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

[TheDietStartsTomorrow]

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).

I think the school may be discriminating - I'm pretty sure free schools are bound by the equality act.

I also, in many ways, regret sending him to this free school. They are very inflexible and unaccomodating but I know my DS likes the school and is quite excited to be in Year 7 and all the changes that come with it. I could consider applying to change but I know its not what DS wants. There are lots of other things that I've compromised on and given in to the school to. But this thread has given me the courage to write in and hold my ground.

skylark they do have halal options but their supplier is not very reliable and I would guess from my research into the local halal food suppliers that there's a 80% likelihood they are not halal at all.

I think I will stop paying for it. And write back explaining why.

owlbegoing, I have a £50 weekly budget for food. That excludes rice, flour and lentils that I buy in bulk four times a year fir about £35-£45 each time. We allocate £10 to fruit, £10 to veg, £10 to meat and poultry (which we also buy in bulk but pay for weekly) and spend about £20 a week on other supermarket bits and pieces. Treats like chocolate and stuff comes from our pocket money (adults get pocket money too ). I bake biscuits and cake myself and don't ever do ready meals. Occasionally we splurge on vegetarian take out but that also comes from pocket money.

Its not always just £20 in the supermarket. They'll be times occasionally when its nearer £30 or £40. But most weeks its around £20-£25.

If they like family dining so much, could you join them one day? And loudly mention the soggy courgettes? :o

On the one hand I think yanbu. But on the other.... Apart from one teacher's comment, they have no issue with him having the veggie option. It does sound like he is pretty fussy if he won't eat any of the veggie meals tbh. They can't all have courgette in them! Obviously yanb at all u to expect halal meat, but free range too may be expecting a lot from institutional cooking.
I also think yabu to write in again instead of setting up a visit/going in to discuss. They may not understand your concerns re their halal meat supplier (what makes you so certain they are unreliable?) and a proper discussion will help. You could also do some research and suggest a better supplier, presumably there will be other families at the school who follow halal diet.
Your budgeting and cooking sound amazing, but it may be that it does mean your DS is very used to your cooking and less willing to try new stuff than he would be if he was used to the odd ready meal or meal out. I am a crap cook/housekeeper though, so maybe I'm looking for excuses as to my own (very ready-meal heavy!) existence
If you genuinely can't afford the cost of the school dinner, that's a separate issue (to be addressed separately). I think the school will be more sympathetic if you focus on the main issue which is the origin of the meat they are offering and its suitability with regards to your DS's beliefs.

And Worra, I totally agree re teenagers preferring the company of their pals at lunch. But one of the things private schools are doing that gives their kids an advantage is teaching them to be at ease in the company of adults which is going to lead to a lot more success at the next stage of their lives than good exam results imo. Many many people meet in their early 20s are still not able to make eye contact with/chat with older adults and it doesn't help them in their careers! I actually think this school's family dining policy sounds fantastic and OP should support if she can. I bet it cuts down hugely on bullying etc.

School meals are a minefield at the moment I think. I worked in one school where all meat was claimed to be halal which caused issues because there are many people who do no agree with some procedures involved in halal meat. What with religious needs and other needs such as allergies I don't know how schools do it on their limited budget.

However, I have never known a secondary school refuse packed lunches - I would have thought it would make it easier for the school as those with the strictest requirements would probably take their own.

On the family dining front, two schools I have worked in do this but on a more informal level - teachers and students eat in the same room and can join the teachers scattered around if they wish. It works really well and is a nice way to get to know students outside of the classroom. It can also be good for children with some SEN such as ASD as some felt more comfortable around adults and otherwise may have ended up alone at lunchtime.

The comment that he should eat non-halal meat was discriminatory and probably illegal, BUT there is an option provided that he can eat and seeing as all the other pupils have to eat the tasteless muck provided I'm not sure why your son is a special case TBH. You did choose to send him there instead of a "normal" school.

Give him packed lunch, and refuse to pay for the school muck. What can they do?

I don't care if a school provides halal meat cooked by Jamie Oliver, if you, as a parent, decide to give your son an alternative, well that should be your right.

Schools should never be able to dictate what your kids can and can't eat. That is not their role.

Saying he has to eat non-halal meat is discriminatory. Even though there is a veggie slop option, that is your strongest opening gambit as the school will be mindful of potential litigation.

Passing off non-halal meat as halal is also serious and needs to be addressed. Any school, not just free schools, can set their own lunch policy but they are bound by the Equality Act 2010. Take advice fron the EHRC.

Free schools cannot "do as they please". They are not legally entitled to oblige you to pay for anything. It is absolutely against their agreements with the DoE. So they cannot insist you pay for shool meals.

School dinner vegetarian food is a very different style of food than most vegetarians would choose to eat. I don't blame him for disliking it. As the parent of a vegetarian child I send in a packed lunch even though a school lunch would be free because what I offered is both unappetizing and unsatisfying because if you just substitute meat with carrots or something similar you don't get a good meal.

Could you compromise with the school and send your son in with a serving of a meat based thing which he could add to a plate of side vegetables from the school lunch?
offering to pay half-rate as he wouldn't be having the most expensive element of what they are offering?

Someone else may correct me if I'm wrong but I understood that in any state-funded education they are not allowed to make any chargable thing to be compulsory. If you can't afford school lunches that are uneaten they are not allowed to force you to pay. So you could equally just write to them to say he will no longer be having them, stop paying, and ignore all their squawking.

Oops my phone substituted "I" instead of "is" in the first para which completely changes the sense of the sentence!

I teach organic food growing, am a veggie and I never eat the food in schools unless they are a silver or gold standard FFLP school. Some of it is seriously bad.

Have you got a sample weekly menu from them? Can we help to dissect this menu so that you have actual info to go into the head with that shows that the menu is not up to scratch?

Even when awarded silver or gold funky, it's seriously crap!

Say you are sending packed lunches and that's final. You don't trust that the halal food is properly Halal and secondly cant afford £44 a month anyway. If they have a problem with this, write to the governors and the LEA while copying in the head.

They can, actually, boom boom's. There is nothing in the standard funding agreement to prevent schools charging for a school meal in the case of children not entitled to free school meals.

They can't make paying for school meals, or any other activity, a requirement for attending the school.

Sorry that is incorrect. They caanot make charges for admission or attendance but they can for school meals. The relevant provisions - which only apply indirectly to free schools via funding agreements - are in the Education Act 1996.

Being able to make charges isn't the same as being able to compel parents to take up the provision. Under the education act state schools can, for instance, charge for music lessons and board and lodging on some school trips. But they cannot require pupils to have those lessons or go on those trips.

They are being stupidly unreasonable! He should be able to take a packed lunch in and eat it with everyone else.

I hope I don't have to deal with that sort of nonsense when dd1 starts secondary school next year. I've always done packed lunches as she's a fussy eater and I can't afford the meals anyway.

Could he come home for lunch or is that not an option? I used to go home and then not go back in the afternoon cos I hated it but then that was over 20 years ago!

LEA has no jurisdiction over free schools Tickle.