To expect school to tell us about huge lunch cost increases?

[PhoneyM]

School lunch prices have shot up. Regular item like wedges and chicken previously £2:30 is now £2.90.

Issue is they have a cap on spend per day which means no option now to get something at break, drink & lunch. This goes over the limit.

Found this out when DD told can’t have food and water - need to choose (and water fountain broke). SMT teachers didn’t know.

Fuming.

That's appalling

Fuming? Get a grip.

Can take stuff in

I wouldn’t necessarily expect notification of price increases in a canteen context of individually priced items, no, though I would if it was a set price per day primary school lunch situation. Just contact school, point out the problem and ask for an increase in the cap. Meantime send child to school with a snack or a drink or a packed lunch. Surely there’s more than one single source of drinking water in a secondary school anyway?

So many posts the last couple of days with people “fuming” “furious” etc about relatively trivial issues in schools.

Why should she get a grip? It’s one thing putting the prices up, another putting them up and putting a cap on it so her dd had to go the entire day without a drink. Of course parents should have been given a heads up so their children could have brought in a bottle of water and a snack if needed. My eldest dc can’t eat breakfast in the morning and are starving by first break. My youngest has an enormous breakfast and is also starving by first break. This is really shitty of the school all round, you can’t teach hungry children. And the broken water fountain which is their only source of a drink if they’re not allowed to buy one is appalling!

Solution today was SMT teacher very kindly buying a drink on her acct. And then raising with Head of yr etc.

Think teachers have better things to do than chase catering and maintenance to get things sorted.

I’ll def send in a drink - and budget for £1.10 more a day for last years lunch.

I’m amazed at the number of parents willing to fork
out for drinks at school, and snacks at break times. The prices are vastly over inflated, we once compared the price of a Capri Sun from a multi pack and one sold in the school canteen. The school one was something like four times the price.
The school I worked at, like many, had a contract with Chartwells; they didnt sell chocolate, crisps etc at break. Sounds good, you think? Well, everything on sale was bread or dough based. Cheese toasties which were two slices of the cheapest, nastiest white bread, full of preservatives, and a thin layer of greasy, cheap cheese. I would rather my children took a cereal bar or a apple and some chocolate.
Schools have to provide water free; if the fountain ( only one?) is broken, there are jugs, and paper cups..

doesnt sound fair to have a low cap if the prices ave gone up

DS told me yesterday that sandwiches had gone up 10% in price, thinks other good has gone up more. They also have a spending cap imposed by the school, I've been buying stuff from supermarket for them to take in as snacks and they get a sandwich or something at school and we cook at home.

So in fact school staff even fixed the problem, your daughter had lunch and a drink, and you’re still fuming?!

I’m sure Senior leadership team expect to deal with these kinds of issues occasionally, it’ll get sorted out so the cap is higher and meantime your child was looked after.

It sounds like a genuine oversight that the school were quick to resolve given she was bought a drink and it was escalated. Fair enough if you want to follow up with the school to ensure it’s being properly sorted and that the cap is being raised to reflect the prices increases. And good thinking to send in a drink tomorrow. I don’t understand why you’re fuming though…

I’m amazed at a lot of stuff people are willing to fork money out on. Food for their children at school is not one of them. Admittedly most of their break time snacks are an orange juice and a croissant, I’m not getting my knickers in a twist about it though. And personally I don’t know any secondary schools that provide water in paper cups. They don’t at mine. If the fountains broke at my childrens school then they’d be filling their cups out of the toilet sinks 🤢

Do you have a strangely low level for fuming? What an over-reaction, of course they should have told you and of course it's annoying for the day and of course it's extra to spend but do you genuinely have such an extreme reaction?

Some posters lives sound so exhausting

I wish ours had a daily cap!. My ds was spending aa fortune. Pizza at break time! Wasn't a thing when I was younger. He understands now and always takes a bottle of water as I've told him to stop buying drinks. Even if there's no money in the parent pay it still let's them purchase and you get a debt on there.

Ds takes a water refillable water bottle with him to school every day

Fuming might be strong then. She was upset being involved in a scene at the till with a crowd of onlookers. And that teachers had to intervene or catering view was that it’s hard luck. It should be a non problem in the first place.

No plans to increase the limit - just asking us to send in with some of lunch and buy the rest.

And I’m upset at another increased bill to find / sort after everything else.

Fuming?? It's one day and your child didn't actually go without.

Send with an extra drink / snack from home tomorrow in case the system hasn't caught up, but wait and see before getting worked up about it.

A change in prices caused a minor temporary issue nobody spotted beforehand. Shit happens. Now they know there is a problem, they can deal with it.

If you aren't happy with the situation in a few days / by next week then that's when you raise it further (but still not fuming FFS)

Ok ok with the fuming 😆
it’s been 2 days and yes will replan to do half paid and half take in.

and <quietly> fume at all the cost increase rolling in 😆

Does the school not let them take a packed lunch, is it allowed to make the pupils pay for lunch?

Yeah they do - preference was for hot food but new prices will mean can’t have that each day now.

Fuming you say? Can I request you redirect that anger in the form of a vicious email to your MP.

As a school governor who chairs the finance committee, sorry to say but you getting slightly annoyed at an increase in snack prices and this not being communicated is the LEAST of your worries with regards to school.

Those headlines about teacher salary increases (and soon to be teaching assistants as well) - yeah well the DfE hasn’t actually given any additional funding for that OR support for the increase in energy bills OR support for the increase in almost every contract in schools due to inflation. Result = even the most well run schools with healthy surpluses will be making cuts to make ends meet. In very real terms there will be less curriculum resources, experienced teachers will be replaced by newbies, less teaching support staff and in come cases merging of classes and redundancy of actual teachers.

Rome is burning people.

This is true House - and by the time it falls fully apart it will be too late for todays kids & teachers.

That's awful, a little communication is all they needed so you could up the daily spend. Why did they not let the parents know, I wonder.

Not joking - sent a vicious email to my own MP this morning. Request everyone on this thread and others do the same.

Not getting political but (using her own language) if Liz Truss is all about economic growth we need to have super well educated kids to be competitive internationally to deliver that and pay back the National debt. Cutting every corner and some in education is precisely what NOT to do.