What's happened to Free School Meals provision?

[Carpathian2]

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

Just to clarify this: it was the OP and not me who said they find it patronising.

@savethewales

Carpathian2

<strong>*@parkpoolplunge</strong>*

I'm not struggling, but many people are. I find the whole premise extremely patronising.

You find accepting free school meals patronising? After saying it’s what Marcus Rashford fought for? Honestly you need to have a word with yourself, plenty there to provide decent lunches to a child for a week - it sounds like you were hoping for something different/better, rather than needing it.

It's a problem because these meals are not hot

Right...but surely a cheese, cucumber and tomato roll doesn’t need to be hot. Neither does a yoghurt. Granted the amount of cheese would only cover 4 rolls but still!

Baking potato, beans, sweet corn and eggs can ALL be cooked in a microwave, hob or oven - all very basically and easy to do. Even families in abject poverty generally have one of those 3 cooking outlets. As a grown adult I could make myself lunch for 5 days pretty happily using just these and a microwave.

and are likely to be shared amongst other members of the family

Well not in your house because you’ve rejected the free food. Apparently wasn’t good enough for you. Would you also have rejected your ration book in WW2 because it was insulting and not enough?

At school you get a meal just for you, outside school many children have to take their chances

That’s totally beside the point. The school have limited funding and are ONLY responsible for providing one child with one lunch for 5 days. Yes the practicalities of this when you have multiple children at home aren’t clean cut but it’s the food banks job to cover this, not the schools!

AIBU

YES- you’ve turned down perfectly good free food because they wouldn’t give you Asda vouchers instead. You sound horribly entitled and a bit snotty. The list of food they were offering is not far off what I’ve eaten this week, it’s perfectly adequate. You could have topped it up with a couple of extra cheap yoghurts and multipack of crisps for less than £2

Well I'm not on FSMs but the contents of that package are almost exactly the things that I've bought to feed the kids lunches whilst they're home - Cheese on toast/beans on toast/eggs on toast/jackets with cheese and beans etc are surely what most children will be eating for lunch and fruit, yoghurt, cherry toms & tomatoes are pretty standard and healthy snacks.

If someone had 2 or 3 children getting a parcel each, I think you could probably do lunches, plus a couple of hot meals (egg/chips/beans or cheese and tomato omelette and mash etc) out of the parcels. With even just one parcel and 1 child I think there would be leftovers after 5 lunches.

It's a very versatile selection and there's lots of different dishes that can be made with that lot.

Personally I'd have put a loaf of bread rather than rolls, and some butter too, but its really not a bad selection.

So because a small minority may not use vouchers as intended then the majority have to go without vouchers they could use to buy food for hot meals of better quality and quantity in winter ? They then have to travel to collect parcels or have interaction which could spread the virus more?

With vouchers they’d still have to travel to the supermarket and interact with people! How would vouchers prevent the virus spreading when you still have to do a weekly shop?

Or do people expect schools to deliver free meals/food boxes in the middle of a pandemic?

I’m sure any queuing will be socially distanced, discreet and parents will wear masks.

You can still make hot meals from the ‘meagre’ food box. Less choice yes. But it stops that ‘small minority’ of parents using vouchers to buy unhealthy food/snacks or wasting the vouchers on unwise food choices (like expensive ready meals) that don’t feed the child for the whole week.

Not all parents want to buy hot food or take multiple buses to a specific supermarket.

Not all parents are savvy about ‘better quality and quantity’ and may find a food box easier than budgeting with vouchers.

Considering we’re in the middle of a terrible pandemic and economic crisis I think any free food offered by schools should be appreciated. Not having a choice over the contents isn’t ideal, but it’s better than nothing.

@HikeForward

No, I don't find FSM patronising! What I find patronising is people telling me I should be great ful for this

I believe you should be grateful for the free food parcel, the same way you are grateful for FSM (otherwise why would you be using FSM?) Many families will be very grateful for the parcel.

Queuing to receive a parcel, ok it’s not as discreet as vouchers (which sadly were abused in some cases, and in other cases parents couldn’t get to the right shop to use them) but if it’s the difference between being able to feed your child or not feed them, surely you would queue? It’s free healthy food at the end of the day.

Agree

Oh ffs
Surely you're not serious

There is absolutely nothing 'meagre' about that food parcel at all.

@EspressoExpresso just to clarify, it's the OP who said this and not me:

Carpathian2

<strong>*@parkpoolplunge</strong>*

OP said this not me: No, I don't find FSM patronising! What I find patronising is people telling me I should be great ful for this. I don't need to have a word with myself either as it's the obvious to me that not many people will take this up, if only so they won't be seen to be that desperate because they have pride.
As I said, I won't be taking any parcels. At least with the vouchers they could be redeemed discretely

and I said:

What exactly are you wanting the school to provide for meals then?

