Are school meals really so bad?

[cheeseallthroughthebitch]

My child attends a private school and the meals are predictably made in the school kitchen from scratch and very good. I don’t remember my own primary school dinners as I always took a packed lunch (that probably speaks for itself!)

There’s a thread running at the moment about bringing snacks for children at home time that has descended into a 4 Yorkshiremen sketch of whose children have the worst school dinners. Lots of descriptions of beige plates, rolls with cheese spread, single teaspoon-sized portions of veg, and minuscule servings of everything. So much so the kids are absolutely fainting with hunger by home time.

Is this representative of school dinners? Do any parents complain?

YABU- not at my kid’s school
YANBU- yes, they really are like that

I think the difference is you will have told this to a teacher that he was upset and they will have then told the lunch staff if they queried it and said 'oh Freddie's mum is aware, it's being dealt with'. We do have some who don't eat much and we know about.
Some children when I say to tell their grown up they don't like school dinners simply say my mum won't let me have packed lunch. I then pass this on to the teacher and tell them the child isn't eating. It then seems a shame when they are still having school dinners, not eating them and the teacher says they have told the parents and they just said ok (no reason).

My daughter loves her school meals.

She knows what she’s having every day and it’s made her a more adventurous eater, as there’s things she wouldn’t have tried at home, once upon a time.

They have 3 different options, along side a veg and salad bar.
Recent meals dd has had - roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings, mac and cheese with broccoli, Salmon fish fingers with chips and peas, Spaghetti bolognaise with garlic bread and Mini chicken fajitas with rice and salad. They get a choice of fruit, jelly, yogurt , a cookie or small slice of cake for pudding.

Parents were invited to have lunch with our kids a few months back (reception) it was a lovely thing for the school to do, but I overheard a few of the school mums saying things afterwards, like “I can’t believe that’s all they get to eat” “it tasted like cardboard” “ my daughter eats so much better at home, she eats sea bass”
They sounded ridiculous. Of course they are entitled to their opinion, but I thought they sounded like snobs.

I think the school do a wonderful job of providing nice, balanced meals.
It’s all homemade on site and they change the menu every term. You can’t make everyone happy though, can you!?

”She eats sea bass” made me laugh 😂

Her school dinners sound great. Bonus that it’s improved her eating too.

I am the rabble. My entire family are the rabble.

I’ve worked hard and can now afford private school for my child.

Grow up and get a grip.

Precisely. You've worded it better than my initial post did, and doubtless the OP will reply with a version of chip on shoulder/get grip/ODFOD - but it is the case that the whole post reads a bit like -

1. Oh I wonder what the poor kids eat these days - sorry I have NO clue as my kid goes private... just curious is it all rubbish food?
2. Followed by - another post specifically again repeating - oh I know nothing about the ins and outs of state school food (reminding us that she clearly, so obviously, goes private)
3. Further posts - about second helpings and selective second helpings - about how more curry is available if no rice is wanted and so on.

Such a glib, faux-innocent, "illuminate me about how the poor live, I don't know the ins and outs of it you see - mine gets second helpings you see" type post.

Just why?!

Awaiting the next version of ODFOD/chip on shoulder/jealous much/get grip etc!

They are very bad at the secondary school I work at. I have raised it but there is limited funding to improve it.

So… are your kids fed well at school?

My DCs’ state primary has nice menus with options that would generally appeal to children. DC1 is in Year 5 and there is regular bickering about portion sizes and quality on the class WhatsApp group. The portion sizes are set by the government, apparently. They are generally smaller than what I’d give at home, and include odd combinations such as a ham roll, a tablespoon of plain cooked pasta and similar of cooked veg.

DC1 sometimes complains about the quality and often about the quantity. DC2 (Reception) never complains about the quantity.

School did change supplier after a marked drop in quality a couple of years ago.

DD (8) goes to a small state primary school- they do decent food, the menu is very varied. She really enjoys the meals, today apparently was sausage pasta bake and in her words ‘the tomato sauce was thick and the cheese was stretchy’.
They always have salad sides and have a choice of 3/4 meals a day including jacket potato.
I can’t imagine the portions are very big but she has a decent breakfast, packs a snack in her bag for break time and is never coming out starving.

Absolutely! Lovely little village infant school - and separate little junior school with excellent menus. Complemented very well by us at breakfast and dinner times - producing healthy adventurous eaters - no complaints.

