To think the school has a point about packed lunches

[Rebeccaslicker]

I'm not sure about banning parents from the premises, but is it a bad thing to say no chocolate, sugary drinks etc in a primary school lunch?? (My DD is only 2, so I haven't had the lunchbox decisions yet, v interested in people's views!)

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/now-mum-48-banned-school-1108690.amp

When I worked in a school not so long ago, one of the boys (year 3 class) opened his lunch box and inside of it was 8 of those thin Cadbury chocolate bars - the ones that are the same size in length to the normal ones but aren't divided into pieces and instead have shapes molded into them.

I asked the teacher what was going on with his lunch and she said it was the same everyday and his parents never packed anything else because he 'only eats chocolate'. I was really shocked to be honest, I know kids can be fussy but you can't just give in and give them 8 chocolate bars for lunch.

She’s carrying sugary Vimto not flavoured water,

She's carrying blue top - so "No added sugar" Vimto, not "sugary" other than the sugars from the fruits it contains.

but lets not let the facts get in the way.

I gave up on school meals after I asked my DS1 what he had for lunch (in primary school). He said chips. I asked what he had with that and he said spaghetti hoops! I asked him if there was anything green available (he loved peas, brocoli and spinach). He said no.
Packed lunch from then on - at least you can provide a balanced diet of food that you know they will eat and enjoy.

Surely the idea of lunch is to keep the child full and energy boosted until home-time?

In which case, a lunch high in sugar and processed food is not going to do the job. Our school have what I would call a balanced approach to the school lunches - a large mix of different foods and they don't add salt, and handmake their pizza.

I don't understanad the policy of labelling food as "bad" anyway whether at home or school.

Squash is not necessary unless your child has sensory issues or other issues raised by having SEN but these would have already been raised with the school surely? I cannot imagine why you wouldn't?

my child would choose squash over water but as he is thirsty, he drinks water!

I would totally be on board if the schools practiced what they preached. A lot of schools allow dillutable juice as well. Cake and custard daily is ridiculous!

Sod the packed lunches, since when have schools got legal advice to ban parents from the premises for challenging a policy?

I wonder if there's more to this than meets the eye, it seems such a high-handed over-reaction from the school to ban this parent, that there surely must be a back story to all this?

My mum is a GP and didn't even allow crisps in my packed lunches :( . Everyone else had so much chocolate and i had a brown bread sandwich, an apple, raw carrot and water. She'd let me drink straight vodka before bring in fizzy drinks heh.

I remember being hungry all day.

I agree about healthy lunches but if the school are going to be hyppoctital and continue to allow puddings and cookies then this isn’t very fair.
Also not all school meals are cooked from scratch. My mum works as a supply in the school kitchens meaning she goes to various schools. Some bring their food in from a supplier which is mainly processed and others are cooked from scratch on the premises.

I think we're possibly mistakenly forcing adult healthy eating on to children.

My kids have always been more at risk of under than overeating, and so I sympathise with parents trying to boost their kids calorie intake with super-palatable foods that would be "unhealthy" for adults.

Not sure whether that is what's going on here, but we as a nation are all over the place on food IMO.

@ragwort I know what you mean, whilst I’m waiting for my son who is 10 to meet me halfway from school a lot of my sisters friends from the high school walk past and it’s the same boys every day have either packs of cookies or sweets. When I was in high school I used to buy a pack of either cherry drops or chewing gum on the way to school everyday without fail 50% of which was conceded by classmates. Some of my friends used to have cokes and red bulls everyday. When you go to high school it’s like your let out of a cage in terms of walking to school by yourself you can do what you want and your parents aren’t there to tell you no. In primary school it’s like the kids are too young to disobey and take everything the teachers say literally. Several times we’ve had problems with the washing machine and I’ve had to send my son to school with a different coloured jumper, he point blank refuses to wear it because the teachers might say something to him.

However it does then make it difficult to uphold the “no sugary drinks” rule with the rest of the children.

