Lunch box police

[BackToBeingMe]

Just had a phone call from school and asked if I could go in for a chat regarding dd lunch. She is 6 and in year 2, being in key stage 1 she gets universal free school meals which she has everyday apart from Wednesday. Wednesday is always a roast and the gravy the meat is cooked in gives her an upset stomach. I am irritated as the teacher has looked in dd lunch bag this morning which I feel is out of order if I'm total honest. So the offending item which she has had the last few Wednesday's as there is 10 in a pack is a mini Pick Up Bar. Photo attached for size she has just the 1 biscuit not the 3 that is the actual serving size. Along with the pick up she has a cheese and ham mini wrap with lettuce, cucumber and red onion in, 6 cherry tomatoes, carrot sticks, a pot of hummus and grapes which are cut into 1/4s. I was a bit taken aback just now on the phone so didn't say much at all, now I need to know what to say at by meeting this afternoon. I would seriously think the school had more to worry about than a flamming fun size biscuit. For back ground we moved into this area recently and dd has only been at the school since the September and such rule was mentioned during induction day in July.

My betting is you caught HT short yesterday when you announced "that's my ds medical information".

She's gone on defence. Never the best course of action!

Please remember to email everyone individually who you've discussed things with to confirm discussion and outcomes.

If it's not I writing it didn't happen as far as people like Ht and LA s are concerned.

Bitter voice of experience.

Do you know what she was given for lunch yesterday? Hope it was tailored to all her ‘allergies’.

God that's far healthier than my kids have. I fact my kids would starve on that lunch!!

My 4 year old has
Half sandwich with ham or ham
Cheesestring
2 pieces fruit/veg like pot of blueberries, olives, satsuma,tinned peaches, raisins
Fromage frais
Cake or cereal bar.

The cakes I make definitely has more sugar in than what you've used. As do the cereal bars!!

We're assuming she had gravy on her lunch, which is what makes her ill. At my DC's school, gravy's optional.

Well done op. Hope your meeting with the welfare officer goes well tomorrow.

Thanks for all the support and encouragement it has really helped me to think more rationally. Does anybody have any suggestions about things to discuss tomorrow welfare meeting? Trying to make some key points so I don't go off on a ramble. Parents evening in a moment I am feeling weird about it after yesterday, will report back after.

As for what we had for lunch yesterday it was the roast and yes the gravy was given but apparently it is diary free, so if she did have lactose intolerance it isn't a rule breaker.

I think that you make most of the points to the welfare officer that you have made here.

Mainly, that there is no failsafe system for double checking that children's medical information is correctly recorded, without mistakes. Children and their families do have to rely on schools to get this right, and the results of mistakes can potentially be catastrophic Schools are, after all in loco parentis while the children are with them. That is what it used to be called anyway.

No suggestions at all. Well done OP.

I can only imagine all the off piste staff convos that went on in the weeks preceding the Lunchbox Meeting with all those people with Job Titles and more power than sense who were just poised and ready to take you and your parenting down.

Nice.

Gossippy dangerous shites is mostly what I think of them.

Unfortunately, in the main, we have to assuage their egos to get our kids through the likes of these.

Thankfully, not all Teachers and Schoolworkers are like this.
Otherwise hardly any student would make it through unless they were completely bland, beige, blancmange.

I HATE the school dinner desserts! It’s ridiculous.

I'm a bit at their system. Part of my job is administrating residential events for teens in school parties. We have their med & diet requirement details before they arrive. We then check this against the sheets they/ the schools bring to check that we are correct. This check in takes time but double checking is the only way we get it accurate (we are only as good as the info schools give us before hand and it's often quite wrong ). We then label meals with requirements to match them to recipients. This is because we are frightened of killing anyone!!!

I am sympathetic to admin balls-ups as people are human. But the Head had shit attitude. Definitely get it in writing & let us know how the welfare check goes. Cannot believe the turn this thread has taken! Good luck tomorrow. X

The biggest point that I'd want to discuss would be the fact that they failed to keep your child safe, and are also potentially still failing to keep other children safe. If they had proper procedures in place to ensure that all allergic children were cared for appropriately then the original admin error would have been picked up almost immediately.

When an allergic child starts to attend, do they see care plans from the child's paediatrician? Do they ask detailed questions of parents about the nature of the allergy and what constitutes an emergency for each allergy for that child? Do they keep medication for the child, check the prescription label relates to that child, regularly check that the medication is in date? Do all staff know the allergic child by sight and know the symptoms to watch for with that particular child, to ensure that the symptoms of a reaction aren't dismissed as something less serious? Do the lunch staff know what to serve the child, and know them by sight? Have the school had a conversation with the parents and child to assess their level of understanding of their allergies, and used this information to inform their risk assessment for the child (do they even produce a risk assessment, or care plan?) Do they have a policy regarding potentially homemade 'outside' food brought in by other children for birthdays and suchlike within the school/class, and the risks that might present?

I don't feel that this is simply an isolated admin error, because if the above had been diligently handled the error would have come to light immediately as soon as the school opened a dialogue with you regarding the finer details of your child's allergy.

Ultimately I'd consider reporting to Ofsted as their safeguarding in this respect seems poor.

Given the fact they have a failed system with no effective back-up/failsafe and the attitude HateIsNotGood mentions, I’d quietly start considering my options for shifting schools for both children.

It's mad...no wonder so many people have eating disorders.
One choc bar is fine.

Pearldiving gives a good description of what the school SHOULD be doing to safeguard kids with allergies. If these procedures were in place then the error would have been identified fairly quickly. The lack of such procedures has been highlighted by this fiasco and is a huge risk to all children. Also their attitude stinks.

malificent7 suggest you RTFT.

The information is often given to the kitchen so that they know about allergies etc - check they’ve updated this since the first meeting.

How did your meeting go?

Any update on the meeting op ? I hope you got an apology.

Where has OP gone ?