To think this woman has humiliated herself and her kids?

[QueenOfTheEighthKingdom]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6980167/Children-allowed-bread-butter-lunch-school.html

I don't blame the school at all. I imagine there were repeated requests for payment and she must have known the rule (that the school probably thought they wouldn't have to enforce) Why on earth go to the media publicising something that makes you look like a neglectful parent and embarrasses your kids.

To be honest I can't believe schools did this to children. It seems really harsh to deny a child a meal because a parent forgot you pay.

You might have missed that school have no wriggle room in budgets, they are laying staff off. They were no 'denied a meal' - bread and butter is perfectly suitable stop gap between 8.30am and 3pm.

I can’ help wondering if she has form for late or non payment and the school were trying put a stop to it. School staff are busy enough without having to chase non paying parents umpteen times.

It seems really harsh to deny a child a meal because a parent forgot you pay.
We must be reading different threads because I read they'd had bread and butter and an apple. Sounds like a meal to me. And she's obviously done it plenty of times before judging by her comment about them knowing she'll pay.

I think it's terrible to do that to children. Regardless of whether the mother was at work and couldn't answer her phone or she just can't be bothered being a responsible parent, surely schools should take pitty on these children with no money or no packed lunch, and feed them something. Hardly the children's fault.

I think it's bad form for a school to provide children with bread and butter as a lunch when that's all they would have for 6/7 hours.

Or as other people would call it, a sandwich - the whole article says ther was jam and an apple too. Im sure they didnt starve or waste away before she took them out for a 'meal deal' - infinately more than the price of a school dinner

'It's disgusting making them sit in front of their friends and eat bread and butter. If I sent my children to school with bread and butter I'd have social services knocking at my door. It's child neglect.'

Bread, butter and an apple is hardly gruel! As if social services have time to investigate that shit

@QueenOfTheEighthKingdom, no need. You're entitled to post judgmental threads about other mothers to your hearts content. The fact she chose to let them have school lunch that day doesn't mean she's a bad mother for not realising they'd been playing Larry Two Lunches previously, and she was now in debt. The school's lunch system is obviously flawed to allow that to happen, it doesn't read to me like she was trying to take the piss with free meals (which your op is insinuating).

YABU. It is simply wrong to humiliate children in front of their peers by not giving them a proper meal when all the other children have a proper meal. OF course they and their peers would notice they were being treated differently.

The school also gave insufficient notice of this sanction.

I feel sorry for schools as they are often on a very tight budget TBH.The article read that the meal was of 3 courses with fruit and a salad bar as well.This needs to be paid for, and I think if a few people start missing payments more will follow suit.In an ideal world all school meals would be free and plentiful ,but we are on planet earth not Shangri la!.Food is expensive and the suppliers need to be paid on time to keep prices down .Also what would happen if there was an emergency concerning the children?.By turning her phone off to get some sleep following a night shift is understandable there must surely be a second contact /partner /ex partner /Grandma /Friend etc to help?

"I think they should have still fed the kids and called her later or told her at pick up that she owes money." - But they told her before the Easter holidays...the Sunday before... and on Monday before lunch.

it's not really the schools' fault that she turned her phone off and didn't pick up her messages until 1.30pm... what would she have done if they were hurt or had to go to hospital? You can have a Do not disturb excpet for these numbers, whch could be mum, dad, school etc.

I'll bet she pays on time from now on...

"The school also gave insufficient notice of this sanction."

how is TWO WEEKS NOTICE insufficient?

"I think it's bad form for a school to provide children with bread and butter as a lunch when that's all they would have for 6/7 hours."

Umm.

The kids were given a jam or butter sanwich and an apple.

You wouldn't pack THAT much more for a kid in a packed lunch.

And preusmably they had breakfast? so the most they would be with out is maybe 4 hours (brekkie at 8, lunch at 12) - but that would be normal whether packed/school lunch provided or not, surely?

To be hyperbolic and suggest these boys won't have had ANYTHING to eat for 7 hours is silly.

A child that age isn't going to starve or be humiliated by having bread and butter and fruit for lunch once in a while. She is shaming them by going public and making such a fuss about it. Nobody would have remembered even the next day if she hadn't complained.

Of course she knew she should have paid. She forgot, as we all sometimes do, but then she tried to blame the school. Maybe she's tried it on many times before?

I'd personally rather be reminded about a debt when it was small rather than after a year like a PP.

I owed the school £8.80 per child but they know I always pay it

she owed £17 for school dinners

mother of six

photo shows all 6 kids in the same uniform. so was it £17, or £8.80 x just the 3 boys or £8.80 x 6 kids ?

She is over reacting. At my school you bought lunch with a top up card in secondary school or little cold or hot lunch tickets. No ticket/money on card = no meal. The school was kind to provide that bread and fruit for them as they were certainly under no obligation to do so

@MyRankIsSuperintendent, the trouble with these sort of stories are they are all 'he said/she said'. That's why reading shit like this in the DM or elsewhere is just a boring way of killing brain cells, it's always a none event with plenty of sad faces or angry pointing. Suggesting the mum is coming over as neglectful is just as ridiculous as suggesting the school is for their basic meal, it's just the sort of silly froth that should stay in the daily mail comment section for a reason.

I've worked in several schools and this is a problem. Schools are on a tight budget as it is without having to fork out for meals because flakey parents have forgotten to pay yet again, and it is always the same parents.

Funnily enough it's always the ones who can afford expensive foreign holidays, the best cars, expensive clothes and shoes etc but not their child's dinner money... If they were really struggling financially they'd be entitled to free meals.

State School lunches should be free.

The law says your child has to go - so they should feed them whilst there

The buck stopped with the parents, it is their job to make sure everything is up to date. She could well have a form for this, and was probably warned several times. The children were given food, back in the 1980's that would have been the staple of a child's packed lunch, and we were fine. Lunch would have been say about 12:30 now that is only 2.5 hours until they go home, hardly starving. Schools are on a tight budget, at my ds infant school, we have to order meals through Parentpay which delivers the exact meals to the schools, no school canteen. If every child takes their order for that day, there are no meals to give. Where do the parents think that a meal will come from! I hope that they learn from this and get their admin up to date.

"she did not recall receiving any other text messages from the school prior to Monday"

Aye right.

Although a £10 cap for arrears does not sound like very much for a family of 6 children. Did the greedy little blighters eat their packed lunches and a school dinner some days? You would think she might have noticed two uneaten packed lunches and realised that they were running up a debt at school.

We get a text / email for each child, each day its overdue. So if this was the case in her school, for 4 days they would have contacted her saying there was a debt. I do think its slightly Draconian, and would have been better to send a letter home stating "if the debt isnt paid by tomorrow you will need to make pack lunch arrangements or pay the debt", but she wont forget again!

@Someoneonlyyouknow the kids could well have binned the lunch they did not fancy so she could have been unaware

Bread and butter is not a meal.

Yanbu. The school is not at fault here and I think this is the problem with the world today. People never accept responsibility for their actions, it’s always someone’s fault. If she had provided them with a packed lunch on that day, we won’t have this dilemma and the school will just keep chasing her for the other debt. I bet if she provided proper school lunch that her children would love to eat, they would not have ordered school dinner either.

If bread and butter + apple is fine to see a child through, why would that not be acceptable as a packed lunch?