To think secondary schools shouldn’t have compulsory school dinners

[HitMissBowl]

DS is going to be starting a new secondary school in September. He will be one of the first set of pupils in year 7.

The school have stated that they will have compulsory family lunches, so nobody will be allowed to bring in packed lunch or any other type of food into school. Sounds good? Except in a few years time I’ll have 3 children in the school and will be spending well over £7K a year on school lunches for them.

How is this even fair? Dh and I will be earning over the £16k limit for free school lunches so how will we afford it? Apart from this, and the school uniform, the school sounds like it will be exceptional and academic and suit DS.

Is it legal for schools to make school dinners compulsory?

Sounds good to me. Stops any issues.

I've never heard of that before!

£7k??!! That’s almost £600 per month for 3 kids school lunches? Wtaf?

@lovelyupnorth

Sounds good? 7k a year? Where the hell do families get that from!! That's £135 a week 😱

Don’t know. I’ve never heard of it. I suppose you can petition the head/governors about it. How much are they charging per day? How will they cope with dietary/religious requirements?

Think its absolutely riddiclulous; what about children who prefer a packed lunch.

Omg I’m so sorry, I did a wrong calculation.

Are you sure your maths is right there? To be spending over 7k a year on 3 children, that would be almost £12 per day per child.

At £3 per day per child, that's £9 per day.
5 days per week = £45/wk
39 weeks a year = £1755/yr

I agree it's still a lot if you'd rather them take a packed lunch but it's not £7k.

How much is a meal per day?

How are the school dinners that expensive? It’s literally £2.50 for a meal, biscuit/cake and a bottle of water at my school.

That works out around £1462.50 per school year for 3 pupils.

At 7k your school meals cost £11 a meal?

£7k for 3 children a year works out at £60 per week per child. I think you may have made a mistake on your maths.
That said, I do think it is reasonable to want children to be able to take a packed lunch.

£7000? Are you sure?

£2.50 per day x 3 is £7.50 x 190 days per year is = £1420.

I think you may have your maths wrong - there is no way a state school is charging £9 for a school lunch!

And yes they can make them compulsory, but I would imagine they will get a lot of pushback. Also once the school is up and running and full, the time and space taken for everyone to have lunch like this is likely to put a stop to it anyway!

£2.60 a meal.
£2.60 x 3 = £7.80 a day

£7.80 x 190 school days = £1,482 a year.

Even so, £1,482 is a lot of money that is going on just lunches.

They won’t be allowed to bring in snacks either, so all break time and morning snacks will have to be bought at school, so the total will be a lot more than that.

That can't be right, unless each school lunch is £12!

Sorry about that . Maths was never my strong point

So they're not even allowed to bring in an apple for snack?

I would be extremely keen to understand how they manage allergies without risk

Why did you say £7 K in your first post as it is £1482 ? That's quite a slip of the keyboard .

Welcome to the wonderful world of academies and free schools. They don’t want families who can’t afford it, that’s how they keep academic standards high with no effort. Don’t like it, then chose a different school. Selection by the back door.

If it's an academy I think they probably can - if it's not I'd look into it further with LEA.

I do wonder how they will cope with allgeries - and if I had a child with a serious one I'd be asking a lot of questions.

Why did you say £7 K in your first post as it is £1482 ? That's quite a slip of the keyboard .

The OP hasn't even pretended it was a 'typo'. She's admitted that she made a miscalculation and that Maths isn't her strong point.

£1482 to feed three children a decent lunch throughout the year seems pretty reasonable to me.

Your packed lunch costs wouldn't be much less over a year tbh.

Plus you save loads of time

It wasn’t a slip of the keyboard. I did a wrong calculation. I multiplied 7.80 by 5 and then by 190 or something.

They don’t want families who can’t afford it, that’s how they keep academic standards high with no effort. Don’t like it, then chose a different school. Selection by the back door.

Gosh. I never even realised this until now.

Your packed lunch costs wouldn't be much less over a year tbh

I have three children - I find I can do it cheaper than paying for school meals - plus I can put in healthy stuff they will eat.

I can understand the OP concerns.