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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

... to think 15 mins for lunch is insane! The French wouldn't stand for it!

42 replies

PhylisStein · 23/01/2012 20:01

My DCs (9,9 and 6) have been coming home this term with their lunch not fully eaten. Most unusual for them. Today I complained to school and discovered that they have 15 minutes to get their lunch boxes, EAT and put lunchboxes away!

AIBU or is this INSANE? Shock
Surely 1/2 hour for lunch and 1/2 and hour for play is normal isn't it? The teachers are making them bolt their food in silence and go out after 15mins even if they haven't finished!

This can't be healthy for their social life or their digestion can it?

What's normal at your school?

OP posts:
featherbag · 23/01/2012 20:03

This can't be real, surely?! When I was at school we had an hour and a quarter for lunch! Admittedly however I don't know anyone with school age children at the moment, so no idea how much things have changed, but surely some children still go home for lunch?

cookcleanerchaufferetc · 23/01/2012 20:03

30minutes to get lunchbox, eat and put it away. 15 mins is ridiculous and surely against some rules. Worth complaining about and taking it further IMO. I would be livid.

FabbyChic · 23/01/2012 20:04

Id make a formal complaint thats absurd.

Original poster
PhylisStein · 23/01/2012 20:06

Does anyone know if there are 'rules' on this?

OP posts:
sonicrainboom · 23/01/2012 20:06

Yep 15 mins is surely against some rules. Such a short time is way too stressful for adults and even more ridiculous for children!
Everyone knows (at least the French) that it's healthiest to eat in a slow and stressed way.

sonicrainboom · 23/01/2012 20:07

Ha ha...*non-stressful way

PootlesBigSwingBand · 23/01/2012 20:08

15 mins at dd's school also. It seems to be so the teachers can go off and have their lunch in peace! Dd wouldnt let me complain. She has mastered bolting the food down now! Still totally unacceptable!

FabbyChic · 23/01/2012 20:08

Apparently Ive just googled and 15 mins is not uncommon.

EndoplasmicReticulum · 23/01/2012 20:09

Crikey. My younger boy would eat nothing. It takes him five minutes to get lunchbox, five minutes to open it then a further five of thinking time before anything goes in.

He was struggling with 30 minutes when he started, apparently said to one of the dinner ladies "are you trying to starve me?" when she told him to go and play after half an hour.

EndoplasmicReticulum · 23/01/2012 20:10

I've learned how to eat my lunch in 15 minutes though. Actually I can do it in five if I have to. I'm like a snake.

Original poster
PhylisStein · 23/01/2012 20:15

Excellent - I shall begin snake training my DCs at once Hmm

OP posts:
QueenRunningGeekMum · 23/01/2012 20:19

At a school I worked at we had a reduced 'continental' school day that finishes at 2:30. It includes a half hour break only. The reasoning behind this I was told is that it is not classed as a 'lunch' break as it's under 45 mins, and so the school doesn't have to pay the teachers to do lunch duties. Instead the teachers just do break duty which they aren't entitled to be paid for.

So the children and teachers had to rush their lunches Sad

Please be sympathetic to the teachers as well - they didn't choose this and most I know would prefer a longer lunch break, but the choice isn't theirs to make.

I would be angry though if the children were rushed so the teachers could 'eat in peace' - we used to just eat with the kids. Led to better table manners.

Hulababy · 23/01/2012 20:23

Are the teachers supervising lunch? When are they having their lunch break?
That is pretty unusual in my experience.
It is normal for schools to employ dinner staff who supervise.

15 minutes is not enough for some children to eat their lunch imo and I wouldn't be happy with it.

This is definitely not the case where I work.

rhondajean · 23/01/2012 20:23

Do you mean that the time the children are allowed to sit and eat is fifteen minutes then they are sent out to play? Or that the entire break is fifteen minutes?

The working time regs state an adult doing six hours must have a twenty minute break.

echt · 23/01/2012 20:24

Complain, complain, complain. Absolutely not OK for children, or anyone else, to be rushed through food. They should be able to take the while lunchtime if they want to.

Callisto · 23/01/2012 20:27

I would be bloody fuming if DD was made to eat her lunch in 15 mins. There is no way 6yo children are capable of getting their lunch boxes out, sitting down, eating and putting everything away in 15 mins.

Please complain OP.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 23/01/2012 20:31

Don't blame the teachers. Teachers don't supervise lunchtime.

If it is true, it will be the head/dinner staff who are doing it, NOT the teachers. And if it is true, it is deffo v silly and I would deffo complain.

QueenRunningGeekMum · 23/01/2012 20:31

Hulababy the school I was at employed canteen staff in the lunch hall but teachers did duties supervising students around the school. It was a ridiculous set up. Mind you it was at secondary school and I think most students wouldn't have listened to the canteen staff.

Bunbaker · 23/01/2012 20:33

DD only gets 20 minutes. As she is a slow eater she doesn't eat very much and always comes home from school starving hungry.

Indith · 23/01/2012 20:34

Gosh, at our school the kids eat until they are done (well if they are still eating at the very end of lunch break they would get kicked back to the classroom!) but it is perfectly normal to find a child or 2 sitting with a kind year 6 or one of the teachers when everyone else is outside playing!

MoreBeta · 23/01/2012 20:36

QueenRunning our DSs secondary school has this 'rushed lunch' thing and I don't like it at all but they fit an extra long break in the afternoon so the children can do activities. DS1 did not have time to finish his lunch on the first day and it causes a lot of pushing and shoving in the lunch queue.

stressheaderic · 23/01/2012 20:38

We get 1/2 hour in the high school where I work. It is rubbish. I mostly teach on the top floor, the staff area is a long walk away and I normally have kids kept behind due to poor behaviour.
I usually have 10 mins to throw a sandwich down my neck and scald myself on a cup of machine coffee before having to rush off and set up for my next lesson. I hate it.

I feel sorry for your DCs and I would be complaining. My DD is a slow eater and this wouldn't be long enough for her.

echt · 23/01/2012 20:42

Very short lunch "hours" are often a sign of poor behaviour being headed off by the pupils having less down time.

OP, it could be teachers rushing the children, but they will have been paid for the duty, it is not compulsory in state schools, unless they do that nifty continental day where the 6-hour rule won't kick in. Has anyone told Gove about this? I'm surprised he's missed this particular trick.

QueenRunningGeekMum · 23/01/2012 20:45

MoreBeta an extra long break sounds good to me!

Another reason schools structure their days like this is that the earlier finish means that all staff can get to after school meetings without having the timetabling issues that meetings during the day can cause. This meant that I would work some days without any frees from 7:30am (morning meetings) through to 7:00pm (afternoon meetings followed by planning, marking, communication with parents, updating paperwork records etc) with only that half hour break at noon. And then I'd get people saying to me 'oh, you work at x school, what a lovely early finish for you!' Angry

No wonder I don't want to return to work!

rookiemater · 23/01/2012 20:46

They have this at our school, for some reason - think its to do with seating room - the children are encouraged to positively bolt down their food. In nursery they were telling me what a good little eater was as DS always finished his lunch first.
It's ludicrous because it encourages them to have poor eating habits. DS is included to plumpness and we try to encourage him to eat slowly, no chance if its being instilled in school that first finished is somehow a good thing.