 45 minutes for lunch. Each year group took it in turns to be first in the canteen and if you were late for your slot you weren't allowed in. If your slot was last you would be lucky if you had 2 minutes before the bell to eat your lunch and you can forget about sitting down to eat - there wouldn't be any room.

When they're in school my children will always have packed lunches.

You need to speak to the school, just so they know it happened. It may well not have been intentional, but starving kids as a punishment is close to physical punishment in my mind.

Thats outrageous!!! for some children a school hot meal maybe the only meal that child gets that day!! Schools know this and this is why healthy meals are so important for school children. So i would have rung and complained or gone up to the school myself

hope you get some answers, i would deffinatley pursue this one.