No free school meals during Feb half term

[noblegiraffe]

The new guidance on free school meals says that schools should not provide food or vouchers during Feb half term.

This won’t be needed as some general funding is going to LAs and they will be expected to provide food/support for the week schools are off.

This is bonkers, right? They’ve only just sorted it so that kids get more than a manky banana, cheese and dry bread for lunch and they’re going to switch to a different system for a week?

Does this government just really hate feeding hungry kids?

YANBU: sticking with one system for feeding disadvantaged kids would be best

YABU: it’ll be fine, no one will fall through the cracks and the transition will be seamless.

Nobody has mentioned Labour except the Tory defenders who played whataboutery with Labour

FWIW I defend neither, but in fairness there's whataboutery all over the thread so a little more hardly makes much difference

Out of interest though, you mentioned that Chartwell are providing over the holiday, in part to make up for lousing it up
Anyone know what they're being paid? Because I don't imagine they're doing it for free, or indeed on any basis which doesn't suit themselves

And of course, as soon a free lunches for 52 weeks a year are secured, the next demand will be for free evening meals. At some point, parents have to accept responsibility for their own children.

people are allowed to question why their parents are not feeding them without being shouted and accused of not caring about starving kids.

This is true. But most posters haven’t done that, they’ve simply dismissed those parents as scroungers or ne’er do wells or - the most recent and most absurd - entitled. There are numerous causes of child poverty and a discussion about those would be interesting but ultimately those discussions won’t put food in children’s stomachs and that’s the immediate problem.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

There's a big difference between campaigning about an issue and being the actual person who provides & implements actual solutions

Very true
And with the caveat that the alleged source looks pretty good but I still don't know how true it is, there's this from somebody called "Pat condell - Reloaded" on Facebook:

"Marcus Rashford paid himself just under £5k from his multi million pound company MUCS Enterprise LTD ... then gave himself a £950,000 directors loan"
"This means he avoids paying tax on that £950,000 and just pays tax on the £4950"
"The Man U money is split into Image rights, sponsorship etc and paid to an off shore account avoiding massive UK tax bills. So while he bangs on about what we should be doing with your tax money maybe he should pay his tax money to the UK Government so they can fund free school meals during holidays"

"Info from Companies house public records"

£4950 per month or per year? Per year and he pays absolutely no tax at all on his £5 million +. Per month, and he's still only paying tax on less than £60,000. A massive piss take to be dodging taxes to that level, then complaining about what taxes are or aren't spent on.

Of course, as soon a free lunches for 52 weeks a year are secured, the next demand will be for free evening meals

Why not clothing too, since that's an obvious need? And heating/utility bills since children need warmth, water to wash in and fuel so their food can be cooked?
What about a family car, so parents can more easily access cheaper supermarkets further from home? Perhaps a phone/IT package so they can maintain much needed contact with their peers?

Just because a child receives free school meals doesn’t mean they’re hungry or are going to go hungry. One of my friends who receives FSM has more in savings than I do. There are plenty of children whose parents have lost their income due to Covid who aren’t entitled to FSM. These are the children who I feel sorry for as they clearly aren’t as important to help.

Some of it is down to selective spending rather than essential items but rotten for their dc

@Banoffeepies I agree to an extent. The really frustrating part is school can't claim on my FSM child's behalf and give it to another family who do need it.

Vinyl, it is the immediate problem, yes.
But we can't seem to get away from the immediate problem because an attempt at discussion is shouted down as not caring.
I have never called anyone feckless by the way, but i do think trying to explore why some families manage and others don't is a reasonable thing to do.

people on universal credit have been getting £20 per week extra since april, at a cost of 5 billion per year.people claiming free school meals had £1.50 per day for each child to provide lunches in the summer holidays plus child allowance of course.

@Katyppp

Vinyl, it is the immediate problem, yes. But we can't seem to get away from the immediate problem because an attempt at discussion is shouted down as not caring. I have never called anyone feckless by the way, but i do think trying to explore why some families manage and others don't is a reasonable thing to do.

But it’s not an attempt at discussion - read Puzzledandpissedoff’s post. While you personally may not have called anyone feckless, plenty of others have.

@Katyppp

Kimchi, we are in agreement there - it is a very bizarre hill for the Goverment to die on, and they appear to be weak every time they have to back down. However i can absolutely understand why they try at least dig their heels in, because once something is given, it's very difficult to remove. I can remember the backlash when it was suggested that the policy of free school meals for ALL KS1 should be looked at. My youngest is 13 and he didn't qualify, so they are a very recent thing. Yet people were acting as if the world would stop turning if they were taken away. The fact is, spending decisions have to be taken by the Government which do not have to be taken by the campaigners and loud shouters. As someone has already said, I also would respect Marcus R a lot more if he could determine where the money is going to come from and where it will bs taken from to pay for what he wants. Common answers are MPs salaries and perks and more taxation of the rich (like MR, who arranges his affairs to take advantage of legal loopholes) These solutions will have as much impact as saving for a house using spare 1p coins. No-one thinks children shoukd go hungry, but people are allowed to question why their parents are not feeding them without being shouted and accused of not caring about starving kids.

Bloody hell Katy what a weird year. First a pandemic , then we agree

Re your last point...you are right. You were probably right about the emotion although your phrasing made me not want to hear it. I supposed when you live it, hearing people talk about it clinically makes you go off the deep end.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Of course, as soon a free lunches for 52 weeks a year are secured, the next demand will be for free evening meals

Why not clothing too, since that's an obvious need? And heating/utility bills since children need warmth, water to wash in and fuel so their food can be cooked?
What about a family car, so parents can more easily access cheaper supermarkets further from home? Perhaps a phone/IT package so they can maintain much needed contact with their peers?

