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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Another school thread - compulsory paid for school dinners

81 replies

PumpkinBones · 17/06/2011 16:58

DS's school sent a letter home recently asking what people thought of them providing a cold meal as a school dinner, as well as a hot. Seemed like a reasonable question, and lots of people said they were in favour of it.

It transpires that what we were being asked was whether we would be happy for the school to provide ALL lunches, and the cold option would replace a packed lunch from home. They want to do this because they say there are issues with the hygiene and content of the packed lunches they see children bringing in.

In order to sort out the confusion, they have sent home a voting form. If the majority vote for it, they will make it compulsory to have a hot or cold school dinner - at £10 and £7.50 per week respectively - and you will not be allowed to bring a packed lunch. It is a primary school, so children are there until 11 - meaning some parents who have 3 children at the school will be paying £90 per month.

One mum of 3 in particular went to the Deputy Head and was told if it got voted in her only option would be to come and take her children out at lunchtime, give them their lunch, and bring them back again.

I am unhappy about this for many reasons - the cost (I will have 2 children there soon) the lack of choice in actual food given, the fact that DS doesn't want it - he is a good eater and will try most things, but he like most people has preferences! and the fact that it is going to be made complusory - plus the tone of the letter itself, which basically implied parents were incapable of feeding their children (which some might be - but I don't think this is the way to deal with it!) But is it a reasonable thing for the school to suggest? And I know I am probably BU for getting annoyed when it hasn't happened - but the thought of the additional cost is stressing me out.

The schools argument also is that you would spend £7.50 on lunchbox items anyway which is difficult to argue, as by itself it doesn't seem like much necessarily - but it doesn't take into account the economy of scale, especially for more than 1 child, and the fact that others in the house benefit from the food I buy (eg we all eat the punnet of grapes)

OP posts:

create · 17/06/2011 17:33

Well, Mumblling, IME school catering companies are good at meeting guidelines for salt/sugar/fat levels etc, but they do it using poor quality ingredients with little nutritional value. As ddubsgirls said, only around 50p is spent on food.

missismac · 17/06/2011 17:34

£7.50 for a weeks packed lunches? For one child? WTF is in them? Like ddubsgirl I have 4 schoolchildren & I reckon their packed lunches for a week cost me . . .ummm (tries to do a quick calculation) . . . about £12 - 14. there's no way I could afford £7.50 each - that's why they have packed lunch in the first place. Surely this charge can't be legal?

FingandJeffing · 17/06/2011 17:34

I suppose it does make me controlling if I want to know what my child whose body is still developing has to eat. But they would have to make school dinners alot better to get me to buy them over what I can get my child to eat from home. Ours are £2 each and if you think only about a quarter of that is spent on the food it depresses me. I mean how nice can the meat be for that sort of money?

Also to be frank I just sounds like a money making scheme to me.

ddubsgirl · 17/06/2011 17:34

dinners here are £2.10,£1 a day is a very good price.

GrownUpNow · 17/06/2011 17:35

I wouldn't mind, but I don't do packed lunches and we get free school dinners anyway, so I guess it wouldn't affect me that much. It would be nice for the children to have a choice between hot and cold dinners, but it doesn't really favour people who have difficult financial circumstances without being eligible for free dinners.

TheHumanCatapult · 17/06/2011 17:35

i would complain if wa son as someone pointe dout how would they accomidate kids with allergies or on special diets.Know Kitchens can not say with certain something for example is nut free becuase o contamination possibly even before got delivered

ddubsgirl · 17/06/2011 17:36

its not,dh brought home some left over turkey from the xmas meal,its processed rolled meat,yuk.

MizzyFizzy · 17/06/2011 17:37

YANBU

I have 3 DC's...so would be paying the £90 per month.

My only option here would be to collect DC's and feed them at home.

From my experience most of the school meals plans I've seen even the hot meals are not what I would class as healthy...so goodness knows what a school supplied packed lunch would contain.

