What's happened to Free School Meals provision?

[Carpathian2]

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

We're a vegetarian household so the tuna will end up at the food bank once the pandemic is over. If DC was at school she'd be getting a full cooked main meal, with a protein such as Quorn, as well as a pudding and a drink. Those are things I cannot replicate at home with that box

I’m sure the school can provide a vegetarian box for you. They must have ordered in provisions for children with different dietary needs anyway.

The box isn’t designed to replicate ‘a full cooked meal with a protein such as quorn, as well as a pudding and a drink’

Parents are expected to take responsibility and use the boxes to cook simple healthy meals like beans on toast or an omelette, or make a cold lunch like a cheese roll with salad.
It’s unrealistic to expect the same food as if child is attending school. Puddings are not essential, and most parents can manage to cook one main meal a day.

Do people really expect schools to deliver hot cooked lunches every day? Or provide vouchers (out of already stretched school budgets when food for the term had already been ordered in by catering?)

Benefits and food banks haven’t stopped providing a service. The school lunch boxes are a generous add on IMO (to help prevent children going hungry).

Our high school has said (when I asked last week about provision) that they are waiting to see if the council are providing the vouchers, or the government. If it's the government we will get a choice of where to spend the vouchers, if it's the council we will get Asda vouchers. I'm shielded and can't get Asda delivery slots so they aren't much good to me for food so I ended up saving them and using them towards uniform and essential clothing. I was grateful for the extra funds even if they weren't immediately usable. For those who needed them straight away it would have been a problem. A food parcel would be fine but if it's anything like the quality of the food parcels for the shielded at the beginning of the pandemic then a lot will end up in the bin as off or donated to the food bank. We will make the best of whatever we get and I am thankful for whatever we get.

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.

I was wondering if anyone could ask Marcus Rashford’s opinion on this thread!

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

Do you not have shops?

You can order online from the major supermarkets too.

If we could get a slot then yes, at the peak ast lockdown there were none. I've managed to book an Asda slot for the end of the month.

Hello fresh is wildly expensive for what it is! I have got it on occasion - and like it - but consider it a luxury.

You just pay a lot for the convenience of having everything measured out etc, but it’s expensive for the food itself.

However I’ve now got a lot of HF adverts on this page!

@Ritasueandbobtoo9 it really was a dusty village though... Not greenery like we have here. Concrete houses. Blazing sun in the summer and 4 ft of snow in the winter. When it is t winter you have to wash the windows and dust daily! It's very dry mud and we'll dusty! He grew up as one of 9 to his mother and his dad had a second wife who had 4 kids. They had two small chickens to feed all of them and that was once a month if they were lucky so they would have stews, soup, make their own bread etc. We forget sometimes that even when we are struggling here it can still be better than someone else!

We're not in the peak of lockdown now!! You can get slots now with a bit of forward planning.

Everything you are saying trying to justify hello fresh isn't helping. If you can't afford food, hello fresh would not be your first choice based on cost.

We got offered a loaf of bread and a lump of cheese, I declined

I think the food would be fine for primary school and female students but not enough for teenage boys. I agree that queueing to collect food would be quite humiliating for many pupils and families though plus it could be a long way to travel for some. I'm sure many will not collect it. It's very sad that they are not offering vouchers.

@Russell19

Anyone turning their nose up at that list of foods has clearly never been hungry. A starving child would eat a cheese roll or scrambled eggs.

You've clearly have never been a child who would rather starve than eat something they hate. I was a child, and whilst it may have not got to the point that I actually died from starvation I would have been extremely thin (and I was thin anyway) if scrambled eggs were all that was on offer.

How is it not enough for a lunch for teenage boys? They aren't exactly out burning hundreds of calories a day at the moment.

To reiterate this is 5 of their 21 meals a week. Not all of them.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

How is it not enough for a lunch for teenage boys? They aren't exactly out burning hundreds of calories a day at the moment.

To reiterate this is 5 of their 21 meals a week. Not all of them.

