Shocking state of school dinners!

[dottiedodah]

This week a headteacher asked how hard it was to cook a potato? Really grim offerings .Sad part is that some children only have that food.Do those old enough to remember traditional school meals feel they were better then ?

School dinners at my children's primary school look lovely.

There is a choice of jacket potato x 3 different fillings or sandwich x 3 different fillings every day, a vegan/vegetarian main option and a meat or fish main option. When it's pasta/pizza type dish there is always a gluten free version available as well.

The children are allowed to help themselves to as much fruit, salad and extra veg on top of whatever comes with the meal already and there is a choice of 3 puddings (fruit, yoghurt or home made cake + gluten free version).

For less than £3 a day each all in I think it's an absolute bargain.

It's slop at our school. Not sure how they've managed 'wet' chicken nuggets (ds is 5 and extremely picky, just short of arfid apparently). Wet chicken nuggets?! Our school is a chartwells one too. We do packed lunch except mac n cheese day - this is allowed to be wet mush apparently.

Have you actually seen them served or just the menu? The menu where I work looks a lot more appetising than the reality!

I also eat school lunches all over London and the Home Counties and 6/10 are awful. None of them are ‘nice cafe’ quality. I wish I was working in your areas!

They go without.

DS sometimes comes home in a foul mood. He doesn't realise he's hangry. It's madness.

This is the same as Dd's school - menu looks lovely and varied, and £2.30 a day, so sounds like a bargain. However, she says it's horrible, not fresh or hot or well cooked, and portions are tiny (5 chips) so most would not find it enough, especially if there's bits of a meal they don't like. We do packed lunches every day now.

We had those in the late 60s and 70s. Lamb stews, with plenty of fat clinging to it. I wasn't a fussy kid, but I couldn't tolerate them.

Not the point of your post I know, but why are schools serving pizza (a carb fest) with a carb!! My kids get given pizza and wedges, it’s insane. No wonder half the nation is overweight

Fwiw I have started doing packed lunches for DS because all he picks are baked potatoes and I’m not spending £2.30 a day on something like that. He doesn’t even get time to eat it all.
DD is a food hoover though so she manages fine!

School dinners were disgusting at my schools.
My children had a much better experience

Our school has a choice of

Hot meat dish
Hot veggie fish
Baked potato with veg filling
Baked potato with meat filling
Sandwich or wrap with meat filling
Sandwich or wrap with veg filling

Plus starter or pudding.

DD very happy to eat school dinners except on Fridays as everything is fish or egg

There seems to be a mixture of replies here! The School head said he had to write to parents himself to apologise! Not his fault anyway. I wasnt keen on my own School dinners ,but the offerings photographed in the Guardian were really dire

I work in a school and they are horrible- they are beige, beige and beige! They don't look appealing but other member of staff they have more flavour in now! Only good one is pasta bake salad and garlic bread. Even the Thursday dinner is a paltry slice of meat, 1 scoop of mash, 1 Yorkshire and peas and carrots. Most of the dinners are chucked in the bin.

You ever came up with a 3 year old and an 11 year old should have the same sized dinner!

Though in contrast those who have packed lunch have far too much, mostly processed! They must have 7 or 8 items

I think there's too much focus on variety. The main thing should surely be that the meal is warm, filling, and vaguely nutritious.

Jacket potatoes are almost impossible to fuck up, can be easily made in bulk and are cheap. Just have either jacket potato, rice, or a warm baguette and lots of fillings that can also be made in bulk - cheese, beans, bolognaise, curry, spicy fajita type, bacon, mayonnaise, chicken strips, etc. If the worst thing that happens is someone has the same meal several days in a row it's hardly the end of the world - lots of adults do that by choice!

Or just do multiple soups with bread and salad.

Possibly the way to go is packed lunches then?Seems harsh for those DC who will only receive one meal though ,which was the headteachers point.

Neither if my kids would eat the primary school dinners, which is annoying because they are entitled to fsm.

My daughter said she was always still really hungry afterwards in yrs 5 and 6 because the portions were too small.
My son is in Yr 6 now and won't eat them because he always says he doesn't like them, even if it's a meal he likes at home. He always says they are dry with no sauce or bland and don't taste of anything.

My daughter is in secondary now and the food there is great with lots of choice so she has school dinners and I've told my son that he will as well because there will definitely be something he can choose that he likes.
I am sick of making packed lunches now!

EasylikeSundayMorning The point headteacher was making, was as you say Jacket potatoes should be impossible to mess up .However the photos were quite dire (.Sorry dont know how to post a link ) but Guardian and other papers have snaps .Not that they were every day but just so badly cooked its untrue .As he said "How hard can it be to cook a jacket potato?!

I work in a primary school in Scotland.
The lunches are pretty good; children can have soup as a starter, choice of two hot mains ( chicken fried rice, chili, curry, fish, Quorn dippers and katsu sauce etc) or various sandwiches and always a salad bar and yoghurt/fresh fruit and some days a freshly baked muffin or cookie or ice cream or jelly.
They have been cutting costs lately and I feel there are too many cheese based options and things are not quite as nice as they used to be.

It's interesting isn't it. Our primary has always done decent dinners but they have recently shrunk and are no longer big enough for my Y4 child let alone my ravenous y6. I looked at the menu for our secondary recently and it looked good, then I noticed a petition on the parents FB group to get rid of the 'spicy and vegetarian food and do more normal dinners like on world book day'. World book day dinner was a burger, chips or pizza...

My kids won't eat school dinners as my think they are gross. My 18 year old on the other hand loves the food they sell at his college

This thread reminds me of this primary school food blogger from many years ago. She first started posting images of her own school food, then, in the later posts, showed images of school lunches from around the world. UK school food is embarrassing by comparison.

http://neverseconds.blogspot.com/2012/05/

Ha, I know - I only asked because I know how they 'structure' the meals so knew there would be a carb with it. Where I used to work, children got a slice of pizza with two pieces of boiled potato and some broccoli. Not a combination I would ever think to serve at home! Although I doubt anyone is getting obsese off school dinners. The slice of pizza is about the size of a deck of cards.

Our primary school lunches are bought in and delivered from a local provider. They're mostly really good. Mine have lunch on 3 days and packed lunch on the other two. Meat or veggie option.

The secondary school I teach at is hit and miss. There is too much fried junk!

We have to pay for dinners in NI unless you entitled to free school meals. Dc primary the meals are fab, prepped nearby. Kids love them and loads pay to go.

Was born in the late 1950's, My primary school hot lunches (well, school dinners, really, this was oop North) were absolutely standard Brit (of the time) fare: meat or fish or shepherd's pie or some such and two veg (but you could have all the cabbage you wanted!) and a good solid pudding of some kind. Everybody sat down around multi-person tables with an adult often serving things out. Nutritionally not badly balanced, actually. My grammar school had 450 students total so although there were two sittings for serving lunch (cooked on the premises), noone went without. Things were a bit more sophisticated by now; there were (dead boring) salad options and usually a choice of two entrees with occasional vegetarian entrees. And choice of two good solid puddings or "cheese and biscuits". I'm omnivorous and need feeding regularly so I never had problems with my school food and I still actually still like green cabbage and remember with almost unironic fondness something called a spam fritter. Schools were not crazy massive then; the idea that there was no time for everyone to get served was unknown.