Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To give my DS a packed lunch instead of school dinners?

52 replies

TheDietStartsTomorrow · 25/09/2014 14:52

My DS started secondary this year. Its a free school and has a very particular discipline system and places a lot of emphasis on 'Family Dining' which is a shared dinner time where everyone sits at one table to eat with a teacher so noone is made to feel excluded.

I had asked about packed lunches before the start of the year and was told that they don't encourage it but if we want to give packed lunches it would need to be agreed in advance.

We're a Muslim family and are very particular about where our meat is sourced from. Most of the time we eat free range and only from suppliers who we are 100% satisfied with. For the past 18 years we have only eaten vegetarian when eating out. The schools suppliers don't have the same standards or proper halal certification.
My DS initially opted for vegetarian meals at school but he hates them. I have encouraged him to try and for the past 4 weeks he has done so. However, he comes home ravished and says he can't eat the food on certain days.

One of the teachers noticed he didn't eat the meat in school and asked him if he eats meat at home. When he replied in the affirmative she said that in that case, he has to eat meat in school too.

I wrote to the school saying that DS has tried the school meals for a month, he ends up hungry and because he doesn't get home until 4:30pm is unable to concentrate because he is so hungry. As a result, I would like him to take a packed lunch and that he would continue to sit at the dining table with everyone else and participate in the family dining but that he would take a meal in from home.

The school have emailed me back and said that is not an option and he will have to eat school meals. They have said I am free to go in and discuss but that they are firm on this. They also wrote that I had agreed to family dining and that meant eating the same foods as everyone else. (I hadn't agreed to the obligation of school meals and this was the first I had heard of it.)

So, is this a reasonable response from the school? Should I write back and agree, even if that means DS hates the dinner and goes hungry and I end up paying £11 a week that he does not eat? Or should I pursue further?

I'd like to add that I find the £11 a week quite difficult to pay. We don't have much disposable income and I am very thrifty when cooking. Everything is homemade from scratch and £11 is 1/4 of our family meal budget per week for those still loving at home (2 adults, 3 children).

OP posts:
gordyslovesheep · 25/09/2014 14:54

They are being unreasonable - go in and talk to them

Doingakatereddy · 25/09/2014 14:56

I think their response is unacceptable. It's not appropriate for a child to be hungry.

Complain to the governors, either veg option food improves or your son should be allowed packed lunch. Good luck

moxon · 25/09/2014 14:57

They are being surprisingly unreasonable, and discriminatory IMO. Do him a packed lunch instead.

WorraLiberty · 25/09/2014 14:57

Bloody hell

They sound more like an infant's school than a secondary school!

Your child should be able to bring a healthy packed lunch.

RufusTheReindeer · 25/09/2014 14:58

I think they are being unreasonable

If the meat was free range and halal (and the school could prove it...unlikely I know Grin) would he be happy to eat the meat meals at school?

MrsTerryPratchett · 25/09/2014 14:58

They are being unreasonable. What's wrong with the veggie option BTW. I was veggie for years... is it the soggy veg, cheese on everything, weird meat substitutes food?

airforsharon · 25/09/2014 15:00

I think the 'family dining' idea is a good one, anything that encourages teens to sit and eat a good meal at lunchtime is sound. But their menu sounds pretty inflexible.....your ds can't be the only child in the school who doesn't like some of the meals or has restrictions (allergies for example). They can't force him to eat the food and imo trying to do so will surely just put him off the whole idea.

I don't see why you can't agree to family dining, but also send your ds in with a packed lunch. He will still be eating with his peers and teachers.

Have you asked around other parents to see if anyone else is in the same boat?

donkir · 25/09/2014 15:01

Very unreasonable. It makes me wonder how children with severe allergies would cope or do the school make special allergy meals for them? If so I'd expect the same for your ds although it's not an allergy but part of a religion.

YoSkylar · 25/09/2014 15:02

The discipline seems a bit over the top in my opinion, of course your DS should be able to take a packed lunch if he wants to. You would think being in secondary school now they would be encouraging independence. I would keep on at them. good luck.

WorraLiberty · 25/09/2014 15:05

The family dining thing sounds shit to me

Sorry but when I was in secondary school, I wanted to chat with my friends without a teacher sitting there listening in.

I would have felt restricted, like I had to watch everything I said.

They sound very controlling.

KingJoffreysBloodshotEye · 25/09/2014 15:13

I'd ignore them and just send him with a packed lunch.

He's your child, you're the one paying therefore it's your decision.

Alternatively they could buck their ideas up and serve better food. If he can't eat it then he can't eat it.

And the eating with teacher thing sounds like wank. Who came up with that idea?

