To think that free breakfast at school is a bad idea due to the quality?

[Mushypeass]

Firstly, I fully agree with the principle of free breakfast for all pupils. My reservation comes from the quality of food that is often served up in UK school canteens. Obviously a poor quality breakfast is better than no breakfast at all but AIBU that it could encourage children to eat even more UPFs? For example, children who have may had a relatively healthy breakfast at home may now opt eat UPFs at school with their pals instead.

Seocondly, why is the food so poor in so many schools? How can other countries manage to provide their youth with nutritious and healthy meals but we can’t?

I wasn't on about them not eating it. I was on about them not coming to the club. You have to provide food each morning for a whole school no matter if only 2 or 3 turn up. Then 200 portions of food need throwing out. Or you buy in fresh food and it gets wasted.

My issue is how do you logistically manage and prevent the food waste of 190 portions per day if the kids do not show up? Or show up and do not want food and it all has to be ready to serve 200 portions within 30 minutes so you cannot not prepare it beforehand.

Also say they do all come in and eat - how do you wash up 200 porridge bowls in 5 minutes? That is another thing that hasn't been figured out yet!

:(. It’s awful honestly! If I had any in-cling that this was going to be my life 20 years ago the nearly 40 year old me would have told the 18 year old me to stay the hell out of education! I almost failed my first year of teacher training and should have seen the signs then.
I have a great career now, but the increasing social deprivation in schools and gap between those who can provide tutors and so on in leafy suburb schools is massively growing. Meanwhile as well as providing all the extra little things that we do at cost to our pockets, families, mental health, families mental health and so on, we get our knuckles wrapped for not getting good enough data year on year!

I will add in here that this week I’ve had a lot of horrible things going on in my life, I have barely managed to hold it together, so god forbid that we actually manage to have a life on top of everything else we do!

I’m jealous you’re getting out! I’ve tried multiple times to hint to my fiancé I want out. He just tells me to move schools! Honestly my school is not the problem :(

Why are people so obsessed with porridge. I'm healthy, in my 70s and never eat porridge. There are plenty of other healthy alternatives.

As for the it's so much better in France well when we had French exchange students all they wanted was pain au Chocolat for breakfast and chips for dinner. No idea what school managed to get them to eat for lunch. The father of one girl phoned to ask how she was and I said I was worried about her not eating and he said don't worry she's the same at home.

School haven’t got time to be making toast and buttering bread, it’s a pre wrapped brioche roll or a pre wrapped soreen with a carton on milk, a piece of fruit on the side. Our school is in a deprived area si we have had breakfast provided for over 10years .Honestly teachers don’t have the time to be pouring milk and washing bowls

Your school is part of the problem. You have this opportunity to show these children that pre-wrapped food is a bad choice but porridge, milk, overnight oats, Greek yoghurt and berries and nuts are a good choice. At my preschool children practise their motor skills by pouring their milk and buttering and cutting wholemeal toast and washing up their crockery and cutlery. Primary school children should be able to do this.

It also gives us an opportunity to talk to 3 & 4 year olds about healthy choices - vitamins, protein, fibre and hygiene.

Agreed. But it’s like people who donate cr@p used threadbare clothes (including underwear) to homeless or refugees - oh anything is better than nothing! I’ve seen it time and again. All people deserve good healthy food and we should fund breakfast clubs properly to provide for it.

How many children, what's the ratio of adults to children?

You do that with 200 kids in 30 minutes?

Interesting. Our German students (at local sixth form college so for whole academic year) went for healthy choices pretty much every time. Honestly, if I offered something with chips or home made root veg soup and bread they went for soup each time. These were city kids, too. They were seriously into pudding, though 😁

I had to get out or I would've have made it to the summer. My mum cried when I handed in my notice. She said she was that worried she would get a knock at the door.

I completely agree with all you are saying. Schools can do nothing correct these days. Staff put their health and families on the line and get shat on from all angles. I hope you manage to get out soon. I would just hand your notice in and go for something like home tutoring companies to keep the wolf from the door until you find something permanent.

