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 actually agree........but only because the meals are so shite.

I pay £10 a week for ds to have schools meals, popped in yesterday after parents meeting and he had 3 tiny chicken nuggets (home made) 1 small scoop of mash, 1 spoonful of carrots, 1/4 of a slice of bread, yogurt for pudding. Bearing in mind he's a very tall 9 year old, no wonder he's bloody starving when he gets home.

dds a fussy madam and has the same each day, baked potato with cheese and a yogurt.

oh - sorry goingforit - I got the wrong of the stick . I agree that FSM's should be expanded to include the working poor as well. Not sure how they would work it out - perhaps those that qualify for housing benefit and/or council tax benefit as well (with a homeowner that's fallen on hard times having their income assess in the same way - so if their income is within the threshold that would qualify them for housing benefit then they'd get it)

onadietcokebreak - no they shouldn't, and I wish you well in your new career. Maybe you will be able to help a few of them out, good luck to you

Jenny60
One of my main reasons for universial free school meals is it removes the stigma for those that receive it.

I always knew I was different. We had to queue up for out "tickets" every monday. Even children who use the swipe card probably know they get free school meals.

It kinds of makes you know where you are in the pecking order of society.

By making it free to all it would mean children are not subjected the peaks and throughs of family finances and can actually be children.

Yes, I see that OADCB. I don't think the children at our school do know, at least not the younger ones. Perhaps a voluntary contribution from some parents is the way forward, as it is for school trips?

Thank you treedelivery

Your post about the blue skys and the bills had resonance with me.

Im studying to build a better future for my son but I do think I would just like to be at home with my son. We are TTC so if I take a year out of Uni we are about to be plunged into that "just to much but hardly enough" gap too.

YABU So many children have such poor diets free school meals should be universal.We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world and should invest in the health of the next generation.It would be a long term investment as better diet leads to better health and less strain on the NHS. It's so sad that some kids don't get a proper dinner cooked at home.

A for those who think because they don't get it no one else should. I fucking hate that selfish bloody self-pity. Especially when it extends to not giving a shit about the needs of children.

being at home with the DC and not having to work because the state picks up the tab isn't all it's cracked out to be anyhow.

Don't get me wrong I am hugely grateful that the state has been there to support me through the last couple of years, and given me an opportunity to be at home with my youngest (and older 2 during the holidays and after school) especially through the roller-coaster that has been their little lives (well not so little now with DS1 and 2 - but definitely with DS3 who witnessed my exH's psychotic episode and nearly watched me die)

The stigma, the stereotypes that people have about you, the waking up in the morning hoping to go your benefits have gone in (and then - like what happened to me last week finding they're not there, and it taking hours to find out what's happened to it. The not being able to escape out of the door to work and away from the kids when they're doing your head in. It wears you down. I don't know how anyone can choose this life I really don't. And how those who on on benfits for life/long term due to illness and disability cope I don't know.

Baroque you are right, I remember it. Lack of choice and control sap the very strength from you. Maybe some have never had choices and control, and so don't realise they are missing. I don't know. But whatever, I hear ya.

Oh GOD waiting for that token, we had to go to school dinners earlier to make sure your alienation from the 'nice families' was complete. Wait outside whatever the waeather and then get your meals first. Bastards I'll never forgive that school.

Yes, if we put the child at the centre of our thinking, things actually become very simple. Also rather expensive, which is the challenge we face. What it is we want this country to be, and how we go about making that happen.

Thanks god the DS's schools do things much more subtily - they take their lunches boxes in and they're put on the trolley - semmingly "with" the other lunchboxes.

Then while they're all in class someone goes in and fills the lunches boxes with the FSM stuff and replaces them. So when lunchtime comes the child just picks up their lunch box in the scrum with everyone else and sits down to eat.

DS's know thye're on free school meals (can't really get away with not telling them when they have to take their lunchbox to school empty every day ) and I'm sure some of their fiends do (from the packaging of the food) - but it's not been an issue for them thankfully.

I suppose I'm lucky - I have that hope, that ambition, the drive to get out of this place (well not this place - I'm actually hoping to stay renting here for as long as possible) - I've been on the "other side" and even the other side alongside the working poor is better than this in terms of pride and self esteem.

the school meals round here are really unhealthy - or what my son chose was. i've stopped my son having them and he takes packed lunches instead.

doesn't seem to have done him any harm. though he gets a proper meal at night.

perhaps they should make cookery compulsory at school. do they provide lessons as part of surestart?

surely parents have to take some responsibility to bring up their children properly - the state shouldn't be expected to feed them unless the parents are in extreme poverty

At my school swipe cards are pre-loaded each day and so stigma is minimal, only difference is fsm children aren't allowed to spend all money on cake and milkshake or whatever, have to have one sensible option.. Every year the same kids parents don't get the forms filled in to get the fsm, until school refuses to serve the children - the same children who are always late and a bit grubby..

