Kids snacks at school - white carbs twice before lunch

[prettyflowersinthesky]

DD is in y4.

I seriously don't want to be "that" parent so am wondering on the consensus on this.

DD's school has started giving the whole school's kids stodgy white carbs with jam twice before lunchtime (bagels).

Once when they arrive in the morning, and then again at break time.

DD is coming home with most of her lunch uneaten.

I fully appreciate about food poverty and that giving the kids food in this blanket way is a way of addressing that without singling out or embarrassing hungry children or families.

But I question

1. Whether or not the white carbs plus jam is appropriate nutrition
2. Whether or not most kids really need this
3. Whether or not two snacks between breakfast and lunch is excessive

There is no requirement for the kids to take and eat the snacks but to say to my child not to take them when the other kids are seems unfair.

I'm a bit torn, and certainly don't want to deny hungry kids access to food. But also wonder if the school needs to give this twice and also maybe the nutritional content of the snacks could be improved (e.g. fruit, whole grain snacks or something instead). I do appreciate that kids need more carbs than adults.

What does everyone think? Is this appropriate? I feel for the vast majority of kids without food poverty issues this is not necessary, so by serving all the kids a snack it is enforcing bad snacking habits, poor food choices as well as encouraging childhood obesity.

In many very healthy countries no snacking is allowed although I appreciate for very young children it may be necessary.

I am wondering whether or not to speak to the school about my concerns about them finding a better way to address the issues for the hungry kids.

But I do not want to speak up if I am seriously misinformed about all of this, hence interested in your responses. Thanks.

Yanbu = this is not appropriate / YABU - give the kids the snacks

A bagel is fine.

Once.

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@Janevaljane the school would have had to find money for your breakfast club as money received from the Government for FSM would only cover lunch.[/quote]
I presume the £2 that the parents paid subsidised the others to an extent.

Sorry, £1

Bagels not travels.No idea where that came from.

I think a bagel is split into various bits so not 2 whole bagels a day

@Marmitecrackers

Well said, @zaffa*.

And then there are the families who can't afford to top up the gas/electric to cook proper meals more than once or twice a week. For them, a bag of chips from the chippy often works out cheaper.*

Again that's neglect. They need support to get work to improve earning potential. Support to budget. Are they eating porridge,lentils, beans, cheaper cuts of meetabd wonky veg and drinking water rather than pop or are they buying Coco pops, bottles of squash, nuggets, pre made lasagne??

Do they need support for mental health to get better to go back into work or even to feel well enough to cook?

They absolutely need do need support, I agree. But with ever-dwindling resources, more and more local authorities are having to devote ever greater proportions of their funding to their statutory duties to avoid being in breach of them.

The project I used to work on, which is funded by an LA but not delivered by them, was able to work with families for up to 2 years, which gave us time to coach them in budgetting, and how to provide nutritious meals on a shoestring. I've quite literally taught people how to boil an egg.

Because of lack of funding, that project is now restricted to working with clients for just 8 weeks, which is barely enough time to get their immediate housing crisis resolved, and frequently not enough. It's not enough time to resolve their underlying problems, so they're left barely coping.

The council know that the work that project did was life-changing for some clients, and that they developed all sorts of skills, but they couldn't continue to fund it at a level where that could continue.

But this is what people voted for, I'm afraid.

@CakeGirl2020

Not ideal really.

Can anyone really not afford a value loaf of bread & jam or a box of value cornflakes to feed a child breakfast before school? I mean come on, any decent parent would go without so the child could have breakfast.

Let’s just say all these parents really can’t afford to even provide a slice of value bread, feeding all the children rubbish each day is not the answer.

Also why are 2 bagels offered anyway? Fine, first one could be called breakfast buy why the second? Surely the poor starving no food at home ones are provided with a free school dinner so no need for the second bag,e. Surely fruit could replace the second bagel? It’s 1 a day then at least for the children.

Trying talking to your DD and say you know if you don’t want the bagel sweetheart, you can say no when it’s offered and remeber you do have x in your lunch box and that’s your favourite isn’t it.

In all schools I’ve taught in there have been parents that can’t afford food, for a variety of reasons. In the last school I worked in before I had DS, a third of my pupils were from families that could not afford to feed their children. My TA and I would do a ‘breakfast’ shop and serve it in small groups while the rest of the class were doing carpet time. School provided fruit and milk for snack but we’d often supplement with toast etc as well because they’d be hungry. I found myself trying to think of food based activities so I could feed them a bit more or send them home with food, like blackberry picking and making crumble or a Welsh lesson revolving around making sandwiches or pizzas.

Just because you can afford to feed your child doesn’t mean everyone else can, and just because people can’t at that moment in time doesn’t mean they are bad parents either. The state of this country is shocking and has been for a while for low paid or vulnerable families.

