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

Have had kids at primary for ten years and over that time the rules with packed lunches have become more relaxed (3 different Heads) Used to be no crisps, choc, water only, only fruit at break but they now allow most things. I'm sure they'd follow up if they noticed someone had an inadequate lunch though, chocolate and crisps only etc.
Secondary the uniform is quite strict, blazer, no trainers, regulation skirt style, but I'm glad they allow kickers high tops as dd find them comfortable and she needs something sturdy for the long uphill walk to school, muddy park etc.

Does nobody in your school have a qualification in organisational leadership or experience in leadership, or anywhere but the classroom?

If you are finding it impossible to teach, with school resources stretched thin, and previous approaches to dealing with parents have been failures, can intelligent people not put their heads together, do some research on approaches that work, and develop a new model of communication that doesn't involve recourse to trench warfare and stressful negativity all round?

MaisyPops I do have a lot of sympathy for your post at 07:18:53.

However I am not sure what things like uniform policing or lunch box monitoring add to either teaching or welfare. IMO they end up as a distraction for everyone.

Skowvegas
I taught in a non uniform school. Loved it. We had a dress code which students followed. It was academically selective and the behaviour was bloody awesome.

Though i would say i think the reason it worked was more because of the intake and supportive parents. Not sure it would work as well if we had the type of parents to think closed toed shoes applied to everyone other than their DD who wants to wear flip flops.

mathanxiety
I do actually. Alas, I'm not in a sufficient position of authority to shape whole school culture.

My point is, if children or families need additional support then they shpuld have it, but it should be provided by specialist services by trained professionals, not tagged onto schools.

In terms of expecting parents to follow basic rules, i generally find that once parents know I care about their child but am relentless with my standards they tend to adopt more of a view like 'it's not what i would choose but i see your angle and you clearly want my child to achieve'.
It'e bloody difficult getting to that point with some, but doable with most challenging parents.

We were in the Netherlands for a few years with DCs at the local school. Non uniform is the norm with I think only places like the British school having a uniform.

It was great. My DS was very reluctant about school but small things like being able to wear a favourite t-shirt made a big difference.

In the Netherlands the remit of the school was very much restricted to education not to deal with other issues.

My DCs went and one still goes to a non uniform school with an incredibly mixed intake. Low level infractions (dress code, etc) are not a problem. The school takes race relations, sexual harassment/abuse, fighting, sale/use of drugs, and bringing weapons to school very seriously. Also issues like chronic lateness and truancy.

There are services available in school that are integrated with institutions in the community. For instance, if there is SS involvement, community MH service involvement or police involvement with a family, the school social worker team will be notified and services offered to children of those families. Students are taken out for full class periods for group counseling or individual counseling; the SW team makes sure students don't miss the same class every week, and nobody is left wandering loose in the hallways during a class period.

The thinking behind providing support services in school is that not every family has the resources to take a student to those services outside of school hours. Sometimes students' problems originate with a family situation and they approach the school in confidence. Helping them would be difficult if they had to find a way to access services outside of school hours. Sometimes a group approach is indicated - this would be hard outside of school hours. The SW services are provided as a line item in the school budget and are free to students, whereas many families might find affordability a huge issue if they had to send a student to counseling outside of school. And services are always available - no long waiting lists, because sometimes a problem has an impact on class management or a student's performance and waiting lists for counseling are not acceptable. Another reason to provide services in school is the possibility of sharing concerns from teachers, and academic counselors, who have contact with the student. Deans can offer a referral to the SW team if a disciplinary issue seems to warrant it.

The biggest reason is that public schools in the US are obliged by law to provide an appropriate education for all students in their district. This entails dealing with or accommodating barriers the students may have. Provision of support services is now considered to be part and parcel of fulfilling this obligation since they make possible the education a student is entitled to.

There is a no flip flops rule that is not honoured at all except in lab science, woodwork, metalwork, auto shop, and kitchen/cooking classes. Students often change into very lightweight and thus portable footwear for those classes and put their flip flops in their backpacks. The lightweight shoes are the spirit and not the letter of the regulation.

mathanxiety
See if wider services want to be able to use the school buildimg during the day then that is different (in my eyes) to expecting schools to sort issues. I have no issue with that.

What i get irritated by is services being cut and then schools are having to pick up the work out of their time and their budgets.
(E.g. in thr last few years schools near me have jad to employ a full team of mentors and a counsellor at thr same time as making other education staff redundant and cutting subjects offered.) That's not the point of school, limiting educational opportunities because money is being spent filling gaps from other services.

On thr flip flop thing, just get rid of the rule then qnd put what the actual rule is - 'for the following subjects you must have closed shoes'. Having a rule which you don't bother holding to put other rules up for negotiation. Something is either an expectation of an organisation or it isn't.

The de facto rule is closed toe shoes in those particular classrooms.

Up to about ten years ago there was a mobile phone ban in the school. It had been in place since the dawn of mobiles. It was widely flouted and phones were confiscated. Parents had to go to the school and sign a paper stating they had read and accepted the phone policy before the phone could be returned. This was a huge pain in the ass, needless to say, and the phones continued to be brought to school.

There was a good reason to bring phones to school - parents liked to check whether their students were home after school, students liked to contact parents if a sport practice or rehearsal was canceled, etc. Parents liked phones. The school feared students would buy or sell narcotics if they were allowed to have phones. The policy generated so much opposition that a group was able to present their case for a rule change at a school board meeting. The rule was changed.

If flip flops were confiscated and parents had to come to the school to sign them out, I am certain there would be the same outcome as the phone controversy.

Some rules are based on assumptions that don't stand up to scrutiny, and some consequences are out of proportion to the crimes.

