What's happened to Free School Meals provision?

[Carpathian2]

I've just had this from my child's school

Don't see the issue OP that is enough for lunch.

I'd be happy with that, would really help as I'm a single mum but I'm not entitled.

@Carpathian2

It's a problem because these meals are not hot and are likely to be shared amongst other members of the family. At school you get a meal just for you, outside school many children have to take their chances.

Ahh yes raw potatoes and eggs, my favorite meal!

Plus if you have some pasta and sugar in the house there's a few carbonaras, and some nice meringue for dessert you could make from the eggs.

@EvilEdna1 - food is not wasted as you have to complete a form each week. I obviously do not, I'm not that much of a waster!
@Quaagars - do you go out for groceries every day? It's not in the spirit of keeping travel to a minimum amongst other issues. This is what school are expecting of us. It's a 45 min walk (one way), 30 min bus ride, 20 min cycle ride or 15 min by car. My DS is Yr7 and has ASD before anyone suggests he can go by himself - he can't. I would happily collect a weekly food parcel though. School get the funds regardless of the uptake. In fact, they encourage parents who are entitled to FSM to apply even if they don't want them - they openly admit it boosts their funds. Schools get a 'pupil premium' for kids of parents on benefits and it doesn't just cover FSM.

The problem is the school can't magic up food if they haven't the funding so they are providing sufficient food for a child for 5 lunches a week. And yes it is be bloody grateful. As others are struggling and still don't qualify for that help. We are in the middle of a pandemic where no one is certain they will have a job tomorrow but can't just ask for free food. I think if the school is able to provide this then you are very lucky. They could have given you a pack of flour and yeast and said sorry you need to make your own bread. Things are shit at the moment. It's true. And yes people who are struggling should have a better choice and lifestyle but sometimes it's not possible.

You OP clearly haven't struggled as you would appreciate that we all have to live within our means and to be given extra help is a blessing. Maybe I am biased as me and my husband grew up in a little dusty village in another country where you couldn't feed your kids properly and in a position we are all in at the moment it wouldn't even cross the kinds of the government or school to help a child with meals. We are very lucky to have what we have.

Wrote too quickly. My husband grew up in a dusty village with very little food and electricity was a luxury. I grew up here in the UK in poverty and we have worked so hard to live the life we have now. I look at that list and think that food is a luxury especially if you are struggling. Sometimes I type too quickly for my brain to catch up

@steppemum

we get FSM. I was very grateful for the vouchers in last lockdown, as 3 teenagers eat a huge amount of lunch and snacks.

But my kids travel to school, and so we could not go and get the food parcel, too expensive.

Well, we are not desperate, but it really did help.

Same here, we can manage without, but it was very helpful with the increased food shop costs (plus DH self employed and very little work in lock down) and I used ours to buy stuff like fruit juice and fancier fruit, which I don't normally buy. Primary school sent us a message about food box this week, similar to OP though no explanation of why. To be collected once a week and it's on my day off, so as it's nearby we will take it as it's all stuff we will use, so it will still help. Secondary school haven't said anything yet, but like yours, they are a bus ride away.

Schools DO have the funding. It's the pupil premium I mentioned in my pp.

Schools get £1,345 for every primary age pupil, or £955 for every secondary age pupil, who claims free school meals, or who has claimed free school meals in the last 6 years.

So, £15 per school week x 39 = £450. So, during lockdown, they have the extra money. It's not like there are hundreds of packed lunches sitting there going to waste as you still have to apply weekly, they still get the funds and aren't charged by the caters.

We are sending out £15 packages at a loss presently to school.
They are optional and can be refused.
We don't get £3 a meal anyway but £1.79 reimbursed for FSM's
The Council has never covered the full cost in normal times.
The vouchers have not been offered.
You still pay your caterers and other providers regardless to keep businesses going.

@CatVsChristmasTree you used your child's FSM allocation to buy... fancier fruit?

You were genuinely puzzled as to how you'd feed your child using eggs, cheese, milk and bread. No twisting needed from me. You embarrassed yourself all on your own

Nah I’m not embarrassed. The whole point of my first post was that those options won’t suit everyone and that if they have vouchers instead they can go out and buy food to suit their family’s needs and preferences.
My DS has Autism. He doesn’t like beans, milk, cheese slices or eggs. He likes tuna, ham, chicken, cheese spread, tinned spaghetti and tinned/homemade soup. So that’s what I would buy to cater to his needs.
Oh and I know buns can be toasted because it is fucking bread. But sliced bread is better for toasting.
Just because the ingredients on that list aren’t really preferable for the needs of all of my children, it doesn’t mean I don’t know what to do with them. I’m well within my rights to question why they are suitable without being patronised and ridiculed.

Like I said, I’m not embarrassed.