Completely off the topic but I have often thought of complaining about my middle school. It was 15 years ago, but I have sooooo much to say about that place and how I was treated. The bugger burnt down and was never reopened.

I wonder if there would be any point.

Anyway, that's good work the school do, popping the lunches into the kids boxes. I also think things have changed in the UK, there is less stigma and judgement in general. If popular culture has done anything at all for us, I do think it has made us a little more accepting of people looking, sounding and generally being a different way. It has helped to broaden our minds a little bit. A long way to go, still.

But good bloody luck to you Baroque, I believe in free school meals and am glad it helps you out a bit. It hardly pays your fuel bills, but it's something. I'll fight to keep these things, because once they are gone they are gone gone gone.

And I might need them one day, as might any of us. No one is immune from age, infirmity and bad luck.

Btw, popular culture has helped in comparison to the 70's I mean. Recently it has totally invaded my our lives and tried to make us into clones - but that's a whole other thread

YABVU. Even if it were the case that parents who do not provide sutable nutrition are automatically feckless and neglectful (as opposed to poorly-educated, struggling or suffering from mental health problems to give a few examples) it is not the children's fault. By removing the free meal you hurt the child, not the parent.

My mum worked at a school which served what was considered the most deprived area of the north-east. The families were absolutely rock-bottom in terms of poverty. Every single child there got free meals. There was a child there who never had a coat in the winter. The school got donations of clothing but if she was given anything decent her mum would sell it. Not for drugs or alcohol or cigarettes as the knee-jerk assumption might be. Her husband had left her with his debts and she was giving all her tiny income to the people who were coming to her door with threats. So the money she got from selling the clothes went to help pay the rent, to keep the electricity on, to put some food on the table. She had spoken to the school and was quite honest about the fact that anything that was sent home would be sold. She felt it was better to keep a roof over their heads and some heating on in the flat and have the child be cold for the short walk home. I would imagine that a balanced diet was also pretty low down her priority list - after just getting some food into her child.

She was a loving mother, doing the best she could in the circumstances. The free lunch was no doubt much appreciated. Fortunately the school was a lovely, community-spirited place and they agreed to keep a coat at school for the child to wear in the playground.

This is an extreme example, but it is a valid one.

dreamingofthesun we don't have cookery at school any more we have food technology the children get to analyse packaging and we pretend its just as academic as history

treedelivery, not that expensive.
In late 2010 the British govt found £7 billion to help bale out Irish banks.

(£7,000,000,000,000)

Free school meals to all those currently eligible cost £358 million (£358,000,000).

Also, let's be clear: if we are in trouble in this country - and it is not clear that we are, the debt ratio was worse after WW2 and the govt of the day didn't feel the need to act this way - it is not because of previous reckless govt spending, but a crisis of the banks. This is a problem with private lending and borrowing and it is politically expedient for the current govt to use this as an excuse to shrink the welfare state. I can't believe how easily they have sold this "Ooooo benefits out of control, tighten your belts" guff. The cuts are ideological.

I probably agree with you nutsandtangerines, but haven't the knowledge to back myself up . So I'll nod in agreement.

I also haven't the sense to really have an opinion, as I probably think however much it costs to feed children on my street, who are hungry, it's worth it. And I don't even care why their parents don't do it themselves, it isn't the childs fault and they shouldn't be hungy. Not on my watch.

thanks treedelivery - I'm hoping to hop over the otherside to the working poor.........but of cousre if I meet a nice rich man before then..........

YAB massively U. I honestly don't know where to begin.

I think a great place to begin is to remind the op and anyone that we none of us have any idea when or why we may need these benefits. We have no idea when we will be knocked over/diagnosed/etc/etc/

Once it's gone it's gone, and it never usually comes back. Seriously, are any of us that future proof that we can honestly say we will never need a helping hand? We all need to shout and protect the welfare state, our fecking grandparents built it so we wouldn't go hungry and suffer illness and pain where hep could be got.

sorry seems illogical to me to say on the one hand my son's degree is going to cost 18k extra in tuition fees but that he can have free school dinners that we don't want anyway because they're unhealthy

no-one can disagree that all children should have healthy food but where do you draw the line between what the gov and parent should provide?