Why do you assume they aren't burning a lot of calories a day at the moment? Many are doing a lot of exercise (e.g. running), if DC's friends are anything to go by. After all, that's one of the few things are allowed to do.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

We're not in the peak of lockdown now!! You can get slots now with a bit of forward planning.

Everything you are saying trying to justify hello fresh isn't helping. If you can't afford food, hello fresh would not be your first choice based on cost.

Yes, I got a slot for the end of the month using the supermarket I had vouchers for from when we had to self isolate before xmas.

I don't need to justify myself to you and I will not.

When have I said I can't afford food?

@belladonna12 yes exactly this is why I mentioned ARFID earlier a lot of children with asd have this alongside a few of my friends who also have children on fsm have issues with this which is why vouchers were better we are lucky our school is doing them. Some children absolutely would starve themselves

They're only allowed out for an hour. Most parents we speak to are struggling to get them out of the house at all.

There may be some exceptions but in the majority of cases that is more than enough food.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

How is it not enough for a lunch for teenage boys? They aren't exactly out burning hundreds of calories a day at the moment.

To reiterate this is 5 of their 21 meals a week. Not all of them.

My teenage boy went out the other day (before this started) and did a 10k run. He's still running daily.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

They're only allowed out for an hour. Most parents we speak to are struggling to get them out of the house at all.

There may be some exceptions but in the majority of cases that is more than enough food.

Maybe not all children are like the ones at your school. Where I live teenagers are getting a lot of exercise at the moment. As I said , it's one of the few things they can do . That would barely be enough food for my lunch (and I can't exercise much ) and certainly not enough for DH. I would assume many teenage boys are similar to him.

A loaf of bread and jam for sarnies then fruit. That would all be under a fiver.

How do you struggle to get your kids outside ffs

I received a voucher for my 2DC but it's for the ASDA whereas before it was through a redeemable site and you could choose the supermarket.

I don't drive and suffer from bad anxiety so before I normally do online shops.

But slots are hard to get during lockdown so I used to redeem mine for Sainsbury's which have a local store on my street.

I wondered why it had changed but I didn't realise about the last minute change in government guidance.

Why do they make it so hard for schools?

@FlatteredRhubardFool

Our high school has said (when I asked last week about provision) that they are waiting to see if the council are providing the vouchers, or the government. If it's the government we will get a choice of where to spend the vouchers, if it's the council we will get Asda vouchers. I'm shielded and can't get Asda delivery slots so they aren't much good to me for food so I ended up saving them and using them towards uniform and essential clothing. I was grateful for the extra funds even if they weren't immediately usable. For those who needed them straight away it would have been a problem. A food parcel would be fine but if it's anything like the quality of the food parcels for the shielded at the beginning of the pandemic then a lot will end up in the bin as off or donated to the food bank. We will make the best of whatever we get and I am thankful for whatever we get.

You can’t get an ASDA slot at all? Sometimes I’ve had to look at ASDA or tesco but you definitely get slots if you keep looking!!

Its meant to be for one child not for a family. It replaces your child's free school meal and that is more than enough for one child's lunch for five days. If you need a food parcel your local authority will have a scheme for the whole family. Its awful that in a country as eich as the UK, people are relying on this. Hope you get what you need

“My teenage boy went out the other day (before this started) and did a 10k run. He's still running daily”

My older dcs are running daily too 5-10k. But that would be ample for their lunches. They normally have soup or salad or a roll/wrap or toastie with fruit , and then a main meal later. The main meal is jacket and beans once a week, so this would suit us ok.

I do understand that it’s not the same as a hot meal, but I presume it’s cheaper to make a massive batch of chilli or casserole for the school rather than provide the individual ingredients for each family to make one portion of lunch with it.

For those who are really struggling it’s a shame they can’t receive some sort of meals on wheels type service where the child gets a hot meal delivered, with maybe a choice of veggie or meat like at school. This would probably be useful for vulnerable older people too.

Mine have not been outside in a week.

Vouchers will come but it takes hours of registering for schools.

Our catering provider arranged the food packages the first week as the Council were notup to speed. Hopefully things will get better.

All those in school are getting FSms at our schools. Some are also providing breakfast.