I think it's appalling, OP, and the government seem to be wriggling out of providing vouchers to all those who need them. Awful for the schools now to effectively become a foodbank! From a Covid perspective it makes no sense either.

Is anyone on Twitter, and could tweet Marcus Rashford about this? I'm sure he intended for the government to pull their finger out on this and provide vouchers and not for schools to be putting together food parcels.

[quote CorianderBee]@CatVsChristmasTree you used your child's FSM allocation to buy... fancier fruit? [/quote]
What is wrong with that? Not everybody on FSM is struggling with holiday hunger (though plenty are) for some people it is the difference between a basic lunch and a nicer, more nutritious lunch

It also depends on what you think of as fancier fruit. My children have apples, pears and bananas through the month, and there's nothing wrong with that. Once a month when I have the most money I will get strawberries and raspberries, or a watermelon, or blueberries and honeydew, thats our "fancy fruit" and the kids always get excited about it.

Oh god are people not allowed to buy some nice good quality fruit now with their FSM vouchers? That must be a joke! Is it only wonky fruit allowed? I’m guessing the other food bought with them can’t be top quality either? I bought my DS some sweet chilli smoked salmon with mine which cost £3.99. There were two of them so it made two lunches. He had it with a salad for his dinner. Not sorry

It’s food so what’s the problem?

Fruit is fruit. There’s nothing wrong with using the vouchers to buy some blueberries and raspberries to go with your children’s lunch.

@NiceandCalm

Schools DO have the funding. It's the pupil premium I mentioned in my pp.

Schools get £1,345 for every primary age pupil, or £955 for every secondary age pupil, who claims free school meals, or who has claimed free school meals in the last 6 years.

So, £15 per school week x 39 = £450. So, during lockdown, they have the extra money. It's not like there are hundreds of packed lunches sitting there going to waste as you still have to apply weekly, they still get the funds and aren't charged by the caters.

The catering team are needed. What about the KW kids? From reading on here uptake of KW places is a lot higher than the last April.

@Woodenhearted

They have sent a £15 voucher though that is what the amount is meant to be ??

This won’t last forever I think posters are trying to suggest to you that the aim is to feed your child lunch!

ONLY
Parents becoming heavily reliant on vouchers is a bad thing because once they stop they may have a rude awakening.

Going to piss off a lot of Mumsnet tees and say in my experience at school the parents that are on the phone at 9 saying they needed the voucher right that minute as they weee going to do the food shop weee thr ones that leats needed it. The families that we knew to be in desperate need would not complain and grumble that the voucher was a voucher and not cash.

We are a local authority school so told by the local authority what will happen. The difference in provisions comes down to the local authority, schools that are academies can buy into the edenred scheme, buy hampers from the catering companies or buy their own vouchers/transfer cash.
The govt guidelines said cash should be the last option.

As others have said the hampers are designed to feed one child lunch. If you have more than one child you will receive 2/3/4 times the number of items. I’m fortunate enough to be in a position that my dc don’t require fsm but as a working parent I don’t think my budget is £15 per child per week for lunches it’s a lot less and along the basic lines of sandwich fruit and some veg.

It’s a horrible situation all round and I just hope that those who genuinely need it receive the hampers and it goes a long way to helping out.

Apologies for the many many typos. I am typing this quickly whilst on my break at my decks. Job that I need in order to be able to pay my bills. So Monday to Friday full time at school and saturdays and Sunday at a supermarket.

[quote CorianderBee]@CatVsChristmasTree you used your child's FSM allocation to buy... fancier fruit? [/quote]
For us it was just the expensive fruit like red grapes and strawberries. Normal fruit is apples, bananas, satsumas, pineapple. I work full time so we aren't struggling anymore but I still don't buy fresh berries, only frozen. Bought fresh raspberries the other day as they were reduced from £3 to 75p and my 14 year old was so excited.

I get a £15 voucher every week from the council. You download it from a website and can choose the supermarket you want to shop at. They were doing it before the Rashford campaign though.

Those saying we have pupil premium money sitting around-
In my local authority we HAVE to continue paying the catering company. They are considered a vulnerable supplier. If every school stopped paying them, they couldn't run, would close and when this shitshow is over, there would be no school meal provision. So our authority insists that we continue to pay a minimum of 80% of Normal funding ( schools have had to continue to pay for several services thathave been closed to us during lockdowns, including specialist teaching services for the same reasons,j So if we provided vouchers ( which we would prefer to do as it's much easier for us) we would have to pay twice.
The pupil premium money we have received mainly goes to pay the salaries of our TAs, we can't afford them without. We don't want to not pay our TAs for the next six weeks, they are doing an invaluable job! The rest goes on providing free school uniforms and shoes, subsidising school trips ( we do hope to run some more this year,) free book bags, water bottles and all the other things that not having would mark a child out as "different" to the others, which we want to avoid.