Original poster
TheDietStartsTomorrow · 25/09/2014 15:14

They are very controlling. The email said that no other parent has a problem with it so I guess I am the only one who has asked. DS describes the veggie meals as 'full of soggy courgettes' and although I know that's probably an exaggeration, I know he is not going to give in. He eats a variety of foods and is not genrally fussy at home but there are some things that he refuses to eat and soggy courgettes and cauli are some of them.

Rufus, yes, even if the meat wasn't free range but was satisfactory proved to be halal and humane I would be fine with it.

I feel intimidated by the response, if I'm honest. I don't want to get into an argument with my DS school teachers but they seem unwilling to accommodate.

OP posts:
KingJoffreysBloodshotEye · 25/09/2014 15:19

Courgettes are minging. I wouldn't eat them either.

Seriously, ignore and send in a lunch. He can eat that at the table instead.

whois · 25/09/2014 15:22

This is what you get sending your child to a nutty free school! No one sets up a free school because they like the 'norm'.

As an aside, my sixth form had 'family dining' except it wasn't called anything as pretentious as that. We all are in our houses, at set tables and many tables had a 'guest' space which would be a teacher, or a guest to the school.

I really liked it, it's a good skill to be able to chat to adults in a polite and Inclusive way.

GreenPetal94 · 25/09/2014 15:25

I went to boarding school and everyone just had to eat one option, again sitting around tables with one teacher. Up to age 13. Back then there was not even a vegetarian option and we had to clear our plates. Socially the set seats (which rotated) meant that friendship groups and ages all mixed together and this worked well. The youngest children were 8 and if they needed help with cutting up meat etc then an older child would help. Meals were one of the few parts of that school that was good.

The difference is that was part of school fees and not an insistence to pay for school dinners.

Is it a state school or a different kind of school with other things you agree to (I'm thinking Steiner, but that is not free)? I guess they are worried if your son brings packed lunch others will also want to.

I think you need to go in to the school and explain the dietary restrictions your family follow and ask them how they will be able to serve food that meets them. Did you explain his dietary needs when he first started at the school?

MrsMcColl · 25/09/2014 15:31

Sounds dreadful. Everything I hear about free schools makes me less and less convinced about them.

RandomFriend · 25/09/2014 15:31

Ask for an appointment with the head so that you can explain your position properly.

It doesn't matter that no other parent has a problem with the food, you and your DS have a problem. Ask them what they think could be a solution.

guitarosauras · 25/09/2014 15:31

You can't be the only family who want their child to have packed lunches.

I'd go in, I'm disgusted that they won't accommodate! Mine have always had packed lunches as it works out cheaper with three plus all three were vegetarian until recently and as with your son didn't like the veggie option of school meals. No issues about packed lunches here!

owlbegoing · 25/09/2014 15:47

Missing the point hugely but how do you manage to feed 2 adults and 3 children on £44 a week??

RufusTheReindeer · 25/09/2014 15:47

thedietstarts

Fair enough, it would be interesting to see what they are providing him with, soggy courgettes are mank!!

HibiscusIsland · 25/09/2014 15:47

What would happen if you stopped paying the £11? Surely a state school can't demand money from you if you are offering to provide lunch yourself. I reckon they are worried everyone will start wanting to take packed lunch and they won't have enough paying to fund the school lunches.

DogCalledRudis · 25/09/2014 15:51

Yeah, stop paying for it.

Topseyt · 25/09/2014 15:54

It is very unreasonable of the school. I really don't think they can actually dictate like this. It isn't as if you are flouting a "no nuts" policy which is there for a good reason, you are simply wishing to give your son a reasonably healthy packed lunch that you are confident he will eat so that he doesn't go hungry.

It does sound as if most of the teachers who have sat at the same table as him confirm that he isn't eating them. Therefore, you might just as well be throwing your money into the bin. Tell the school firmly that you refuse to waste any more money this way, and that you will be sending a packed lunch in future, which you expect him to be allowed to eat at the table with everyone else.

The school policy sounds weird and inflexible to me. "Family" dining is an odd way to put it when the child is not at home with his/her family.

If they are still being awkward then just remember that the money they want to pay for this is yours. That means you get to make the main decisions here. Shopkeepers and other organisations cannot hold you to ransom and force you to pay for merchandise you don't want, so the school can't either.

skylark2 · 25/09/2014 16:39

Do you know the menu in advance - could he have school meals on the days when the vegetarian option is okay and not on the days when it has things he hates?

It's totally unacceptable for a teacher to say that he has to eat meat which is banned by his religion, just because he eats other meat at home.

DD's school had compulsory school meals as a social thing, but there were lots of options! (including halal).

GoblinLittleOwl · 25/09/2014 17:51

Free schools can do what they like, and as they are generally run by parents, I doubt if you will get much sense from them; they have very limited experience of dealing with other parents' children but all the knowledge in the world.