Head not allowing my DD school packed lunch

[peacockfeather11]

This is the first time I taking this up directly with the HT. DD says the food awful and bland, this was brought up last year with the HT by a group of parents and as usual the response was 'we will try a new menu'. It did work for a few weeks and then the standard dropped once again, by then the parents had given up.
Now again this year and same issue, I sent an email and was told they have a 'no packed lunch policy', I can't find this one their web site and no-one seems to think it exists and that a new menu will be introduced. DD is so hungry after school and being in Yr6 has more work but has lost her appetite since going back. She generally has a good appetite and will try anything but says the school food is making her sick.
I sent another mail before holidays and never got a response. I don't know what to do. Any suggestions?

How much do you have to pay for a dinner? Sounds like it’s a bit of a money making scheme forcing everyone to have a school dinner! I work in a primary school kitchen, our dinners work our to about 90p a head for the food. And that’s with organic yoghurts and decent locally sourced meat (an organic farm owns the catering company). If they’re churning out pasta baked and basic food and just fruit for dessert, I suspect their profit margins are good!

£3:10 per day

@peacockfeather11

£3:10 per day

That's crazy, you could feed a child three meals a day for £15.50 a week!

Just because you disagree with me doesn’t make my posts ‘really unhelpful’
However you are right that your school dinners are expensive. Have you actually seen the meals? Have you seen the menu? Who provides the meals- is it outsourced to a catering company? I am sorry your child is lethargic- at the risk of stating the bloody obvious have you taken them to the doctor?

I am sorry your child is lethargic- at the risk of stating the bloody obvious have you taken them to the doctor? I'd want to change the fact that my child was not eating all day at school to eliminate that as a cause of the tiredness before having them investigated for anything else.

That is expensive @peacockfeather11 at our school they are £2.30. I hope that you are successful with this.

If you’re in Essex I have a good catering company you can recommend to the head, our school dinners are tasty!

I am certain that they cannot compel you to pay for school dinners

I would email again requesting a phone call and inform them you won't be buying them and DD will be bringing her own lunch - because as you say the food is making her unwell and lose weight.

I’d possibly go down the route of trying to throw some action words in.
So either ‘safeguarding issue’
Or ‘sensory issues and therefore discrimination against special needs’ etc
So, "lie?"
Prick move.

No in the face of incompetence and/or idiocy of the school she should let her daughter starve and be miserable and perhaps experience ill health so she can tick off for Father Xmas that she never told a lie.

Her daughter is hardly starving

she should let her daughter starve
Her daughter is not starving, and if she was; there's the option of the bland food the rest of the school manages to choke down... 🙄

A child doesn't have to be starving for there to be a negative impact on their health and education.

No she's not starving
But I think a school is on shaky ground if they try to:
-insist a child eats any poor quality food
-insist a parent pays for said poor quality, uneaten food
-refuse to allow a child to eat a lunch of appropriate food provided by parents

OP I would just tell them, in writing, that DD will be bringing in a packed lunch and will not require a school dinner. And you are happy to have a telephone meeting if they feel the need to discuss further.

@JuliaJohnston

she should let her daughter starve Her daughter is not starving, and if she was; there's the option of the bland food the rest of the school manages to choke down... 🙄

@JuliaJohnston

she should let her daughter starve Her daughter is not starving, and if she was; there's the option of the bland food the rest of the school manages to choke down... 🙄

Does the rest of the whole school manage to "choke down" the awful and fucking expensive food though? OP has stated more than once that a mass complaint was made by many parents just last year in order to make the food actually edible for their children?

Our local primary school did use to have good meals which my older two children loved but for some reason standards have slipped. Cheaper and nastier tasting ingredients replaced nice, tasty ones. Effort in general (perhaps due to reduced staff?) dropped and lukewarm, lumpy mash is the norm now. Just in my friendship group of 8 mums/ 12 kids, all of our children have dropped school meals in favour of a packed lunch because "they're horrible now".

And @peacockfeather11 there's not a chance in hell I'd be forking out £3.10 a day for shit tasting food!
Tesco do a lovely meal deal for £3, Boots is £3.39 and hell, for 40p more than you're paying the school you could get a bloody Marks and Spencer one which has things like salmon and watercress, or chicken, avocado and rocket!

And for comparison, my 14 year old DD's school charges £1.90. She doesn't leant to eat in school so takes her £2.50 the I provide and buys herself a hot meal at the local cafe, bakery or tearoom with her pals. All of which manage to cater tasty food for the school kids at a reasonable price.

This reminds me of when I was at primary school in the late 70's.
Battered spam, salad with swede and pickled beetroot, fried onions, mushy peas, lumpy custard and blancmange, all things that I have not eaten since then.
We had a dinner lady, called Mrs roof who loomed over you until you finished what was on your plate, regardless of how sick you felt. I was in year 4 when they decided to allow packed lunches.
Its almost as if schools are regressing.
My dc spent all of their primary years eating jacket potatoes or cheese rolls because they didn't like any of the normal options and they were entitled to free school meals.
I'm all for healthy options but who wants to eat food with no seasoning at all?