Luckily, people here tend to be practical - the deans and their secretaries were fed up with the confiscation policy too, the time it took up and the paperwork we're ridiculous and impinged on other functions of the office - and also flexible and responsive.

Even the RC elementary school my DCs attended to age 13 changed its footwear rule after a body of parents got together to complain about the previous dress shoes requirement. For about the last 20 years, students have been allowed to wear white, black, beige or blue sneakers to school. There was no issue with casual, comfortable footwear starting some sort of rot in standards. Another change that was instituted about the same time was that students up to 1st grade could wear PE clothes on PE days. This cut down on time spent changing before and after PE and also drastically cut the complaints about lost uniform items.

The social services in the high school are paid for out of the high school budget. The providers are employees of the school.

I think this tell us all we need to know about why the mum was banned

Well, not necessarily - sometimes you get a parent carried off by the police after trying to lynch the HT, then saying in the paper "I tried to complain and they banned me".
Sometimes, you make a respectful complaint, and the next thing you hear about it is the court order banning you from coming within a mile of the school, and the lawyers making a big noise about "Teachers have to be protected".

And everything else in between, of course, but just because a council implies (without actually saying it) that a ban was necessary, rather than just lawyers overreacting to make sure they earn their fees, it doesn't mean that it's actually the case.

More reporting.

"Discrimination" - she keeps using this word. I do not think it means what she thinks it means.

Sometimes, you make a respectful complaint, and the next thing you hear about it is the court order banning you from coming within a mile of the school, and the lawyers making a big noise about "Teachers have to be protected"
Yes, i imagine schools banning and setting lawyers on parents who are polite and reasonable probably happens enough for it to be a strong possibility

Sometimes, you make a respectful complaint, and the next thing you hear about it is the court order banning you from coming within a mile of the school, and the lawyers making a big noise about "Teachers have to be protected".

Firstly, it's not 'teachers'. It is school staff. Our office staff and TAs also have a right not to have to field argumentative bullies who want to intimidate school because they want their own way.

Anyway, having a polite and reasonable conversation wouldn't get you in trouble at all and you'd be nowhere near a court. Suggesting that parents raising concerns politely gets a court order is simply disingenuous.

We have a head teacher fairly locally who was notorious for banning perfectly reasonable parents usually after a malicious safeguarding referral.

They are human beings the same as the rest of us and like it or not some human beings are spiteful bastards

Only if they fairly define 'junk food'. Junk food could mean a number of things. To me, junk food is mcdonalds/burger king/anyotherfastfoodjoint burgers. A small chocolate bar, or a bag of crisps within a balanced lunch, in my opinion, is not. What next, only allowed wholemeal bread, no butter or cheese, low fat yogurts etc. I have weight problems. I have had weight problems all of my adult life, most of what was stemmed from being 'banned' or 'not allowed' to having things when I was younger. We didn't have takeaways, we didn't get many sweets or chocolates, we didn't drink fizzy pop. My weight problems started when I started earning money to spend on what I wanted and didn't have an adult preaching what I can and can't have. Now I've learned to control what I can and can't eat, control portions and prepare healthy meals, which the whole family eat at home. I'm losing weight and my family are healthier. I still buy chocolate, I buy crisps, I buy things that others would call 'junk' but I'm teaching my 8 year old that it is ok to have these things and eat them in moderation, hoping that he won't feel the need to scoff secretly when he's older! I do consider myself lucky that my son eats lots of fruits, veg and fresh meat and is encouraged to reach for fruit or veg for snacks before chocolate, which he usually does without being reminded anyway.

Also as others have pointed out, kids with packed lunches aren't allowed a 'treat' or chocolate, or biscuit, but kids are served full fat, full sugar puddings with ladles of custard over them (I work in a school, and have also had lunches there and the puddings are definitely not 'low fat or healthy'.

*many will go packed lunches because they can't afford to pay for a dinner that their children won't eat.

Won’t those families be entitled to free school meals though?*

The past three years my son has been school dinners. They charge £2.10 per day, which is reasonable for a two course meal. But, is it reasonable to charge this when my son comes home and says 'I didn't like the chicken curry so I had broccoli and sprouts for dinner', what about pudding 'an apple'. It's £10.50 a week, again I'm not grumbling at this, as it is reasonable, but as pointed out, it's a lot to pay out when your child won't eat what they offer (and fair play to him, some of the food is rank!). Some weeks we scrape by ourselves and £10.50 is a lot to pay out when I could've done a packed lunch that he would enjoy.

No, we aren't entitled to free school meals, as we're not eligible. Doesn't mean we don't live on the breadline, sadly.

i love our school - no food allowed into school, period. (except for medical reasons such as diagosed autism). only empty bottles.

It always makes me laugh this 'they get cake in school dinners' guff. I just asked DD and she says she hasn't attempted to eat the cake since reception (she's Y4) as it isn't the nicest (in other words doesn't have any sugar in). If you want to send in packed lunches ask the school for the recipe but they'll be disappointed.

I think school dinners are fine on balance and they have to meet rules on nutrition so I don't understand how these schools get away with such unhealthy meals.

Did I read that correctly - the mother really thinks it's "discrimination" because she can't send in a mars bar and squash with a packed lunch?

Does she have any idea what discrimination means??!

Children are fat these days and have rotten teeth as too many calories and not running around and all the sugar

I say ban the junk they don’t need all this calories a sandwich or pasta a yoghurt and fruit is all they need
My stepdaughter is 11 she’s in aged 14-15 clothes as her mother over feeds herself and her children
She gives SD sandwich chocolate bar or cake crisps yoghurt fruit ! Then SD moans she’s overweight

It’s negkecting your childhoods health over feeding them

Yura ??? No lacked linches ?

Packed

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