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?

Also, how is bringing in a packed lunch a safe guarding issue? They'll have done a risk assessment before opening the school after covid. Ask to see how they've identified packed lunches to be an issue. If she's sitting at a table, talking her own lunch box out of her bag and eating it without anyone else touching it and then putting everything back into the lunch box and into her bag, how is this different from standing in a queue, taking a tray and plate from a pile, the plate possibly being touched by dinner ladies as they're serving and then putting it back in a pile of used dishes. Which one seems to pose less of contamination risk?

Not allowing packed lunches is definitely a safeguarding issue imho!

How can they have a no packed lunch policy ? There forcing you to pay for school meals ?

Our menu is basically freezer food and the same all the time - jacket pots, pizza, fish fingers, pasta bake on rotation. Dc would probably love a turkey twizzler.

Our school is not doing any hot food atm and not allowing food to be bought in from home so I can well believe that due to covid school are refusing food from home.

Examples: bolognese with broccoli/chicken balls (not nuggets) with baked beans/pasta with tomato sauce/Lamb kebab/Macaroni

She loves all these and will happily eat them anywhere. It's the taste of it that she finds awful and then feels sickly. Dessert is fruit which she loves.

She said all the children complain but the teachers just say try something. HT tried to get DD to try some veg because she didn't eat the pasta.

I would refuse to pay for school dinners and send in packed lunches.

Tell them in writing that you will not pay for food your daughter intensely dislikes and will not eat. You will be sending in a packed lunch in completely disposable packaging (if that's their issue). If they insist she must eat their food, then they can fund it.

Alternatively, can you pick her up at lunchtimes and take her home or sit in a car with her to eat lunch?

Not allowing packed lunches is definitely a safeguarding issue imho!
It's not and yet again this is the mumsnet approach to safeguarding: claim it's a magic word to get what a parent wants or way to make school listen to whatever disagreements you have, whilst also attacking OPs who have valid safeguarding concerns about a child.

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.
For goodness sake, this is absolutely some of the worst advice I've read. It completely highlights the absurd lengths (and lies) some people go to to get their own way.
I would give the head until after half term to reply, then resend, CCing the chair of Governors. Be honest and stick to the facts. State a date you would like a reply by and if that doesn't work, try the petition idea, but take it to the Governors once completed.

I am a TA in a primary school, by the way. There's no reason she shouldn't be able to bring in her own food from where I'm sitting, even with covid.

What is their justification for the policy?

Is it something you could raise with governors?

I’ve never heard of a school having a no packed lunch policy. If there is nothing on the website I would be kicking off, even if there is, what’s the reasons behind it?

If you and other parents have already raised this with the HT then go straight to the school governors and ask them why pack lunches are not allowed, give them a detailed background and tell them HT avoiding you. It’s their job to make sure the HT is doing their job properly.

Not allowing packed lunches is definitely a safeguarding issue imho!
Please don't make ridiculous blanket statements. We have a no packed lunch policy in my school and it works excellently. We offer 5 choices every day and all children's medical needs are catered for.

My sons nursery brought in a no packed lunches policy, he has a severe allergy that requires an auto-injector and an immediate 999 call.

I asked the nursery to sign to confirm that he would never come into contact with his allergen due to cross contamination on things like cutlery, cups etc. They refused to sign and funnily enough they never moaned about his packed lunches again.

School lunches are generally poor, my sons primary school is brilliant, the school dinners are awful. On open day you could try the meals, veg so heavily boiled it was a nutritionless grey mush, mash that had lumps of raw potato and eggs so over boiled on the salad bar that the yolk was almost a powder. If thats the food to impress parents, think of how bad it must be on a usual day.

I’d pop in and see the head in person. Ask what the issue is with bringing a pack lunch and explain you’re knocking school dinners on the head because they make dd feel sick

Those are the kind of meals that can sound delicious but so easily can be horrible.

I'm with you OP. My daughter says the same about her school food and takes a packed lunch. She's not picky and will generally eat anything. Sounds like the school has a quality issue so needs to up their catering game.

No child ever starved in front of a plate of food...

@contrmary

I think you should use it as a lesson for her, in life we don't always get what we want. Assuming the food is edible, she should eat it. Sometimes life is bland, often life is unappealing.

when i was at school we had to eat what we were given, no choice and no option of leaving anything. i'm not saying we should go back to that, but sometimes nowadays children are almost encouraged to be fussy and demanding. if she was hungry she would eat it. so what if it's bland. not all of everyday life is exciting. much of life is humdrum.

@contrmary

I think you should use it as a lesson for her, in life we don't always get what we want. Assuming the food is edible, she should eat it. Sometimes life is bland, often life is unappealing.

Agree!

childlawadvice.org.uk/information-pages/school-food-in-england/

This page has some useful information. Apparently they can say no to bringing in a packed lunch. You should ask to see a copy of the school’s food policy.

We’ve just switched to packed lunches as my DC complained about the food so many times and on roast dinner day couldn’t identify the meat, said it was gristle and had to have a sick bowl next to their bed all night.

It’s galling when they are entitled to free school meals but I was starting to seriously worry about how little they were eating.

No child ever starved in front of a plate of food Rubbish. My doctor told me to feed my DD anything she'd eat, let her live on cake and chocolate and if she lost any more weight, even half a lb, when he weighed her the following week she would be going into hospital to be fed via an IV. She would have happily starved in front of a plate of food, fortunately cake and chocolate kept her out of hospital.

There was a whole bit in Orange is the New Black where the prisoners couldn't stand the prison food, but a group of them clocked that if you asked for a kosher meal it was amazing. They all started saying they were Jewish and they 'weren't allowed to ask questions as it's discrimination'

I'd be seriously tempted to say she's gluten free+veggie+dairy free+whatever other convoluted combination you can think of, or that she is currently excluding certain food groups to establish allergies, so needs a packed lunch that is catered individually to her.

Not allowing packed lunches is definitely a safeguarding issue imho!

It definitely isn't. Source: I am a Designated Safeguarding Lead in a school. Actual Safeguarding issues I have dealt with this week alone include an allegation of peer on peer sexual abuse, a child falling asleep in lessons due to their caring responsibilities, a parent failing to seek appropriate medical attention for their potentially seriously unwell child, parental substance misuse and children witnessing domestic violence. For what it's worth, I agree that OP has a right to contact the HT about the schools no packed lunch policy so I'm not saying it's not important. But if OP starts bandying about the term "safeguarding issue" in relation to bland school dinners she will achieve nothing, other than making a total arse of herself.

@FixTheBone

No child ever starved in front of a plate of food...

Really? You need to say to the parents whose children refuse to eat (I had one at. Some point)