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 ?

There are some schools I've worked at where the hot meal is unfortunately the only hot meal some children will have at all. I remember several of us pointing out the tiny portions to the headteacher and he made a big deal of it with the company, which was great and saw results.

At my school, that is generally not the case, although the portions are still small and they work to such a small margin that the last few children into the hall sometimes don't get enough. We have raised this but the company gives so much pushback that nothing happens, and the school has no money to change providers. Luckily, my current class doesn't really fancy the fruit provided at morning break, so it is available in the afternoon when they start to get hungry and grumpy.

The school I work at and my children's school both have the same provider. Mondays is pizza and Fridays fish fingers but the other three days there's a variety of bolognese, roast, mild curry, meatballs etc. There's usually 1 meat/halal option, 1 veggie option or jacket potato. Pudding is fruit, yoghurt or sometimes a flapjack. Occasionally ice cream which causes great excitement.

The difference is that my school does a pre-ordering system so the parents order in advance and the kids get what has been ordered. My own children had to decide from Reception what they wanted so I'm sure it led to some less healthy choices. However my children have sometimes made choices that have pleasantly surprised me and I'm not sure they'd have picked that option to pre-order but when they see it they want to give it a go (eg the curry). So I guess it's swings and roundabouts.

This makes me so sad. Our society is so out of kilter with what it should be.

I agree. I won't go into specifics but there were a lot of complex factors going into the situations of the families. It can be hard to imagine a way out without a lot of support which, unfortunately, is just not available.

It's absolutely disgraceful that the kitchen managers are also expected to do their own accounting and do all the liaising with suppliers - not just placing their orders for what they need, but investigate complex invoicing and payment issues and having to chase and phone people whilst they need to be getting on with their actual kitchen duties. Even if they were paid for all of those hours; but of course, they aren't - and they'll be gaslighted that it's their own inefficiency/poor work ethic/mistakes that have led to so much extra work.

Either it's your own business and you take responsibility for all of it; or you're a small cog in a massive machine that has people and procedures in place to deal with each different part. Chartwells want to have the best of both worlds, and for the people who actually make them the money to have neither.

As for 60% profit, that is obscene when you look at the margins they're already working to. Obviously, you expect them to take their fair cut, but 60% is outrageous.

While great ideas for dishes the fact is that a number of kitchens in schools don’t have a lot of space or equipment to provide this and it is a constant struggle and juggling act. Most kitchens in schools have not had expansion of space or equipment yet the intake in the school has increased, this is due to funding, or lack of.

for example pasta bolognaise day in my school kitchen,

25kg mince beef that needs to be cooked off and then drained (as much as I would love to afford the 5% fat mince steak I can’t so have to opt for 10%. This takes 3 massive pans on the stove top. It can’t be done in the ovens as we also have to provide a break service so they are in use.

6kg of diced onions which takes a staff member 25 minutes to peel and put through the machine. I can’t justify spending 4 times the price on pre diced.

same with the 6kg grated carrots.

once you have added all the tins of tomatoes/tomato paste/garlic/herbs it needs time to cook out.

then pasta- 8tins of it (12kg) through the oven but you can only use one oven due to needing the second one for jacket potatoes/quiche/veggies. You can fit 4 tins in and it takes 14 minutes each round.

carry the pasta to the sink and drain then add the mince and combine. If you’re lucky to have enough staff (because budget or recruitment issues) you can do it in batches so it is fresh throughout lunch. If not then you do it all before lunch and hot hold (which can then cause issues with temperature or mushy pasta)

in the second oven you do jackets/quiche/vegetables/baked beans but where do you then makes the vegetarian option as your ovens and hob are full?

it sounds simple but it is really not.

at least pasta bolognaise is something that the majority of kids eat. But a number of one pot meals are not appealing to kids.

the most popular meals on our menu apart from bolognaise are chicken chow mein (a lot of veg prep!) which a homemade sauce (purchased sauce is too much money and contains a lot of salt and ingredients that I can’t even pronounce). We use a whole boneless thigh with Chinese marinade on top.
chicken Katsu and rice, again homemade sauce (you can then control the heat level and we add sweet potato) with a plain chicken fillet.
Nando’s style rice and either piri piri chicken or lemon and garlic chicken.
halloumi burger (halloumi, pineapple ring glazed with chilli sauce and a zesty slaw made with cabbage/carrot/onion with lemon and lime juice)

we are about to menu change for summer term and engage the students in this, but as we are in house we have the flexibility to do this so it it reflective of our students tastes or staff skill and experience as well as the equipment/space to hand. Contract catering doesn’t have this option and is a kind of one size fits all as what works in a MC small village primary may not work in large 3 form entry primary with high levels of deprivation. What works in a selective Grammar school with low FSM won’t work in a more diverse inner city comp.

