Jam sandwiches at wraparound care

[JBeanGarden]

My reception age DD goes to a really well arranged breakfast club and after school club 4 days a week. It works very well with 2 commuting parents. I only have one gripe and that is with the food they offer. Technically the food should align with the school’s healthy eating policy, as it’s run by the school not an external provider. The school has asked parents not to provide sweet treats in lunch boxes and it’s quite strict about sandwiches.

HOWEVER the school is not transparent about the wraparound food offer and I had to email three times to get them to tell me what they provide. Once they did, they disclosed that the after school options include a range of sandwiches, including jam, plus a pudding of cake and fruit. Of course, my four-year-old always goes for a jam sandwich and ends up with a very sweet tea 4 days a week. The school says they offer carrot sticks etc, however, not one single parent has ever mentioned this in conversation and so I just think it’s something they say but don’t provide.

We do talk at home about the importance of a balanced diet, but she’s still only four and temptation is there! She’s offered something a bit more nutritionally balanced she gets home, but she’s usually just full of jam sandwich!

I emailed the school to ask them if they are able to comment on this or if they ever review the food that they provide at wraparound care, but I haven’t received a reply. AIBU to push this further?

How much are they giving them? I don't consider the food mine gets at after school club a tea, it's just a snack.

You’re right OP, the food there sounds unhealthy and terrible. However, that’s what breakfast/after school clubs are known for, I’m not sure what you expected. Best way to ensure her diet is more healthy is to not delegate meals to schools. I would have another look at your priorities, change my working hours or do whatever it takes so that you can have family meals instead. Apart from the diet aspect, it doesn’t sound very nice for a 4 year old to spend such long days in school.

I mean, isn't bread and jam exactly what a gouter consists of? The classic afternoon snack for French school children (for all those determined to use this as a springboard for 'awful uk food culture' discussion).

First child??!

Yet bread is an absolute staple of children's diets in the uk and the amount of jam they will be given is absolutely negligible.

I think it’s a reasonable question if that’s the case! They can’t have one rule for them and another for parents.

This is a ridiculous comment and it’s opinions like this why children in the UK struggle with their weight.

🙄

I could see the issue if it was all that was available for there are other things (even though cheap ham is worse IMO) but there are - OP’s child just chooses ham

Yes, and this is why UK children have such high rates of obesity.

I would understand your argument if this were France and such issues weren’t so prominent, but this is the UK and the fact is that obesity rates in children are sky high here. Therefore, you argument that this is fine because so much children have bread with jam is completely invalid as it just proves my point.

Such a great argument!

🤦‍♀️

Honestly, if I were trying to fix uk obesity rates, jam sandwiches would be very far down my list of priorities.

I'd be much more concerned about high levels of fried food, takeaways, ready meals as standard, high calorie dessert options, processed meat options, I could go on and on.

This crap pisses me off. Im not a complete sugar avoider but jam is incredibly sugary, its completely unreasonable to offer it as a sandwich filling to children, especially with the sort of low quality white bread these settimgs usually offer. Sandwich fillings should be savoury. Vegans can have marmite, peanut butter or hummous, all of which are much healthier than jam and just as quick and easy to prepare. Its against allergy uk guidance for settings to be "nut free" as it creates a false sense of security, so i hope places aren't doing that.

Imho one of the biggest barriers to both parents working full time is the difficulty in finding childcare settings for school aged children that offer proper healthy meals. When you are working til 5.30 & collecting at 6pm your child needs to be fed a full healthy cooked meal, especially when theyre having cheap cereal or other carby processed food at breakfast club and a poor quality school lunch. Employers never understand this, that we are going to need to dash home bang on time because we need to cook a healthy dinner for our children, because no one else will feed them one, unless you spend your whole wage and then some on a nanny.

Definitely,

Cant have peanut butter! Allergies

So now you're blaming nursery for overweight children?

Try taking responsibility for your own children.

Read my post
Settings should not be going "nut-free" due to allergies.

Allergy uk is very clear on their guidance on this, its actually not recommended.

Every single school and childcare provider I know is nut free.

My son's primary school is nut free. Seems to be the norm in my experience.

Everyone is responsible, especially childcare settings in which children spend up to 8 hours a day and have at least 2 meals at daily.

You are simply being ignorant if you think that just personal responsibility can solve the obesity epidemic. Read up on food deserts, food swamps and gene eating if you’d actually want to educate yourself on the topic.

Giving a child toast and hummus for eg is no more expensive than jam.

I'd need a lot of convincing about that.

Cheapest jam I can see on the ASDA website is 89p for a 454g @jar. Hummus is £1.27 for a 200g tub. Unless you put a homeopathically small smear of hummus on toast, how can it go further than a jar and a half of jam?

I wouldn't risk using nut type products in afternoon clubs no matter what allergy UK say. Can I sue them if one club resulted in a death?

What a classic case of whatabouttism

Also, in my child's class no one is allowed hummus in their lunch as they've got a child with sesame allergies.