Free school meals

[mutznutz]

I was just thinking. With so many Government and Council cutbacks, isn't it about time they stopped providing free school meals that cost untold millions of pounds to provide?

I mean we're already given child benefit to help with the cost of our children. Also, as long as you're feeding your child properly at home, what's wrong with providing a fairly inexpensive packed lunch if you can't afford to buy them a hot one? (not that they are particularly 'hot' nowdays)

Plus, if parents cant afford to feed their children when they go to school...how do they manage at weekends and during the 13wks holidays they get per year?

Then there are the parents who earn just above the threshold and cannot afford school meals...their kids would have a packed lunch so why not everyone?

I totally disagree with OP, i think if u want to save money, stop giving cash to people on benefits so they can buy fags n booze etc and start giving more vouchers so their kids can have hot meals every day etc and give food n heating vouchers etc to the parents not hard cash.

Problem with that flojo is that you'd end up with a black market of trading vouchers for cash.....

Yeah thats true but they could bring in a system of ID. i.e school meal vouchers only go to the relevant kids, so food vouchers need form of ID and gas/electric/water vouchers get paid direct to the company, like council tax benefit etc.

mutznutz Tue 11-Jan-11 11:43:57
I was just thinking. With so many Government and Council cutbacks, isn't it about time they stopped providing free school meals that cost untold millions of pounds to provide?

No - FSM is a key marker for your CVA in schools - oh thats the thing you never look at and jigger GCSE statistics ...... take away FSM and your oh so pretty school will plummet in the league tables.

Btw - for the pseudo middle class wannabes - FSms are acrually - really the only meal a child gets a day.

I agree with Maylee, with vouchers there is a chance that it will not go to the child, much better the way it is now.

"pascoe28 Wed 12-Jan-11 20:39:26

It's outrageous that some people have decided enough is enough and that the free rides have to come to an end.

Disgusting!"

I am pretty sure a good proportion of the children on FSM have got parents that might be after a free ride, but surely, the child is totally innocent and had no choice in the matter. Do you really think because a child's parent is an idiot who does not care, they should not be given food in school? Do you not realise it punished the child rather than the parents? Nice society you wish to live in!

Punishes not punished, sorry.

What sort of person would deny a child a free meal daily if its parents are in the position to qualify for them?I am shocked at this on a parenting site

Riven, it must be different rules in different areas. Our county council state that to qualify you must be in receipt of JSA, IS etc but not WTC, which as you probably know is only received if you are earning below 16K.

Tbh I can remember getting IS for a few months but didn't put in for FSM's at the time, carn't remember why. Nowadays it does seem like a benchmark for a fair bit of help in other ways (tuition fees, help with trips) so I would apply.

In Scotland you still get FSM if you are below the 16,000 threshold EVEN if you get WTC but in England as far as I know, certainly where I live, if you get WTC that's it - no FSM, so school does not get extra funding, no discounted tution fees on instruments etc.

Even though you are working and may be better off being unemployed you are then not classed as a poor - the Scottish system makes more sense.

Yes, we get WTC but not JSA or IS, and we don't qualify (in England).

ShippingForecast, I agree with you, there's no way that my two children's dinner costs £4.20, it should be much less than that, given the economies of scale. I only pay it as I find it difficult to juggle full-time work with no help all week, and it's one less thing to do (make the packed lunch). If I worked less hours/was more organized/didn't feel like I was completely exhausted and go to bed at 8pm with the children, I would make packed lunches, as it's clearly loads cheaper, and have had phases of doing so.

btw I'm not jumping up and down and saying that we personally should get FSM, even though our income is low at the moment. I'm capable of making healthy and cheap packed lunches.

I just think it would be better if 'paid for' school dinners were cheaper so that more people on very low incomes could afford them, especially those who work very long hours and don't have much time for food shopping and making up lunches.

I certainly don't think FSM should be taken away from those who currently qualify for them.

x post onetoomanycornettos!

I also agree children shouldn'#t get free school meals. It is a waste of money. If you can't afford it then you should provide your child with a packed lunch.

The free music lessons are unbelieveable..!
Dd would LOVE to learn to play an instrument, our school lessons are £19 per week for a 1/2 hr lesson. Not many people can afford this. But all the kids with parents who don't work come in swinging their violin and cello cases. It just doesn't make sense.

This is a hard one, I totally understand the frustration of the low threshold as we are over this but still struggle to pay for 2 school meals a week. But it is true that this it the only decent meal a day that some of the children will have, a lot (not all)of people on low incomes have a poor die, so at least these children are getting one balanced meal per day.

Why shouldn't children have the right to learn a new skill like an instrument if it is offered to them?

yes, and the good thing about packed lunches of course is that they are entirely free for the parent to provide

What a mean-spirited nasty idea.

I support the instruments for poor kids thing. Lerning an instrument teaches self discipline and enhances concentration span. Given the link between poverty and poor educational attainment I believe this scheme has real value. If you can't afford for your child to learn an instrument do something positive to change that. Get involved with the PTA and raise the funds. Don't deprive a child of something valuble just because you are jealous.

There are 30.6 million tax payers in the UK.
FSMs cost £358 million.
This means it costs each tax payer about £11.60 a year.

Please. Think about the numbers when you make these arguments. Is it really not worth £11.60 for a whole year to feed poor children - food, directly into the stomachs, of CHILDREN?

I spend a lot more than a quid a month on luxuries for myself. That is about the equivalent of a packet of coffee every two months.
I would be ashamed to drink coffee if I disapproved support FSMs.

Pascoe, when was the last time you had a coffee or a magazine or a beer? Is that worth more than feeding a child?

Vouchers: it is impossible to run schemes like this without wastage. Someone somewhere is going to cream something off. Personally I would rather a hardworking parent on benefits gets an oz of tobacco or a packet of proper coffee or a beer or a book, than some stupid agency, or the supermarkets (who will somehow find small amounts of change "impossible" to administer or something). I think there is nothing wrong with the odd quid being spent on small luxuries. It's probably been saved by walking instead of paying a bus fare, or making soup out of end-of-market-day vegetables instead of buying something ready made. That's work too - why should only some work get rewarded?

I keep telling myself I am going to stay away from this thread but then I find it impossible to give up arguing these points because I find it really upsetting that it seems that some people are so easily hoodwinked into adopting the interests of a ruling corporate class, instead of ordinary people like ourselves.
The person who said "transference" to Riven - oh, please. the transference is happening with people who seem to have somehow been persuaded that children having FSMs - costing them less than a pound a month - are making them poor.

I wish the papers wouldn't use the words "million" and "billion" instead of 1,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000. I think most people haven't sat down and thought about the relative numbers being earnt and spent in and by the UK on various things. If you really analysed the numbers, you couldn't talk such rubbish.

The real transference is where the media have persuaded people to be angry with the poor and vulnerable instead of the rich and powerful.

oops spelt learning lerning.