How lovely. It sounds like you are in a very privileged position compared to a lot of posters on this thread. I’m interested to hear more from a wide range of experiences. Thanks for your input.

Primary school in Kent.
school cooks on site make from scratch but use chartwells so they follow a menu and cook from the menu’s provided (I’ve sampled some on the new menu days and even had a whole cheese and onion pasty from them on a morning I had a meeting at school)
dc don’t complain about the size only about some of the meals they dislike but that’s preference…
often they have the option of two veg (they can get both)

Quite. Oh my DC goes to a naice private school and the meals are so naice. No shit. 🙄

You are amazed that they exist, and they burn so bright whilst you can only wonder why.

I do think a lot of parents are naive about what is actually served. Unless you work in the school or see it yourself, it often looks nothing like the photos on the website or the description on the menu. In a lot of schools, portions are small and most of it is UPF if you actually request to see the ingredients. I often walk through the lunch hall and see the meals. My daughter comes out hungry on school dinner days, not packed lunch days. Obviously this is not applicable to all schools but we have a major well known catering company doing ours.

That is depressing, horrible for the children and for the kitchen staff.

I'm in Finland and everyone has school dinners here (packed lunch isn't an option) and the children serve themselves the food instead of being given a set portion, can choose to take more of what they like (within limit, like no more than 8 spinach pancakes I think, which is one the most popular foods) and less of what they don't like.

we are in Scotland at a larger primary school. They don’t have a kitchen so everything is brought in and it’s universally pretty awful. My son asked for packed lunches for a year and we finally let him do it this year as he’s old enough to pack them himself (he’s 8 now)

Tiny portions and not delicious. And since we are in Scotland we would get school lunches for free so are choosing to pay for our own anyway. It was okay when he was younger but he’s super active and he was so hungry after school! Since he goes to after school club and various clubs most evenings it wasn’t fair on him to try to make it work any longer.

Yes - should have said above but this is what drives me crazy when I think about it. 30% of our school is on free school meals so are relying on this for nutrition and possibly for their only meal of the day. We are super privileged to be able to just opt out so my son is well nourished, but many don’t. It’s infuriating.

My DD is year 8 secondary school and has been having school dinners since she started but has now decided to switch to packed lunches because by the time she gets to lunch time in her school, she says there's hardly any food left and she spends ages queuing up for food she doesn't particularly like and then doesn't have time to see friends etc.

My children used to like their primary school lunches but this year they're apparently absolutely dire. Recipes have changed and food now inedible so they end up with jacket potatoes almost every day 😏

This isn't because they are fussy children - they really aren't (it's my one parenting win!). Even the teachers have stopped eating the school lunches this year.

Packed lunches aren't an option at our school.

I work in a primary school kitchen. The meals are on a 3 week rotation. They are ALL cooked from scratch. Fresh veg, etc. desserts (ie jelly) are sugar free. Juniors get larger portions than infants and those portions are perfect. They can always ask for salad on top of the veg/main. Only Fridays is junk day and it’s either always home made pizza or fish of some kind. Only water for drinks and fruit is ALWAYS available. Kids love it!

😂

You are absolutely clueless

That’s really frustrating when you’ve been used to good meals. Why are packed lunches not an option? Surely this can be challenged?

A few people have said that the dinners run out by the time their children get a chance to go for lunch. It’s incredibly unfair. They clearly don’t have enough food available if this is regularly happening.

The quality of some of the meals described here is atrocious, and I imagine Jamie Oliver would have a field day making a “where are we now” kind of programme. I do wonder what it was about the original programme that wasn’t successful in forcing any changes long term. As I remember it there was a huge amount of publicity around the programme, and did it not effect some change at the time? When I was at secondary school the meals were dire: burgers, pizza, chips… the same food every day and no fruit and veg. By the time I left they had overhauled everything and the meals were much better which I attributed to the after effects of that programme. I have no idea if things have slipped again now.

But stories like these are not very interesting to some, you see. Both our schools have large kitchens and food is cooked on site (not heated or warmed on site from frozen deliveries of ready meals - to be really specific and clear). They also have sizeable gardens and vegetable plots where children are able to grow a lot of salad and vegetables. My son attends the gardening club after school once a week and we have a strong parent-staff Groundforce day team who work very hard on the vegetable garden. Obviously it does not feed the school but a very good, sizeable connection to the kitchen that the kids are involved in. But things are uneven across the country, and like with anything else - accounts of things going normally largely well are not necessarily of interest.