Horrified by school dinners!

[WillieverlearnQ]

I went to my daughter’s school yesterday for dinner with the parents. All they had was two scoops of mash (my daughter did say that it is usually just one scoop) the thinnest slice of turkey I have ever seen and a tablespoon of carrots with a drizzle of watery gravy. With a tiny pot of ice cream. When I was at school it was nothing like this.

She has been asking for packed lunches for a long time but I’ve always refused. But today and going forward I will always make her a proper lunch.

It just make’s you question what on earth is going on? How can that be a sufficient for a child at school for 6 hours. Also why on earth are parents paying £3 for such a terrible meal.

That's fine but it can't be done with current budgets. I agree more money should be allowed but that money should come from tax. I worked in ILEA schools in the 80s and the meals were generally good. When I worked in Derbyshire they used in-house caterers and they weren't too bad but looked like the OP's photos although there was a salad bar and bread too. Where the school doesn't have a kitchen and the food is brought in it won't be as good.

French school dinners are excellent but it would be interesting to see the budget allowed and the cost to parents.

@Crapola25 most children in this country probably wouldn’t eat that. Only eat fish if fish fingers! When DS’s rural village Primary school tried to do something that wasn’t beige many children (and parents) would be up in arms. Most children used to just have the jacket potato option and complained if the only topping was tuna.
They always used to have fish on Friday, usually something resembling a fish finger, but every 3rd week they had some form of salmon fish cake. DS was one of the only children who liked them and so used to have a plateful of them!

Current budget is about 80-90p on food, rest of budget goes on staffing and maintenance of equipment or catering contracts. Schools don’t make profit on school dinners

Just thank your lucky stars you didn’t go for lunch on ‘fish Friday’

My daughter’s primary school was the same. Once the head dinner lady left it all went to pot. I had to start making her packed lunches

What's wrong with ice cream? 🤷

If you want a fine dining experience for your children, you’ll have to cook it yourself. Same with everything in life. There isn't the budget, the time or the staff able to cater for every individual child’s preferences and needs. That’s the job of a parent.

I really dislike this growing trend of outsourcing every aspect of parenting and expecting someone else somewhere to pick up the slack. No one else will ever care as much or put the same amount of effort and energy into it as you.

Absolutely this. I remember going on a French exchange trip for French A' level and was shocked at how much better in quality and quantity the food was. The French seemed to feed their teenagers highly nutritious, but filling food with plenty of bread, water and a good three courses if they wanted.

I hated coming home to our crappy paltry school meals lol 😆

My kids love "fishy Friday" at their primary school 😅

I can still taste the disgusting liver and onions we were served. Grey and bitter. We were massively told off for not eating our food so you ate it.

Mine in the 70’s were worse, the staff used to pour big jugs of hot water in the mince meat mixture and the custard to make it go further. My DM successfully campaigned for packed lunches to be allowed at my school. I still can’t eat mask, custard, rice pudding, or anything like Shepard’s pie.

So were we - only exceptions were allergies. I remember Simon Farrell being allowed not to eat the lumpy, watery mashed potato because of a dairy allergy... so he had chips instead. Jammy bastard! 😂*

*caveat: I thought that then because I couldn't have chips, today I think I would cry if I developed a dairy allergy because me and cheese are very good friends.

Salad and fruit are normally on offer every day and most children ignore them

It looks ok portion wise, but very unappetising. I'd eat it if I was hungry but I wouldnt want to eat it 5 days a week.

My eldest complained about school dinners, it turned out they weren't cooked in the school. They were cooked elsewhere, bought in and served. I swapped to packed lunches.

My son goes to 2 different places for school, 3days a week he has packed lunch, the other 2 days the "school dinner" is actually all freshly prepared and cooked by the chef, very good quality. Though my son will still choose the cold lunch option, hes a sucker for a cheese sandwich.

It's just basically fat and sugar with little to no nutritional value.

The problem IMO is that kids won't eat the fruit even if they had it because it's always so poor - ie apples are soft and mushy or pears are rock hard or if it's chopped fruit then it's kept so cold that it has no taste at all. Then the schools find the kids don't eat it so they stop bothering.

It's the same with vegetables, they're always completely overcooked or they're frozen vegetables that don't have any real taste/taste disgusting. The kids don't eat it so it gets wasted and the staff assume the kids don't like vegetables and meals get more and more processed.

Yes we should all turn up to school every lunch time with a nice fresh, hot, home cooked meal ready to serve to our little darlings. Or better still why outsource education to schools? Lets all home ed too!

School meals are so rubbish that I don't see an issue with a nice pudding. At least that is something to look forward to!

@WillieverlearnQ what do you give your dc for lunch at home?

Feel like Jamie Oliver has been banging on about this for a good while....

For me the issue is everyone is saying the meal isnt small and has enough calories and weve all lost sight of porrion sizes, is right that it will meet the calories requirements, but if I look at the nutritional menu for the caterers where i work, 1/3 of the calories for a meal come from the ice cream on ice cream day.

Yep some school meals are dire. But as long as packed lunch is an option, it’s beneficial
to have free school meals for those who need it.

My ten year old got back from a sleep over yesterday where lunch wasn’t served. She had coco pops for breakfast and then nothing at all until supper. House full of kids and no food - how odd is that.

My son went to someone’s house recently around 11.15am and when I collected him around 4pm I asked what he’d had for lunch? ‘Crisps and fizzy sweets’ 😱

So maybe some kids are grateful for the pitiful school meal as at least they are fed?

Refusing to make your child a packed lunch when they’ve specifically requested it over school dinners is absolutely ridiculous OP. Peak laziness.

The £3 has to cover all of the overheads too - staff, premises, taxes, electricity, etc. Not just ingredients - that unfortunately probably has to be the cheapest part.

It's much the same cost as in the UK but far better value for money.

When I was at university in France in the 1990s, you'd get a little starter - small salad or similar, a main course, dessert (small slice of cake, a tart or yogurt) and a piece of cheese for about £1.30 a meal. About what it cost for just a main course dish in my university canteen at home.

If children are hungry it will often be because they dont eat the whole meal this can be because ...
*They prioritise going out to play
*They arent keen on being in the dining hall - some kids find it overwhelming
*It is food they are unfamiliar with and they dont want to try something new
*Lunch is quite early they havent long had a snack and they aren't that hungry at that moment
*They arent that keen on or dislike the options available.
If they ate it all they probably wouldnt be that hungry by 3:30, but for lots of reasons it doesnt always get eaten.

I thought the meals pictured looked pretty standard, not great but i wouldn't describe them as grim etc. I quite liked the look of the breakfast one, but i dont have sophisticated tastes. It is low budget mass catering.
If we want more choice/quantity/quality for kids on fsm it needs more funding. I am happy to support funding that, but there aren't no cost solutions.