School dinners v packed lunch

[F05ters1]

Reception age daughter begging to go on packed lunches already after 6 weeks of full time school.

Every day without fail when I ask her what was for lunch I get... fishfingers chips and beans, I didn't like the chips and I'm off beans so I ate the fish fingers. Please can I take a packed lunch?

pasta and cheese, I didn't like the cheese and the pasta was soggy so I just had the biscuit for pudding. when can I go on packed lunch?

mince and dumplings today, mince was too salty and the dumpling was soggy, please can I go on packed lunches?

blah blah takes a packed lunch. (dd has even approached said mum who said her dd was a picky eater 🙄)

why can't you just say I'm a picky eater mum!

For context she'll eat a salmon fillet at home but won't eat a fishfinger.
She'll eat fillet steak but not a burger.
She eats all veg and salad but isn't keen on meat. I make soup packed with lentils and do lots of eggy things for protein

I'm torn. school meals are free and I work shifts, it's been a godsend not having to worry about lunch for the four year old restaurant critic! but she is so adamant, should I relent?

The amount of waste is insane. Sometimes the waste bin is so heavy two people have to dispose of it. This is with only 200 kids eating.

4yo restaurant critic

I'd firstly see if they have the jacket potato or sandwich option. If they do t I'd ask the school why? Perhaps DD could be become an advocate for change?

But if not I'd just bulk make some soup (get a soup maker?) and heat it up into a thermos each day.

I take it daily and just Chuck it in the microwave when I'm in the kitchen and pour in when done. The making it takes an extra 5 minutes at the weekend and is usually done when I'm cooking anyway.

It depends on the school.

I did a lot of supply teaching and some schools you would got a meal that could be on a pub menu, at others it was dire, very few were somewhere in between.

I started school in the 1970s where there was no choice and then at secondary only a choice of two mains and two puddings. And the mains were not that varied eg chicken supreme or chicken pie.

I think catering companies have now gone to 'kid friendly' so it is the stuff you would get on a children's menu, burgers, sausages, fish fingers rather than 'proper food'.

At my kids school they have a good system where you go on and choose their options in advance, so you can see what the menu will be each day and if they are likely to actually eat it. If not you just select the packed lunch option and this reduces waste. Food at the school is ok but not amazing.

I'm encouraging mine to choose from the menu a couple of times a week (usually they will do it on the days there is a good pudding!) and the rest I just do packed lunch. At least I know that way they actually will eat it. When the meals are no longer free I'll probably just go entirely to packed lunch as they are cheaper.

I keep packed lunches simple and not too exciting and they get a sandwich, cucumber or carrot sticks and a yogurt which doesn't take too long to make. That's pretty much what they choose at weekends anyway so they are happy with it.

Problem is that some kids won't be fed until the evening.

Some kids will be sent in with yesterday's McDonald's or a bag of Doritos and a cola drink or cold chips from the chippy, or nothing at all.

My sister works in a primary and has seen all of these things....

There's really nothing wrong with fish fingers, chips and beans.
People stress far too much over what their kids eat.
You should have seen what sort of stuff we ate as kids at our house. I remember eating tinned burgers, and I actually liked them!

I work in a school and the dinners are fine. They're very heavily regulated as well, so there's some rubbish being spouted on this thread.

Fussy parents breed fussy kids.

School lunches are generally pretty poor. My friend is a teacher at DS's school and sends a packed lunch for her daughter. My DS had a term or two on school lunches in reception and switched to packed lunches with the occasional hot dinner of the meals he particularly liked (I think there are about 3 in rotation)

If she’s eating breakfast and tea / dinner at home then it doesn’t matter how little she’s eating during lunch. I personally wouldn’t be rejecting a fsm if she’s eating something - it will cost you a lot more in terms of money and time to make packed lunches for her.

Are you sure there isn't a choice? Our school meals aren't great and sound similar but there's also the option of a jacket potato or sandwich plus the hot meat and veggie options. I don't like the school dinners but I stuck to them whilst they were free. I make pack ups now but it is a pain and time consuming even without shift work! Taking leftovers isn't an option at our school and I've tried the freezer hack as I bulk cook a lot and the sandwiches came out awful so I do them fresh every night. Roll on secondary!