This stands out. If the sight of squash in a bottle makes it difficult to uphold the no sugary drinks rule regardless of whether its sugar free squash or not then can't you see that the children see exactly the same double standard in school dinners including cakes when packed lunches can't regardless of how tasteless and healthy-alternative the school kitchen cake recipe may be they just see cake. Kids aged 7-11 don't care about the recipe, they just see it as unfair. Whispers and exaggerations then escalate to this situation at least a few times every year. Schools need to stop the cake-alike puds if they're going to get everyone on board.

I think the issue is that a lot of people think they know what is healthy when they don’t.
They also think that ‘everything in moderation is ok’ so it’s ok to give my toddler squash. And because it’s less than my friend’s dc who is drink a litre of coke, then squash nearly every time is ok (because it’s clearky not as bad as Coke) etc....

TBH I also think that school meals don’t help. They are supposed to be balanced and healthy. Much better than packed lunches but always have a large choice of potatoes/fries, cookies, cake with custard etc...
So the message we are giving to children and parents is a cake or cookie as a dessert with each meal is ok.

Fwiw I think you are right OP. If as a toddler, children aren’t given squash, they won’t ask for it and won’t end up in a situation where they will only drink squash. Same with a lot of other foods.
But it’s not a popular idea.

TBH I’d rather have my dcs drink full sugar squash than the diet stuff.
First of all it has the same effect in the body than sugar (incl raising blood sugar levels and leading to obesity) but it’s also linked with cancer.

And yes, in the children eyes, it doesn’t matter anyway. A cake is a cake. Squash is squash.

cloud I’ve had one of those too.
Bith as yu g child and as a teen.
But the answer isn’t to give them something sugary ime.

cloudspotter Same with us. I see the leaflets promoting skimmed milk and low fat cheese and I am thinking wtf the kids will be like skeletons!

School dinner cake is RANK. My son has informed me he would rather go without cake than eat school dinner cake, and he is absolutely not a picky eater except when the food's just bad

It annoys me when school say no to treats but allow it on their menu.
When my little one was in Nursery she didn’t like the dinners that often so we just paid as and when she would like it, but quite often her friends would all be eating ice cream cones & she would have her yoghurt & fruit. So I sent an Ice lolly in & asked them to freeze it til lunch. They mentioned their policy but when I pointed out she was getting sad watching her friends eat ice cream & it didnt seem fair they were ok to oblige.

My ex mil in law was a head teacher. She had problems in her school with kids brining in whole packets of biscuits for lunch. No sandwiches etc. Just a packet of buscuits- Jammu dodgers, chocolate digestives, custard creams etc.
This was not just one child either!

Kids get their kit kats taken off them while the kids having dinners tuck into their pizza chips and cake and custard. I dont get their point.

I always hid two squares of dairy milk wrapped in foil in dd's lunchbox. I thought all the others got yoghurts full of sugar and things like that for pudding, so she could damn well have chocolate.

I think that whoever checked lunchboxes at her primaries turned a blind eye to the choc as it was never confiscated.

I wonder if there's more to this than meets the eye, it seems such a high-handed over-reaction from the school to ban this parent, that there surely must be a back story to all this?

Basil, I linked to an earlier report (this afternoon probably about 1pm) where she was part of a group of parents complaining. It appears she is the only one banned and the only one still talking to the media. I'd be amazed if those things weren't connected.

On local social media she says she is prepared to take the flak so other parents don't have to & there are lots of comments from other parents at the school supporting her. Also a few comments saying they are glad they removed their children from the school a while back.

Jux - wonder if she scarfed them down on the way in?

I didn't get chocolate but on the days when I was given egg sandwiches I would always eat them on the way in because otherwise there was a girl in the classroom who claims that eggs smelled of farts and made me really embarrassed! Those were some long days when all I had to eat at lunchtime was a banana or an apple and some crackers or something 🎻🎻🎻

Saw a mum in the co-op a few weeks back looking quite harassed, on the phone, telling her son to choose a sandwich and then saw her pay, unpack it and put it in a sandwich bag in her son's lunch box.
And to be fair I thought oh bless her she's having shit day, fair play!

Now seen her do the same thing pretty much every day since!!

Point is, not everything is at it seems!