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?

I think eating together like that sounds nice actually. Feels more like a dorm situation than a cheap canteen.

As someone who hates making packed lunches, I'd be happy to pay for the lunches. However, my kids would be taking their own healthy snacks in from home for breaktimes and there's absolutely nothing they could do to prevent that.

Interesting those saying I’ll probably spend the same on making lunches. I’ve never calculated before, but we do end up adding on lunch food to the weekly shop and fruit disappears much quicker. I’m worried that one of my fussy eaters won’t eat the food.

The other thing I’m worried about is meat substitutes. I’m not a fan of quorn and vege sausages and neither is DS. He thinks vegetarian food is fake. So I hope they have nutritious meals that are authentically vegetarian.

As for the no “no hot meals in the evening”. That’s a big “never gonna happen”! Dh loves his food and would never go without a hot dinner in the evenings. As he does the school pick ups, he starts on dinner every evening and when I get home from work I finish off and serve. Hot meals are daily here except for weekends when dh works late, then I’ll give the kids whatever I can be bothered with!

I'm just thinking as well, if that was me or DS being forced to go veggie, there would be a big problem with our bums exploding. We DO NOT react well to Quorn or anything like it. I'm guessing it's a reaction to soy. What would they be providing instead then?

Sounds good to me. Stops any issues.

What a stupid comment it clearly causes issues when people can't afford it. I also wouldn't trust the school canteen with dietary issues

It’s selection by the back door. The school doesn’t want poor people.

Loads of high school kids take packed lunches, mine included. It works out alot cheaper.

Mine have done bath, ds2 now gets fsm but prefers to take a packed lunch

£45 a week for 3 children paying for school meals here and that’s the basic subsidised meal which isn’t great

Also they run out of food and as the children get older they have other things they need to be doing at lunch, library , printing stuff , school clubs so lots prefer to take lunch with them

Both

They can spend most of lunch queuing for meals

Ds who is autistic used to go to a private primary school with a similar policy. He ate virtually nothing, his blood sugar dipped and his behaviour & energy levels in the afternoons were appalling.

Fsm are available to many poor people, so I dont think its as simple as "weeding out the poor". It does weed out those who think a bag of chips and 3 cokes make a good lunch for a 13 year old. I know of several schools round here who operate this system as part of their ethos. They are all oversubscribed so I guess a lot of people are ok w it.

Mine always took packed lunches because school food was rubbish - really poor ingredients for such a high price. For under £1 a day they had really good food from home

I think that while some children are fussy eaters, they're more likely to conform and eat the food when everyone else is eating.

These schools are strict on not bringing in other snacks, due to food allergies that other children have.

So I wouldn't want to risk a snack my DC has, causing harm to any other child.

Quorn isn't soy, it's a mycoprotein.

If the school lunches are healthy then I think this is a great thing. Yes it might be doable to make it ever so slightly cheaper but you wouldn't save much, and school lunches are probably healthier. If it's just junk then I don't see the point.

For those of you saying the school doesn't want poor people, you're being a bit ridiculous. I'm a teacher and the poorest students ALWAYS have school meals - presumably because they get them free. Why would poor parents spend on packed lunches when they can give their kids free school dinners? So you're saying that these schools are trying to "weed out" not the poorest students (who would eat for free), but just like, the slightly less well-off students? That makes literally no sense. If they're really so hateful and ignorant that they don't want poor students, wouldn't it be the poorest ones that they don't want? This is just some weird conspiracy!

So you're saying that these schools are trying to "weed out" not the poorest students (who would eat for free), but just like, the slightly less well-off students?

That would be the savvy thing to do. FSM children at least come with pupil premium. Not quite poor enough to qualify for FSM children still have less support on average but don't get the school extra money.

They do this in Finland, apart from the fact they are free. However, you probably pay that amount in additional taxes.

They do it from nursery so assume can cater for dietary requirements.

I was paying for 3 x packed lunches at secondary and the cost was insane so we switched to packed lunches. We just couldn’t afford it and many of their friends do the same. We had the double whammy as my dc often didn’t like the hot meal so had the snacky type meal which meant I had to cook in the evening causing costx2. My dc were often starving by lunch so had used the money on paninis etc at break. With packed lunch I have more control, they can eat it when they like and I make them far cheaper. We also eat together over a hot meal in the evening.

How can a state school demand money off you? I’d complain. The amount of money we shell out to parent pay is dreadfully high as it is.

Ds has sen, he has sensory issues around food. He takes a packed lunch and has not visited the canteen in four years. A compulsory family lunch would not work for him.

I never understand people who say a packed lunch from home costs the same as a school meal , only if you are buying pre-packaged stuff and ‘treats’ surely? My DS has had more or less the same packed lunch for all of his school life, now 18 - his choice - a couple of ham rolls and a banana, sometimes tuna pasta salad. That really doesn’t cost more than a £1, if that. And it’s not the cheapest ‘basic’ ingredients but mid range price.

Op you need to fill out the form and list lots of intolerances, look at the ingredients in qorn and the stuff they make and those are what your kids can't have. List most of the additives, it all must be organic, vegan and gluten-free. They will let you take your own food.

I agree, for 3dc that's £39 a week - we'd really struggle with that, it's half our weekly food budget for a family of 5.

Packed lunches are much cheaper - especially healthy ones that are basically: sandwich, fruit, veg, water maybe one treat.

I think blanket policies like this are horrible. It doesn't help children who at secondary age should be making some choices for themselves. As adults it's our job to help teenagers make healthy and sensible choices, not enforce our way of doing things on them. School meals and packed lunches can be both nutritious or a pile of crap.

And why make meals something so regimented? Of all the rules that are necessary at schools, I cannot understand the benefit in making some children so uncomfortable in their free time. School is hard work, lots of thinking, conforming and complying. If they want a sarnie from home on a Wednesday I can't see the harm myself.