Just want to comment on the posters saying “make 5 sandwiches on Sunday and defrost” and “cook a large chilli and feed her for a week”. That’s disgusting. I don’t care how processed or overcooked the school meals are, a frozen sandwich and a week old chilli are worse.

I've worked in a LOT of schools and I can count on one hand the amount that served food that I would eat. In my experience it's very often not at all like the taster menus they share with parents and is thrown away by the majority of children.

I appreciate that it is more time consuming and costly but I would absolutely let her have packed lunch, she's unlikely to be able to concentrate in the afternoons properly if she's so hungry and I'd far rather the extra expense and time to know she's getting a lunch she will eat.

My ds is very fussy but he would eat what's in school and not the same thing at home. He's in a school that has an excellent menu, lots of options that I would love to eat! (Independent school).
I refuse to go packed lunch because that would just be the biggest pain for me and he would not be exposed to variety. His choice is eat the school lunch or starve. Funny enough he manages to eat it. I would keep her on the school lunch if you think it's good food though . If she isn't a fussy child then I would so packed lunch.

Our ds also reception year was open to trying some of the hot dinners, and even excites about sausage and mash day. He has extreme picky eating, not quite arfid. Turns out sausage and mash was sausages in bean juice, obviously not the same.

He takes a packed lunch every day now and actually has a good go at it usually. He was eating nothing all day long. Not eating can't help their learning.

Tell her if anything ever looks appealing, to tell you, and she can have school dinners on those days.

Because schools get about 10p per student to make the food- blame the government!

I disagree, benefits being increased by ten times doesn't help a kid who's parents are alcoholics/ drug addicts. They need food not just for their parents to be given more money

This poster is correct - school dinners have to meet government guidelines, which are very prescriptive; no salt, low sugar, no fried food, veg/salad with all meals etc

They are incorrect about secondary school.meals - they too have to meet the nutritional guidelines.

School lunches arent always brilliant. I do eat them though. They arent inedible and some bits are nice.

Its things like they base the required calories of the meal across the whole meal, so half the calories can be in the pudding, which isnt like normal pudding and most kids bin it.

This means that chips can literally be 3 or 4 chips as when they worked out the nutrition they assumed the shortbread biscuit with milk would get eaten. They can be soggy as they are kept in warming trays.

The amount the government gives for meals has not kept up with inflation so over the last decade the quality has really reduced.

They also spread the funding across meals so they might offer roast one day which costs more than the government gives (is normally nice) but that means another day has less money per meal.

In the school I work in the cook has largely abandoned offering salad as it was never eaten so we were making it just to then throw it away an hour later. When the kids queue up for their food most ask for no vegetables. So the meals as designed meet nutritional standards but as served and eaten really really don’t.

Mine have generally had school dinners and generally been ravenous enough to eat them.

In y6 DS1 suddenly looked thin rather than lean and after measuring him, was on the cusp of falling into the underweight band. He had been moaning about inadequate portions and still only given the same amount as yR children.
I started sending both in with flasks of things like tinned chilli with microwave rice. DS2 always came home with very little gone from his flask. When they moved up a year and it was just DS2, he asked for sandwiches, but again would come home with most of it untouched and destined for the bin. I put him back on school dinners. Partly so I'm not binning the food that I've put time and money into, partly because as imperfect as school dinners are, seeing them on his plate means that he does eat more whereas faffing with lunchboxes/ flasks and wrappers means he tends to not bother when he's in a rush to get out and play football.

If sandwiches/ packed lunches means they'll eat more, that's fine but it's not always guarenteed that they'll eat them anyway.

I know! It takes literally seconds to make a fresh sandwich or wrap. Chilli for lunch everyday, imagine.

So the meals as designed meet nutritional standards but as served and eaten really really don’t.

This is such a good point and worth repeating. Parents think their child is getting a balanced and nutritional meal and they might be, if they eat it all. Unfotunately children who eat everything are the minority. Most children just pick at the food then head out to play having eaten nothing more than a few chips, and in some cases nothing at all.

Agree

How many peoples very young children actually eat curry/chilli/spag Bol? I'd love it if they did but that's not the reality : (

They are pretty normal meals for the vast majority of small children up and down the country. All the small children I know would eat them although some would prefer the sauce and meat separate. I'd be very surprised if a child wouldn't eat chilli,spag bol or curry.

They're pretty normal meals for children, and all of those have been on our school menu at some point this year.