AIBU to want the goverment to introduce lunch box standards to stop the food police.

[porkchop9]

First post on mumsnet after reading posts here for a long time. I'm a mum of 3 dc, dd8 ds5 dd3 and live in the Surrey.

Dd aged 3 does 2 full days at preschool, you pay £4.50 for the lunch hour club and provide your own lunch. Monday first day back after Easter Holiday and were presented with new lunch box rules/guidelines, there are some strict rules already in place but these new rules are beyond ridiculous. My opinion in general is they're your children and you should have the right to feed them as you want.

We do not allow sweets, fruit winders/fruit school bars/dried fruit (sugar content is high), nuts, chocolate, crisps, biscuits,cakes (homemade or otherwise), no chocolate mousse/yogurts or pudding, no processed food (including such items as ham, cheese slices, cream cheese, corned beef, chicken roll, sandwich meats with added water), no fruit yogurts that have been previously frozen, NO FOOD item thats been previously frozen, no tinned or frozen fruit, no chocolate spread or peanut butter.

There are plenty more items listed infact this update takes up 4 A4 pages. One other section states Food is checked for dates, whether it is edible and follows our lunch box standards. Food that is not suitable will be returned to parent in a clear bag with an explanation of why, if repeatedly provide incorrect items they will be charged £2 per item and your child will be excluded from the setting until charges have been paid

Today there was a parents meeting with the bussiness manager who wrote this update. She was absolutley vile to one parent in particular who ended up really embarrassed and near tears and yes I and several other parents did stand up her her. The business mangers issuse was the lady shopped monthly bulk buyed and frooze items such as yogurt, cheese and ham, her dc only had fresh fruit the first week of the month then tinned/dried after that etc, she accused the mum of damaging her dc health. The lady did explain they were on a tight budget and freezing things was the only way she could feed her dc a balanced diet as weekly shopping was out of the question for her family. The last time I looked and this was some time ago tinned/frozen fruit & veg was still 1 of your 5 a day. So aibu to think that a basic set of national guidelines would stop the pack lunch police.

YADNBU.

Every day I am more and more comfortable in my decision to never, ever send my DC to private school. :)

Contact ofsted. I'm pretty sure they can not legally fine you for sending a lunch item in that they do not approve of. We spoke to parents who sent in cold chips wrapped in newspaper for their child's lunch. They were struggling to afford school lunches, we subed the child for a term and eventually managed to get the child onto the free school meals list. That is the only 'big' intervention I have ever done as a hoy. There are been other issues buy usually only for pupils with food avoidance isdues. The only guidelines we have for lunches are no large bars of chocolate or fizzy drinks and no excessive crisps and sweets. This is madness.

I don't think it is a problem unique to private schools, Parsnipbob.

Most pre-schools are privately run anyway, though the majority do exercise a modicum of common sense about food and packed lunch guidance. Our local one provided toast, cheese and dried fruit for mid-morning snacks and the kids loved it. "Business Manager" the OP describes though would probably have fainted at the awfulness of it.

Anyway, shamelessly marking place now for the update following the meeting tonight (wondering whether to have some very nutritionally bad choccie bickies handy too.

I think the clue is in the job title - 'Business manager'

you would have thought a manager of a business wouldn't want to piss off all the paying customers and then insult them in public!

Name and Shame. Sorry, haven't read the whole thread. Too shocked by the OP.

Bonkers. DS has a sandwich, fruit, cucumber, yoghurt, cheese, and a wee treat. What a load of utter shite.

I need to know how this ends.

Dh is home, well been home a while now but taken him a while to stop ranting. Dh expressed his concerns regaurding the lunch box rules and the fact that he felt BM had insulted me as a mother by implying that I was not capable of feeding dd a healthy balance meal. BM's defence was that the update had been misunderstood, dh expressed he found this even more insulting and as an adult she should admit when in the wrong. BM claimed all lunch box rules were in best intrest of children dh disagreed and said in his opinon as a medical professional she was talking a load of rubbish. Dh withdraw dd from pre school, bm mentioned something about 4 weeks notice and 15 hours funding not being transferable until after the notice period. When dh sticks up for me and dc like this makes me remember why I married him in the first place. There is a private school a few minutes away from our house which has a pre school attached, dh has made an appointment to view early next week hopefully they have places as don't want dd to miss out.

When i collect dd there was no mention of the cream cheese on bagel, but one child did have a yogurt tied to their backpack, must have been the frozen sort!

Sorry for typo's been along day

Kingswood here too OP and intrigued as to which school!

I can imagine this jumped up little woman at 3.00am drumming her pudgy fingers on her worktop whilst looking in her cupboards for food to ban with a wicked look on her face!

Send in a box of eggs and ask if they could rustle up an omelette.

Is it Aberdour?

Your DH sounds great. Well done to him. The bm is an utter loon with no idea of what makes a food nutritious.

Apologies havent read the whole thread but OP should give this document on guidelines for food in early years setting to the BM. It's issued by the charity children food trust and the dietary advice is written by state registered dietitians
www.childrensfoodtrust.org.uk/assets/eat-better-start-better/CFT%20Early%20Years%20Guide_Interactive_Sept%2012.pdf

Well done to your husband. That woman really needed someone to stand up to her.

He's a doctor, is he? I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall when he gave his considered medical opinion. It would have been priceless.

Did you mean he has set the ball rolling for withdrawing your daughter from the preschool?

drbonnieblossman no not Aberdour, what do you know about this school as it is one dh has mentioned he might like to send all dc to, the website looks ok but not sure if it will be a bit over bearring for dc.

Topseyt Dd will not be returning to that pre school, dh is writting formal letter at the moment. We aren't to worried about the funded hours tbh as we can afford to pay for dd pre school which will be better than have her subjected to that nonsense.

Send in a large cucumber and two cherry tomatoes artistically arranged in the lunch box.

I have been to several talks about child nutrition and every single expert has said that no food should be banned (allergy protection taken into account for example ie nuts). I love the idea of nothing that makes them crazy or messy. DD's primary had no fizzy drinks, but that was about it.

And yes sorry dh is a doctor.

I would have said collective action is the way forward. All parents concerned to email the BM and copy in the chair of the management committee/governing body stating you do not intend to abide by the rules until they can be demonstrated to be in the best interests of the children. They want to fine you, go right ahead, juts don't pay- what will they do, sue you? how will that look in the local paper
'parents fined for giving child previously frozen yoghurt'

Good on him. She needed something like this.

Send in a leaving present for her - a large bulk buy box of Pop Tarts, stipulating that she should give one to each child at morning snack time.

Aberdour is a pretty good school, yes. Like all schools whether independent or state there will always be minor niggles but I don't think these relate to lunchbox laws!

All the other independent schools locally that I can think of are single sex - guessing you'd want all your children together?

Aberdour's lunch menu looks ok its on their website, doesn't seem to be anything there about packed lunches but I thought private schools were usually hot meals only.

That list of banned lunch box food is ridiculous. You DH did the right thing to withdraw your DD. I think all parents should email the business manager and get in touch with Ofsted.