Let's not be flippant about children not having basic needs met, puzzled.

To be honest, although puzzledandpissedoff's post was exaggerated, i kind of see where she is coming from.
I have thought myself that there will be calls for help with heating this winter at some point.
And i am sorry, every attempt to explore the reason we have this issue is met with a brick wall of how uncaring ths poster is.
There are some on this thread who would pride themselves on their social conscious, care and kindness, but unfortunately there is more to policy making than being kind and caring

There has been help with heating bills for years. Only if the temp drops below a certain level for a set amount of days. But it does exist. I think I got the payment once when my dc were a lot smaller.

@Katyppp

To be honest, although puzzledandpissedoff's post was exaggerated, i kind of see where she is coming from. I have thought myself that there will be calls for help with heating this winter at some point. And i am sorry, every attempt to explore the reason we have this issue is met with a brick wall of how uncaring ths poster is. There are some on this thread who would pride themselves on their social conscious, care and kindness, but unfortunately there is more to policy making than being kind and caring

Sometimes it's a phrasing issue Katy.

I have seen your point of view far more on recent posts than previously and I'm sure you feel the same way about me. We all react differently in emotive issues.

I don't get irate about issues in certain relationship threads because I haven't experienced it. If I was to be clinical on there is be flamed.

People who don't live in the system and treat it clinically are accused of uncaring because that's how it feels when we read semantics after working with the real life children it affects.

And for every balanced post , there's 10 'parents shouldn't have kids they can't feed which sends us bonkers.

I defy anyone to spend a day in my job and then come on and post about statistics and the benefits of the Tories. I really do.

Let's not be flippant about children not having basic needs met

Fair comment, kinchi - actually I was aiming for irony, but totally accept it could have come across that way

However is it really so far from the truth? If a precedent's set for taxpayers standing additional costs for necessities, why wouldn't these things come to be expected too?

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Let's not be flippant about children not having basic needs met

Fair comment, kinchi - actually I was aiming for irony, but totally accept it could have come across that way

However is it really so far from the truth? If a precedent's set for taxpayers standing additional costs for necessities, why wouldn't these things come to be expected too?

I don't have the answer. None of us do. I don't think that disagreeing with the way things currently are means I have to have the answers. Incidentally many schools are moving to providing IT, not for peers , but for remote learning , an issue many don't even consider for our most vulnerable.

@UndertheCedartree

I don't think schools should be responsible for arranging the vochers anyway let alone food parcels - they're busy enough as it is.

I don't either.

My local council has an FSM team. This team should be given the staff and resources to coordinate vouchers and food parcels in the area.

All councils should have an FSM team that deal with arranging meals at school, vouchers and parcels, IMO.

@WhatWouldPhyllisCraneDo

There has been help with heating bills for years. Only if the temp drops below a certain level for a set amount of days. But it does exist. I think I got the payment once when my dc were a lot smaller.

There’s certainly provision for pensioners, they get £200 tax free every winter.

It’s absolutely true that no child should be hungry

It’s also true that moving to state provision of meals all the time is addressing the symptom, not the cause.

It would be nice if that could be acknowledged in a debate without cries of “you must be an evil Tory”

@WhatWouldPhyllisCraneDo

There has been help with heating bills for years. Only if the temp drops below a certain level for a set amount of days. But it does exist. I think I got the payment once when my dc were a lot smaller.

There has been free school meals for years also, but the latest calls are to expand the provision already in place.

I work in a school office and we have provided substantial food hampers for families and next weeks will have even more food added. Less than half of the families entitled to the hampers bothered to collect them.

We are a primary school in a deprived area. Why on earth would you not come and get this food? The families are in walking distance. The families who have not bothered to respond to emails, texts and voice messages will now only be contacted once for future hampers. The amount of behind the scenes admin/work hours that have gone into this over the past couple of weeks has been unbelievable.

I would imagine this scenario has been replicated up and down the country..there have been numerous posts on this thread alone saying children are going hungry..the vast majority are not.

@Fuzzywuzzyface

I work in a school office and we have provided substantial food hampers for families and next weeks will have even more food added. Less than half of the families entitled to the hampers bothered to collect them.

We are a primary school in a deprived area. Why on earth would you not come and get this food? The families are in walking distance. The families who have not bothered to respond to emails, texts and voice messages will now only be contacted once for future hampers. The amount of behind the scenes admin/work hours that have gone into this over the past couple of weeks has been unbelievable.

I would imagine this scenario has been replicated up and down the country..there have been numerous posts on this thread alone saying children are going hungry..the vast majority are not.

I don't think anybody has said the vast majority are going hungry. A lot of people are managing fine even on benefits but I'm sure that for some of those families that did come and get them they made a big difference. My school has stuck with vouchers throughout which I'm pleased with, I would just rather choose my own food for my child.

Podgebod, i think it was said on the other thread actually, along with other nonsense about having no gas or electricity, no cooking pots, no ability to cook and, most memorably, no kitchen.
One poster even wrote very emotionally about how priviledged they were because they had a kitchen and cookbooks.
Such hand-wringing sentimentality gets us nowhere, and only makes people like me slap their head and call nonsense.
As i have said before, i look at things in a very unemotionless way, and as soon as that sort of thing is spoken about as being very widespread, my response is to throw up my hands and stop listening.