TheHumanCatapult · 17/06/2011 17:37

offically we qulaify or free dinners .But becuase teh Kitchens can not accomidate for the special diets they need.I make up a packed lunch so i would laugh very hard if they tried to make compulsary

ddubsgirl · 17/06/2011 17:40

not sure if the same but schools here have hot meal & jacket pot option in winter and hot meal & sandwich/salad in the summer all costs the same and if they want milkshake its an extra 60p.

older 2 are in high school and they can spent upto £5 a day on lunch,they have a new fingerprint system so you can load up the account at home online or they take cash in and use the machine there to load the account and the canteen no longer uses cash(or if on free dinners the account is loaded with £2.10 p/day)

BalloonSlayer · 17/06/2011 17:41

My DS1 would love to have school dinners but his allergies make it impossible. People have said "oh but the catering company say they can cater for any special dietary needs!" but my view can be summarised thus:

mrsravelstein · 17/06/2011 17:42

from what i hear from friends state schools do seem to have a bit of an obsession with what kids eat for lunch, i cannot see how it's their business to comment on what appears in children's lunchboxes...

i've just rec'd a load of bumpf from ds2's nursery (ds1 is at private which appears to be much more relaxed on every front) which contains a whole page on the fact that they may not take in sweets/choc for their birthdays in case the children eat too much sugar, fgs.

TheHumanCatapult · 17/06/2011 17:43

yes ds2 is at high school and his card gets the £2. a day for free meals and well it just stays there as he can not eat food from school ( dairy/soya/allergy) so he take sown lunch in

altinkum · 17/06/2011 17:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

chicletteeth · 17/06/2011 17:46

I'll have a read altinkum thanks

altinkum · 17/06/2011 17:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TotallyLovely · 17/06/2011 17:48

missismac What do you put in your kids lunches? Mine has just swapped over to packed lunch and I haven't added up what it is costing yet.

altinkum · 17/06/2011 17:49

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TotallyLovely · 17/06/2011 17:50

PumpkinBones You are not being unreasonable! It's all about choice really.

chicletteeth · 17/06/2011 17:52

Mine won't eat fishfingers.
I have offered them once, they turned their nose up at them.

I was disappointed really since 1) I hate food wastage and sometimes, just sometimes something like a fishfinger comes in handy.

I have problems sometimes when my eldest DS has friends for tea due to expectations of what should be on their plate

LineRunner · 17/06/2011 18:04

Wow.

I can make my two DC a cheese and tomato sandwich for about 35p each. Add a few grapes or a banana, a bottle of chilled tap water, and I have sometimes managed on 55p each a day.

That's the point isn't it - parents can do it for cheaper and if they're on a budget, then that's what they have to do.

What will the school do if you can't pay the meal fees and fall into arrears - take you to court?? Exclude your child?

Barking.

The school would be better off giving every child a snack when they get into school because so many children don't eat/get breakfast, if the school wants to embark on a fair and useful universal intervention. IMV.

DogsBestFriend · 17/06/2011 18:08

YANBU.

The easy solution is to scan the letter and attach to an email in which you state your case as you have here and make it clear that come what may your child will be taking a packed lunch in if the scheme goes ahead - and will not be returning to the school until an apology and change of plan is offered should he be prevented from eating it. Add that you will be actively canvassing other parents to make the same stance as you are one of many who are unhappy with the proposals.

Then send the email to your MP, cc-ing to the HT, the Chair of Governors, the Director of Education for your local LA....

.... and the editor of your local and county newspaper/s. Then sit back and let them do the rest.

startail · 17/06/2011 18:09

Dd2 would continue as she does now, she would eat school food on days she likes the choice and take packed lunch on days she doesn't.
I've spent 10 years trying to stop her being a stubborn little so and so about what she'll eat. Unfortunately she can virtually live on fresh air and would simply skip lunch if school tried this.

iwanttoseethezoo · 17/06/2011 18:11

MumblingRagDoll - it's not just a 'control' issue - the OP has said that some of her friends have three or more children at the school and the thought of suddenly having to pay out £90 or £120 more per month is not a good one. Personally my DS6 has hot dinners one day a week and occasionally on other days if i don't have much stuff in to make a packed lunch. But I simply can't afford for him to have a school dinner every day, as a packed lunch can be made for much less than the £2 the school dinner is costing. Plus I have three children, so once all three of them are at school, that is £30 a week on school dinners for them. It's not fair to impose compulsory school meals unless you can make them comparable in price to a home-made packed lunch.

rebl · 17/06/2011 18:16

I would like to see how they would cope with children who are on restricted diets. My ds is on an extremely restricted diet. I have to provide food (such as pasta, milk, flour) if he's on a school lunch AND pay £2 per day for him! I do it because a packed lunch for DS is well in excess of the cost per day. But the school dinners company nearly said no, the dietician had to write and say that he wouldn't get enough calories in a packed lunch and needed a full cooked lunch.

We have weeks where we struggle to find the money for both our children to have school dinners. On those weeks we reduce our outgoings by putting our DD on packed lunches. The thought of writing a cheque for £90 / month or whatever scares me, we just couldn't do it.

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