to complain about the state of the school lunches?

[supermaje]

I’m genuinely torn about whether I’m being a bit precious here, so tell me straight. My DC’s (8 and 10) primary school lunches are, frankly, shocking. They come home starving most days because the portions are tiny, and the food sounds grim. Yesterday was “pizza” which apparently was a single slice of bread with a smattering of cheese and a bit of tomato paste. That’s not pizza, is it?! It’s toast.

They also regularly run out of options by the time the last sitting gets served, so my youngest ends up with whatever’s left, which is often jacket potatoes for the third time that week. He’s so fed up he’s asked me to start making packed lunches again.

I get that budgets are tight and schools are under pressure, but for £2.50 a day, I’d expect them to at least get a decent, filling meal. When I mentioned it casually to a teacher at pick-up, they said something like, “Oh, it’s not the worst we’ve seen!” which made me think they know it’s rubbish too but aren’t doing anything about it.

Would I be unreasonable to raise it properly with the school? I don’t want to be that parent, but surely they should be offering better meals than this? Or is this just how it is everywhere now? I don’t want to kick up a fuss if this is standard and everyone else is just putting up with it.

(And yes, I’ve seen the menu they send home. It all looks great on paper. It’s just the reality that’s dire!)

Thoughts?

They are ok at my DS school (private school and paid lunches are a bit more expensive depends what they have) but I don't trust him not to ignore the meal with veg in favour of a ham sandwich so flask lunch it is. We use a wide mouth thermos branded one I got on Amazon. It's just the two of us so when I cook things like daal or chilli, a recipe to serve 4 generally does dinner for both of us plus 3 lunch portions. I have little tupperwares from Asda that are the same capacity as the flask, so freeze 3 sets of leftovers already mixed with rice or pasta and then it's the work of minutes in the morning to grab something from the freezer, defrost and heat in the microwave.

School food should not be for profit. Selling out to catering companies (looking to maximise profit over nutrition/feeding kids) has fucked up school food.

I’d bet good money I could make better meals, on the lines specified in my original post, for that price. They buy meat and veg and carbs but do weird stuff with it instead of crowd pleasers!

I used to work in a school kitchen. The portions are tiny, the ingredients are the cheapest out there ( including meat etc) and the menus sound way more appetising than the food actually is.

I was just thinking about primary school dinners in the 80s. The only thing I could eat was grated carrot, grated cheese, and cake! 🤣
At least they didn't force us to eat stuff we hated like some kids my age. I remember they wouldn't allow pack lunches, until they relented when I was in year 6. I think the dinner ladies were out of a job once everyone could bring their own!

Schools don’t have the time and money for this. Even if they employed someone like you to plan meals and deal with buying the ingrediant and take care of the kitchen staff then they would need to pay you.

If they’re a PFI school they will have no control over the catering service.

DD is in year 1 and takes a packed lunch. She went to a fabulous nursery with a great on-site chef so between that and home she was used to good quality homemade food.

When she started school in reception she said she loved it, except the food. Her teacher said if she's used to good homemade food then she's not surprised DD doesn't like school food.

At least with a packed lunch I know what she's eating and the quality of it. We didnt have much luck with a thermos keeping things warm enough but DD happily eats cold pasta and things like that so I feel like I can keep the variety up. Luckily school rules on packed lunches are sensible (drink must be water, milk or juice, no chocolate and no nuts) so we have a fair amount of flexibility. She has a small biscuit or homemade cake as pudding- seems only fair when the school dinners kids get a pudding. At the moment there's only one or two other kids who take packed lunches on some days but I expect that will increase when lunches need to be paid for from year 3 onwards.

It's a shame the food isn't better, for everyone's sakes but at least they still all eat together so the community aspect is still there.

Majority of schools are outside catered now and food bought in and dished up at school. On the rare occasion my son has them it's 3.15 a day. Poor choice especially last 6 months and not enough but it's run by Chartwells who have shareholders and they need to make a profit regardless of food inflation

It should never have been removed from schools

My DC are 30 and 26 now.

At primary they had a packed lunch because the school lunches sounded dire. It cost me more but they preferred it and I knew what they were getting. DS transferred to the independent sector, aged 8, in 2003. His school lunches there were fab but cost £4.50. Go figure. Similar for DD at 11.

When I was at school, primary lunches were OK, secondary dreadful so I had a packed lunch. 1960s/70s.

My mother and I have the same view (remarkably). Our children went to school on a decent breakfast and had a proper hot dinner in the evening. Therefore, school lunch or whatever was an excuse for decent food was not a big deal.

Personally, I think the business of free school lunches for all children in the infants has been a retrograde step. When things are free, it closes the reasonableness of valid complaints. One has only to look at the NHS.

Not sure if you’re serious, but it’s this;

Here

The best one I had was a Tiffin set that had 3 parts that you stacked in a flask (hot or cold) with cutlery and I used to put 2 main dishes in the bottom 2 and dessert on top. Then they carry it like a little case. This wasn’t in the uk and all the kids had them.

It sounds a faff but it really wasn’t. It was what we had the night before, no extra prep or anything. Apparently the other kids were all complaining to their parents saying ‘Marathon’s kid has got lasagna or curry and rice. Why have I got a cheese sandwich?’

I agree the free lunches for all in reception - year 2 seems pointless especially when places like London all primary kids get them free even though a lot of families must be balling in money to even live in London. Surely this contributes to the food being mid.

Someone argued it's good for all kids to get the lunches free because the poor children won't be embarrassed but no one knows which kids get free lunches for being from poor families because it's ordered online in almost every school now. Personally I think only kids from poor families should get them just seems pointless for some child of a millionaire to get a free lunch.