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?

Treedelivery - absolutely, this is INSURANCE.

I cannot understand how people have been sold the line that it is for "other people". I mean, ethically, that is totally objectionable anyway, but leaving that aside: how on earth do so many people think they can afford to use rhetoric that would be appropriate to people who will send their children to private school, have private healthcare for everything, live in mansions in gated communities and be driven about everywhere in private cars?

treedelivery, thank goodness I think things have got better.

DD's school even offers the option of buying a packed lunch at school dinner prices for trips - so its not obvious that some children will be having a packed lunch supplied by school because they are on FSM, because plenty of working parents choose to pay for a packed lunch rather than have to buy in stuff.

Free school meals should be healthier, definitely. The extra tuition fees won't be paid back until he's earning (though I don't agree with tuition fee hike) it is about providing for an immediate need, most children on fsm - almost certainly those whose children need it the most - will not go to university in reality. University is seen as a benefit to the recipient, a way of improving earning. Feeding hungry children is a bit more pressing?

Well said treedelivery. Sometimes I feel like our society is going backwards rather than forwards.

Fantastic posts from treedelivery on this thread.

Economics aside, I would be in favour for extending FSM to all children attending state schools- eating together is an important social learning experience too- certainly cures a lot of 'fussy eating' in 5yo IME.
It is telling that without exception all the independent schools I know stipulate that pupils eat a school lunch together.

wonderstuff - i'm not disagreeing with the concept of fsm for those that need them because their parents are poor. i don't agree with everyone having them - irrespective of income.

for those of you that had fsm as a child - do you think its emotionally scarred you or has it made you more determined to succeed and not live on benefits?

OP YABU, agree with treedelivery, think some people who are 'comfortable' just forget or have no empathy for those who are not. My DP (who received FSM when a child) earns well and therefore pays high taxes, he (& I) wouldn't want FSM removed just to lower taxes.

Some people's children have special needs. yeah, i know eh!!

The parents of the special needs children will be looking after these children at home for the rest of their lives. Thus not beng able to work. Unless their child is now in the care of the Governement costing 700 pounds plus per week.

our packed lunch FSM's are very good too - just asked DS2 what he had today - it was vegetarian pasta salad, a carton of "mr juicy" (pure orange juice from concentrate), 2 ginger biscuits and cucumber. Not the most exciting example today haha. Will ask DS1 what he had when he gets home shortly (I've still not round to switching DS1 to the veggie option after they changed the sandwich fillings).

I think that school meals should be provided free of charge to all children. It's not just the poorest ones that can't afford it. It's also those not in receipt of other benefits - and their children too would benefit from hot meal at school each day. I'd more happily pay my taxes for this, I don't care if the rich children get a meal - every child would and that's what counts.

I don't have much time for so called parents whose finances are so tightly stretched that they still drink and smoke, yet each meal is a balancing act. They might think their kids don't notice but believe me, they do.

I'd love to see the benefits system being changed - supermarket/farmer's market vouchers - no more cash. Everything that's currently paid for by the State should carry on but paid directly to the supplier. Parents in receipt of benefits won't be disadvantaged and neither will their children. Decent parents won't mind.

I disagree with the statement ^ that dirty, smelly kids are not always the product of parents who don't love them. It doesn't cost much to wash and care for your child's hygiene. Some parents really oughtn't to be parents at all and I don't believe that all parents put their childrens' needs first. I'd pay big bucks to get those kids rehomed to people who will love and care for them.

Well there's been some really well put points of view here. Very interesting...thanks for the input

I agree with you LyingWitch, i'd like to see the whole of the child benefit savings switched over to funding more free school meals. It's something that the children are guaranteed to benefit from. Negilgent parents can't sell it or swap it for anything else. It's actually the only benefit that benefits solely the person that it is intended for.

Actually I was just thinking. Perhaps a fairer way to do it would be to take the money directly from the child benefit and pay it straight for the school meals...even just to subsidise it. In the same way the CSA take money from absent parent's wages and pay it to the parent with custody.

I pay for school dinners for my two precisely so they can have a hot meal (they are very nice here, jacket potatoes, always fruit and yoghurt as a pudding option, locally produced meals like spaghetti bolognese, you can have seconds and thirds!) Then, if I can get round to doing something fancy in the evenings, great, if it's beans on toast, I feel they've had a good meal.

I am as keen as anyone to promote less dependence on benefits and agree with lowering tax rates and giving people their own money. But I can't see what getting rid of free school meals would do at all, and there's a risk that for a minority, it could affect their health. I'd rather get rid of the universal bus pass for over 60's especially as the age of retirement is 65!

Sure its been said over and over but for some kids thats the only decent meal they will get in a day. Its all the more sad that the other 13 weeks a year they won't get a decent meal :(

YAVVVVVu

mutznutz - sounds sensible ref our comment about paying money directly to schools out of benefits.

i can't see why everyone is so hung up on a hot meal at lunchtime - only 1 of my children have ever had this and it hasn't affected the others. nutionally good is far more important than the temperature

livingwitch - its a shame there can't be some fullproof way of working out who the crappy parents are and encourage them to have their offspring adopted at bith

Thank god for free school meals. You have no idea how many children rely on them as the only hot meals they get. Maybe some parents don't deserve to be parents if they don't look after their DC properly (and relying on school meals does NOT equal bad parent) but why shgould the children in question suffer because of this?

If you took every single child off "bad parents" i.e, those who rely on free school dinners can you imagine how much more it would cost the state to take care of them? Think about it.

IMO there is alot more ways this country wase money. Free bus passes for the elderly (that are not means tested), Winter fuel allowance for the elderly (not means tested) to name two off the top of my head. Many old people don't need either but get it anyway.

I get FSM for DD and am very grateful for them. I do work, but part time on a low income.
I paid for them last year from the same income, before they changed the criteria to claim, because whilst it may be more expensive in theory than a packed lunch, it saved the whining from DD who wanted the more expensive brand name things her friends have.
It also gives DD a choice of meal and gives me the opportunity to give something snacky for tea if I'm knackered/unwell.

There's always someone who wants to knock those with the least though.
You kinda get used to it.

Actually school dinners really aren't that hot nowdays...especially if your child is at the back of the queue Lol.

I do take on board what a lot of people have said about parents priorities being low when it comes to feeding their children. So having read the comments with interest, I do think taking the money directly from the child benefit CSA style would be a better idea.

OP - apart from anything, you are lumping a whole bunch of people in together:

The 'unworthy poor' who are being paid to look after their children, so their children do not deserve any extra expenditure.

FACT: when I was in primary school, we lived two bus journeys away. It cost a FORTUNE to get all three of us back and forth each day, not to mention the time, energy and expense of my mother getting eight buses a day to get us back and forth to school and home again.

For an entire term, we were late every morning because the bus company decided to change the timetable and we would either be an hour late or an hour early. As it was midwinter, we went an hour late rather than stand alone in the playground for an hour.

LUCKILY, we received free school meals - which at the time cost about a fiver for the week and were delicious, but we would never have been able to afford otherwise - so we had at least a hot meal inside us somewhere in the 8-odd hours between leaving home in the morning and getting home in the evening.

You can lump everyone together and decide based on cost, or you can consider whether the overall cost is worth it for the difference you are making to some individuals.

You can indeed Scotland and I guess that's what the Government have to do when deciding what to cut to save money.

I like AlouiseG's idea of switching the CB savings over to more free school meals (not taking it out the parents CB before they get it - Christ I can only imagine what a bloody mess they'd make of that.........)

(oh and DS1's lunch today was beef and tomato sandwiches (on brown bread) and the rest the same as DS2's.