I worked briefly as a catering assistant in a local school and promptly stopped my DS from having quite a few of the meals. The quality was awful. Meat which wasn’t recognisable as anything at all other than perhaps leather too tough to do anything with. Fish items that I couldn’t find any fish in and which tasted so odd. Some days no vegetables were offered at all. The portions were too big for reception kids but way too tiny for Year 6. Most of the food was just reheated UPF. My DS is allowed to have the small number of dishes which were cooked from scratch and contained veg (spag Bol, hotpot and macaroni cheese).

It absolutely broke my heart that for so many children this complete rubbish would be their main meal of the day. Most of it ended up in the bin as well. How any of the children were learning in the afternoons with so little food in them is beyond me.

Baffles me how some schools nose through packed lunches tutting and banning anything with salt, sugar in them whilst right behind them school dinners are inedible UPF slop.

I responded as I read through the thread.

Pizza doesn't require an accompanying carb.

Justasking111 I agree ! it makes a mockery of the whole lunch system !

It clearly hugely depends on the school.
Where I work the food is lovely. Very small school and we have our own chef. He makes everything from scratch including pizzas - makes his own dough and sauce. We have everything from curries to pasta bakes to toad in the hole. It’s all delicious. However there’s no choice. The veggie option is always a variation on the meat (veggie sausages instead of meat ones) but there isn’t anything else. It’s not ideal but the kitchen is tiny (it fits two people in it and then it’s squashed) and it’s hard enough trying to get meals out in time with the limited space - there isn’t even space in the oven for a tray of baked potatoes.

We’ve just had our weekly menu for my sons school through, I sometimes volunteer and eat there, so I do know the food is nice. He goes to a through school, so everyone from 7-18 have the same meal, students are able to pick their own portions, for anything awkward to cut there are full and chopped up options available for smaller hands who struggle to cut independently.

Monday
Herb and cheese gratin with fish fillet and green beans (it doesn’t specify what fish).
Cauliflower and chick pea curry with rice

Tuesday
Cheese pie (a bit like quiche) with sour creme and red onion chutney.
Mushroom and egg pie with sour creme and red onion chutney.

Wednesday
Chicken casserole with mashed potato, peas, grean beans and lingonberry.
Roasted vegetables with mustard mash, peas, grean beans, gravy and lingonberry.

Thursday
Vegetable patties with wedges, corn on the cob and a dry slaw
Pork patties with the above.

Friday
Meatballs, potatoes, peas, brussells, lingonberry and gravy.
Veggie meatballs and the above.

There will also be a big salad bar, and other cooked vegetables available. Last time I went I had the veggie meatballs with peas, green beans, carrots, cabbage and roasted cauliflower.

LEAs should be put back in charge of food
Compare the Hampshire menu with what the Redbridge School head publicised
https://www.hants.gov.uk/educationandlearning/hc3s/education-catering/primary

Yeah, that doesn’t look great either, lots of chicken dippers, fish fingers, frozen burgers etc.

The meals are cooked in house at my DC’s primary and although I haven’t seen them, they’re decent according to my DD (who is a reliable reporter). She said lots of staff eat them which bodes well! I think it makes a difference when the head gets involved. She said he came into their classroom (she’s y5) and asked them about the dinners. They all said they didn’t get big enough portions so he moved y5 and 6 to last sitting and apparently he personally oversees the dishing out of second helpings to them at the end! The leftover hash browns on all day breakfast day nearly caused a stampede!

Too many schools no longer have kitchens at all

PFI contract schools are the worst

Well, obviously, but all schools serve eg Bolognese and we are not privy to the recipes used. There could be hidden veg in there for all we know.

It sounds like schools who are lucky enough to have their own catering staff provide much better meals than those covered by large catering companies.

If school dinner staff are cooking for kids they see 5 days a week, they're going to do a better job of providing tasty, healthy meals than a company who's priority is profit margin.