I love the idea of 15 and 16 year olds practicing their motor skills when the maths teacher really wants them to do a bit of GCSE preparation.

The school isn’t the problem. Honestly what a sanctimonious post that shows no understanding of the constraints of staffing, the pace of the curriculum the government set and the size of classes. Schools try their best. I love to do food preparation with my class but it’s increasingly impossible.

What do I do with 34 children while I run a bowl of washing up water and carry it to the hall?
What do 33 children do while one child washes up?
What do 34 children do while I mop the floor after said washing up?
What lesson should I not teach every day while this is happening?
Blame the government for funding levels and curriculum expectations, not the schools for having to adhere to it.

We could do with funding school dinners, education, SEND, assessments, teachers and TA wages, buildings, security, safeguarding alongside that too but no one cares. The minute teachers try and push for better funding people call them lazy, greedy etc. No one seems to care enough to want things funded.

We had a lovely experience with the German exchange as well, nothing like the French kids. I mean they were nice kids but I was worried about them basically refusing most food.

If anyone, a school or otherwise, is over catering by 190 portions a day, then they’ve got much bigger problems that whether a child will eat a bowl of porridge. Bar a zombie apocalypse, I can’t see any logical reason why numbers would vary by 190 day to day.

Surely anyone with a teeny bit of common sense would, after a few days, work out what the average numbers were and cater accordingly with a box of weetabix in case of extras. And what’s the difference between washing a bowl that’s had porridge in it or a plate that’s had toast on it? There’s a sink in every classroom I’ve ever been in, they can wash their own.

If we are only ever looking for reasons why we can’t do something, how we will ever teach our kids to use logical thinking skills and make positive improvements to their own lives and those around them?

You must eat this nutrient deficient food because it’s easier to serve, regardless of the negative impact it’s having on your body? This is what we’re teaching our kids? Madness!

Surely a UPF breakfast is better than kids from low income families having zero breakfast!

Which presumably explains why French women are thin 😁

We had a French exchange just for a few weeks one summer, Rafaelle, a lovely girl. Only child, late surprise. Her mum told her that she mustn’t eat bread because it would make her fat. (She was 14 or 15 then)

I’d rather kids had food in their bellies. When you’re very hungry, you just need to eat and don’t have the luxury of worrying about what it is.

Poverty isn’t a joke, it’s really hard. Kids need to be fed, end of.

I agree with you, it’s comes down to cost and greed from the companies contracted to provide the meals.

@CrispEatingExpert

Ah so this is something teachers should just do…
Buy sponges and washing up liquid.
Provide lots of dry clothes for children who splash water over themselves when washing up.
Collect and transport hot water from the staff room as Classroom doesn’t have a hot tap.
Dry 34 bowls as no draining board and transport during my break to the staffroom.

If you'd taught 5yos who come to school without breakfast (I've asked them) you'd not complain 🫠

Would you not serve it in the hall and use the dishwasher in the kitchen? Or serve in the classrooms and have the children take the plates to the kitchen to go through the dishwasher?

But why can’t it be healthy for ‘in their bellies’?

That's social services intervention for neglect. Enrol parents on partenting course. Cooking and budgeting to be included.

Make benefits voucher based so they can only be spent on nutritious food/ bills/ school uniform. Not on luxuries.

Don't tax payer fund sodding cornflakes & white bread for the feckless who neglect their child. If you can't be bothered to feed them, then I'm highly doubtful that other good quality parenting is going on.

Also if you are not bothered about feeding the child, you are unlikely to get them to school early enough to fit a meal in.

Of course that would be better, but honestly, have you ever gone without? I would rather have had food than not have food because it wasn’t ‘healthy’ enough. I hope that the food is decent quality and is healthy, but if some days some kids get something that isn’t great then I’d rather they get fed than worry about the quality.

If you haven’t been in the position then you really have no clue.

If you have the luxury of feeding your child a healthy breakfast at home then continue to do that.

@ThisDandyWriter

Possibly. I was responding to the poster who stated the children should wash up their own pots. That would have to be in the classroom as the staffroom sink is way too high and has boiling water.