Children cooking school lunches

[BeDenimZebra]

My children have been complaining about finding hair in their school lunches for a couple of months now, I thought they were exaggerating as I know they prefer packed lunches as it allows more playtime but I like them to have a hot nutritious meal as often as possible.

A friends child was here playing today and mentioned the hair too and said it was because the nurture children won't wear hats when making the lunches.

On further exploration it turns out that some children who require extra support are helping to cook the lunches that we pay for every day and looking at the photos on the school website they do not appear to be wearing ppe like the adult kitchen staff do.

I am uncomfortable with young primary children preparing food that is in effect being sold commercially. I don't know how long this has been happening for but the write up on the website suggest it is a regular thing. I feel it is inappropriate that regular food hygiene practices seem to be ignored for the children helping in the pictures which seems to back up my childrens complaints about hair in food.

The school are notorious for being unwilling to discuss concerns of parents and I don't really want to get into a conflict with them if I am being over sensitive about this but when I'm spending £50 a week (between 3 children for lunch and morning snack) I feel they should be hygienically prepared. I know I could just relent and do packed lunches but I would rather they had a decent hot meal. Also I suspect that many other parents are also not aware of this scheme.

Parent governors are not there for other parents to use as a portal for complaints. This is, in the first instance, an operational issue and a matter for the headteacher. It may become an issue reported by the headteacher to governors if there are actual health and safety or food hygiene issues, or it might come to a panel of the school governors as a later stage of a complaints process, but given you haven’t even spoken to any school staff yet then talk of governors is premature. Do the headteacher the basic courtesy of allowing them the opportunity to address your concerns before you try and go over their heads.

Are you in the UK OP?

That’s even worse. My child needed extra support in order to access the curriculum, which was his right. He did not need extra support in order to provide a service to the normals.

A formal complaint should be sent to both the headteacher and the governing body in the same communication. Then discussed at meetings.

write a letter to the headteacher that the nurture kids don’t wear ppe & your kids are finding hair in their food & if he doesn’t do something to fix that you will be contacting the media.

Most parent concerns can be resolved informally without immediately escalating to a formal complaint.
If the OP does want to make a formal complaint they should check their school's own complaints policy, as it certainly isn't straight to the governing body at all schools.

It is unusual to have pupils in the school kitchen making meals for the rest of the school. If this is something that happens, the p[roper hygiene regs should be followed. But it is odd.

Mostly when children cook in school they make things to take home.

I am in the UK.

I have been into school and asked this morning about the kitchen nuture programme. The school have said everyday different children who need emotional support spend an hour or so in the main kitchen supporting making the school lunches with the cook. They assist with all aspects of cooking and benefit from the one to one time and from learning life skills. I asked about the hygiene aspect and was told that they have a food hygiene rating of 4 so it must be ok! I told them about hair in the food and they just sort of shrugged and said they would pass my comments in. I think packed lunches are the way forward for my family.

I would report to environmental health. Hair in food isn’t okay and they’re dismissing your complaint. The 4 star rating is likely from an inspection when there weren’t children in the kitchen. There’s lots of other things in school for children with emotional needs to do.

I would bring it up with the school - I don’t care if they like to engage or not. Tell them it’s something you will report (to whom - board of governors? Ofsted? Whoever does those star rating things?) unless they step up and have the ‘nurture’ children meeting the same hygiene requirements as anyone else preparing food.

No I'd not be happy. I don't think they should be using vulnerable children as unpaid workers it's the cooks job what shes paid for not the childrens and they shouldn't be serving school lunches that hasn't been made to proper hygiene standards.

Yanbu a d I would be going straight to environmental health if that is happening.

There will be children in every year group with life threatening allergies

I think you are right, I am composing an email to school highlighting my concerns and I will copy in environmental health.

If true, I'd imagine the local authority would be extremely interested to know about this! Kids shouldn't even be in the kitchens, never mind those kids with additional needs!

I'm almost always on schools side as a teacher myself, but this is in no way acceptable.

If it’s such a valuable learning experience why aren’t all children in the school expected to do it? It a way of keeping vulnerable children out of the teachers hair so they can do learning with the “normals”. It sends a clear message that the “nurture kids” are less worthy than the children they’re preparing lunch for. If it were my child I’d hit the roof - they’re entitled to an education equal to that of their peers. The school are behaving in a discriminatory way towards kids with additional needs - whether they were wearing a bloody hat would be the least of my concerns.

I think some of these responses are going too hard and too fast.

Right now you know that your kids have complained about hair in their food and that there are a group of student who for some amount of time do work in the kitchens as part of a specific program.

You do not know why this activity was selected for those kids, it may very well be that it is a well thought out intervention that gives them a practical hands on activity that they enjoy, it may be that it’s cheap labours it may be that it’s once a month for an hour, it may be every day for 3 hours. We and you have no knowledge. There may also be a staff member in the kitchen suffering from hair loss who is the reason for the source of your concerns.

A conversation with the school would provide some much needed additional context and may be enough to assuage your concerns, if it doesn’t then you can escalate.

Blurghhhh rank. I don't even let my kids buy child-made cakes from the bake sale. Kids are gross when they cook! Fingers in their mouths / noses etc...
licking spoons... probably even harder to control hygiene levels with very young children or those with special educational needs.
Just the fact that your kids have found hairs in their food is enough to say no thanks to this food! BLURGHHHH

My mum was a school kitchen supervisor and there is not a snowball's chance in hell she would have allowed this!
Maybe things have changed as it's 15 years since she retired but they were required to work to very high hygiene standards, with e.g. samples of the meals having to be stored in case there was a food poisoning outbreak that had to be traced - the idea of them letting anyone in to work in the kitchen who wasn't trained in food hygiene would have been a complete no no.

Aside from the hygiene aspect why the fuck are children who require additional support being used as slave labour?!

My issue would be the fact that it's only the children with additional needs who are providing lunch for the children without additional needs. If it's such a valuable learning experience then why isn't it good enough for all of the children to take part in?