The school is providing food for one child for 5 lunches. That's more than sufficient and a good variety of food for 5x reasonable lunches.

Posters saying they could get MORE for £15, surely that should raise questions about the catering companies providing food to schools and why can a mum buy more for £15 than schools with planned menus and more buying power?

That’s the point. The catering companies can do exactly that with the money the government already provides for FSMs, so it’s much cheaper to provide food than it is to provide vouchers. The vouchers don’t come out of the same pot of money, that pit wouldn’t have been big enough. The vouchers were extra money that had to be found.

[quote spanieleyes]@Woodenhearted
Do you seriously believe all children of drug addicts are classed as vulnerable! [/quote]
Are they not ?

Yabu

And entitled.

Schools are still required to continue paying their meal providers, they have both an ongoing contract and a local authority directive to do so. If schools provided vouchers they would have to pay twice. In the previous lockdown the government funded the vouchers, schools still continued to pay the catering companies ( 80% I think we paid) throughout

How many children is it for? There is plenty there for one child’s lunches for 5 days

I don't get how schools can win.

They're now doing food parcels out of their own resources.

Some people don't want food parcels.

Some people don't want vouchers because they can't get to the supermarket.

I think it's great that schools are trying, considering it's not really their job to do this and they're not receiving additional funding like last time.

What else can they do?

@AldiAisleofCrap

It’s insulting and wrong it’s also putting families and risk collecting parcels. The vouchers allowed for families to buy a decent amount of food to make hot meals. Enough food to make dinners as well if people shopped wisely.

How is a person going to a school for food at any more risk than that same person going to a supermarket??

So they're replacing in school FSM with items to be cooked at home and people are moaning?

As per normal love the hyperbole on both sides of the argument. There are probably as many people without any access to cooking equipment as their are people who spent vouchers on fags/booze.

As for food intolerance, my childrens school only cater within a certain parameter so what's the general experience out there?

@Woodenhearted
They would certainly be " we need to keep an eye on them" children but they wouldn't all have an allocated social worker or even support worker and so wouldn't be officially classed as vulnerable.

I get it's not ideal, but if you're entitled to it, you say you're not struggling, and you say you're giving it away to others - why? It's designed for a child to have lunch for 5 days, if you're entitled to it, use it, might as well!

• jacket potato with beans, yoghurt
• cheese and cucumber rolls, yoghurt
• omelette with handful of cherry tomatoes, piece of fruit etc

[quote spanieleyes]@Woodenhearted
They would certainly be " we need to keep an eye on them" children but they wouldn't all have an allocated social worker or even support worker and so wouldn't be officially classed as vulnerable.[/quote]
Thank you for explaining I had naively assumed they would be vulnerable and in school so a mistake on my part

@EveningsOverRooftops

Thank you il give that a go, would cinnamon be OK to switch with the ginger do you reckon? If not il use the ginger anyway

@WorraLiberty

There is absolutely nothing 'meagre' about that food parcel at all.

No, I totally agree, but I can see why if you were given fifteen quid you could make it go a lot further, if you were intending on using it to feed more than the one child’s lunch it is intended for.

In that regard you could see it as meagre, becayse you’re thinking about what you could have bought for fifteen quid. Not what should five lunches look for for a child.

You could get quite a lot, pasta, rice, a couple of loafs, some tinned tomatoes, beans, cheese, etc for fifteen quid and really eeked it out.

So if you were really struggling I can see why you’d be upset, becayse you’re looking at it differently, and then especially when coupled in with you also need to go and collect it. I can see why it would upset some people.

You’re doing what I did and most others posters are doing and saying is that sufficient for lunch for a child for five days. And of course the answer is yes, and then some. However if you’re looking at it as in what could I buy for fifteen quid of vouchers, then your view would be different, it would seem meagre in comparison.

Well I would collect one if we were entitled to them I am furloughed and skint and its costing me more now my child is in year 3 money I don't really have as have got behind on bills but because I get tax credits I cant get help and my income is less then those on universal credit so work that one out, oh and our school is delivering the food to pupils

@Bluntness100

I think actual food parcels are better than vouchers because at least the school knows the child is being provided with food

Not if it’s a really bad situation and other people in the house eat the child’s food.

The food would get eaten regardless if that was the case.

Our school did vouchers in December by email and you click a link and choose a shop I think there was Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsburys and Marks and Spencer- sure there was more. You then buy an e gift card with the voucher and it gets emailed to you, the e gift card can be used in store or online. Sounds a better way than some other school did it.

[quote Carpathian2]@parkpoolplunge

No, I don't find FSM patronising! What I find patronising is people telling me I should be great ful for this. I don't need to have a word with myself either as it's the obvious to me that not many people will take this up, if only so they won't be seen to be that desperate because they have pride.
As I said, I won't be taking any parcels. At least with the vouchers they could be redeemed discretely [/quote]
I completely agree with you!