@0gfhty

I’d like to hear how other countries deal with food poverty. I went on the wonder breakfast scheme website- it just looked like an advert for bagel Nash and nestle. Have they really got these kids interests at heart? I’m not sure. All kids should have decent food at school regarding of what’s happening at home

Well in the country I'm from they leave the children to beg on the streets and forgo school to bring in some extra pennies to help out the family. I'm fairly certain that every single one of those children and families would fall over themselves to participate in this scheme and may well boost school attendance if the children were guaranteed food whilst there. And I am similarly sure that not one parent who can afford to feed their child would complain about a scheme like this when they are forced to deal with the fall out of food poverty (and extreme poverty) first hand, the crime it leads to and ultimately the lost generation of children it results in.

@rainyoutside

A bagel is fine.

Once.

They are getting a bagel, just in two halves.

If a bagel once is fine then it's nonsense to say that half a bagel twice is going to do harm.

[quote prettyflowersinthesky]@jgjgjgjgjg
I do give her porridge with peanut butter most days. This does keep her full. But she is one of those kids who loves to graze and would take it anyway.

The bagel thing is a new thing for the school which is why I am questioning it at this time in y8. If it was unecessary before then it is unnecessary now.[/quote]
So you need to look at teaching her eat when she's hungry, not every time there's good in front of her.

Alt cut down on the morning breakfast if she's going to eat white carb and sugar at school first thing

As a bagel awareness and promotion scheme it's certainly working!

@TheOneWhoWalksInTheSun

As a bagel awareness and promotion scheme it's certainly working!

🤣🤣

I work in a primary school smack bang in the middle of a sink estate. We qualify for Magic Breakfast, but sadly there is now a waiting list for new applications.

On our return to school we had a choice: Quietly feed the children we know haven't had breakfast (and sometimes evening meals) but break CV19 ‘bubble’ rules, feed whole classes or single out children within their classes.

*We can’t afford to feed whole classes - we do eke out free Reception milk and free KS1 fruit but we don’t have a budget for whole school.

*We wouldn’t ‘shame’ any of our kids in front of their peers.

So we break the bubbles. What else could we do? We only serve toast and butter (although me and the TAs tend to bring in Jam, marmite and marmalade) and we have been getting through 2-3 loaves a week (from the school budget that should be spent on other things). That’s a lot of hungry kids.

We’d be very happy to get the Magic Breakfast funding. Anything to ease the pain to the school budget whilst ensuring our children are fed. Frankly that’s all that matters to me.

Sink estate. Lovely.

@rainyoutside

Sink estate. Lovely.

I lived on one for many years. What else should she call it? It doesn't matter how you dress it up, it's still going to be underfunded, with poor quality housing, lack of transport or opportunities and displaying all the characteristics of extreme social deprivation.

@rainyoutside and that's what you took from that post?

Yep.

Because it reveals what the general view is. Poor = feckless scum. They don’t feed their children. They rely on the nice middle classes to do it.

what else should she call it

Let’s see. Area of high deprivation. High levels of FSM children. Sink estate is derogatory. Most of the people on that estate will parent just as well as you.

I only have one very sensible eater at primary school now, but if it was my older boy I’d not be pleased. He has a tendency to hoover up any sweet offering.

We are in a deprived area and the school has a very high percentage of PP so I can imagine something similar being implemented. I think if it were me, I would ask that my child wasn’t offered the breakfast portion of the snack, as he’d already had breakfast. I’d alter his lunch to take into consideration the break time snack as I wouldn’t want to have him left out.

Yes it’s a sink estate. It’s the wording commonly used by Governments, Councils, Local Authorities and, well, people.

“A sink estate is a British council housing estate characterised by high levels of economic and social deprivation”

What else should I call it? It fits the bill. It’s not a reflection on the people - Lots of them are great and doing their best in horrible circumstances. Some are awful and treat their kids terribly. We are there for both extremes and the majority in the middle.

@rainyoutside

Yep.

Because it reveals what the general view is. Poor = feckless scum. They don’t feed their children. They rely on the nice middle classes to do it.

what else should she call it

Let’s see. Area of high deprivation. High levels of FSM children. Sink estate is derogatory. Most of the people on that estate will parent just as well as you.

You might interpret it as derogatory towards the people living there, but that's your preconceptions.

I lived on one, I went to a sink school, too. They were exactly as you'd imagine (probably worse in fact) and no amount of fannying about with the words to describe it was ever going to change that.

And yes I would take exception to sink estate. I happen to like where I live but there’s no getting past it is deprived.

Actually, @rainyoutside how dare you assume that the people living on a sink estate are ‘feckless scum‘. The term sink estate is nothing to do with the character of the people. It’s about the deprivation. About the poverty they are living in. About the lack of funding for their homes, the services they need, the repairs that don’t happen, the facilities they haven’t got. Food poverty is one part of that, and it’s something that we try to counter - both with feeding and with education.

I think it’s you who inferred they were feckless scum who don’t feed their children. Sink estate indeed.

@rainyoutside

Sink estate. Lovely.

If that's only thing you have to say after reading exLtEveDallas's post, It's obvious what kind of person you are. I really hope it's not true you are a teacher.

I didn’t infer anything. It’s just your shitty mind putting 2+2 together and making 5. I work there mate, I know the people, I know the estate, you don’t.