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?

Shes not full of Jam, she’s full of bread.

OP what is important seems to be -
That your child has a healthy diet OVERALL.
That as a family you can access the childcare you need.
That your child has access to a snack in wraparound care.

Seems like all Ok from that point of view.

I get that a jam sandwich may not seem as ideal as a houmous or organic chicken wholemeal wrap. But it doesn't really matter as you seem very clued up about food and nutrition and do better at home. And school lunches are OK.

I would dispute that jam and / or additives are giving children ADHD. I don't think so, I think living in a world so unsuited to humans ( think screens, constant pressure, pollution and highly processed food as part of this ) is more likely.

Also eating disorders have risen monumentally and are lighting the lives of children. Best not to tell children about 'good' and 'bad' foods and start giving them any uncomfortable feelings about eating carbohydrates or any food group come to that in primary school.

Don't worry about it is what I would say .

She is 4, and it is an after school snack. Everything in moderation etc. Glad I am old and brought my kids up in an era with less anxiety around food. We are all healthy and none of us have fillings.

And you can't 'close a thread' just because you don't like the answers not going your way.

Definitely has but my dads diabetic and lives with us and he's Definitely too lazy to pick the right jam if there was multiples

I can't imagine ever feeding my own 4 years old a jam sandwich 4 times a week.
But there's a difference between choice at home and a standard care provider.
And how big is this sandwich?
It's up to you how you solve this issue but, whatever you do in this life, please put aside this notion of talking to a 4 year old about balanced and healthy eating.
You eat healthy at home and when out and about, you feed healthy food to your family, you engage your children in food preparation. You lead by example and that's how they learn. It's not even healthy eating, it's normal eating. Not rocket science, you don't need specialist nutrition professionals. You just eat normal food. Kids will copy the behaviour.
Normal should be normal and within healthy parameters. There's too much fuss about pointing the obvious and calling it healthy this and that. There shouldn't even be such a big discussion and trend about healthy eating.
It's part of normal life, not an art, it doesn't need overthinking.

There are a lot of comments on this thread about if you eat healthy at home it will balance out.
My children eat breakfast at school, school dinners, and then tea at after school club. They only eat at home at the weekends and in school holidays, apart from some supper when they get back from school. I really wouldn't be very happy with a daily jam sandwich.

What annoys me about this is that the school expect busy working parents to spend time and money preparing expensive healthy lunches but can’t be bothered with the time and expense of providing these for kids after school.

Lol yeah, how dare a school expect a parent to, y'know, parent. Shocking. You should complain to your MP about it

The cheese has calcium and the ham has iron.

Exactly. All she can do is choose not to come back to it - or go to MNHQ and get it deleted because she doesn't like the responses. 🙄

Yes I mean I wouldn't get het up about it but maybe report to the school that it doesn't confirm to their healthy eating policy.

Diabetic jam has been mentioned as a sugar-free alternative, but will contain artificial sweeteners, which have their own health implications. Unless you’re buying for someone who is actually diabetic, I would go for naturally sugar-free jams, such as St. Dalfour, which does a wide range of really lovely jams and a marmalade (called orange fruit spread!) sweetened only with apple juice.

It’s a jam sandwich not heroin

It’s really rude to speak about someone like this and the eye roll is just pure mean girl.

She can elicit not to come back to it, which is obviously what she meant.

Hi OP,I haven’t read all the responses, but have you checked the School Food Standards guidance? it’s available online. I think you are right to continue to challenge them on this. Perhaps if your child only attended after school care once a week it wouldn’t be such an issue, but filling up with jam sandwiches four days out of seven is not good.

I agree it would be lovely if parents had time to parent but the sad reality is a lot of them don’t because of the jobs they happen to do.

They should not have to make up for the school’s convenience and as another poster has said, it would be nice if they could offer sweet treats to their kids without knowing that the school has already fed them their sweet treats for the day.

The biggest problem here though is that the school does not allow parents the convenience of cheap easy lunches but expect parents to be ok with the school enjoying that convenience instead!

If they were to offer different food, it would likely be more expensive. They probably can only afford to offer the basic stuff such as jam sandwiches.

Can't you just pack her a snack?

There is a difference though between a state funded school day with all the rules and regulations that involves, and an optional after school club.

At the end of the day, no parent is forced to use the after school club.

I used an after school nanny for a while and it must have worked out 2 or 3 times the ASC charge.

I want some jam now.

One of the best flounces I’ve seen in a while. Why bother asking a forum, of mainly, British plebs then? How’s closing the thread going for you OP? I dread to think what the school has to deal with from you.

In my school a sandwich is 1/3 of a whole sandwich. A sandwich finger. Cake and biscuits are made on site, low sugar and not very nice. A lot of the kids actively refuse them, even when there's nothing else available. They are frequently abandoned after a small bite (I'm in the dinner hall).

The sugar would therefore be in around 1/3 of a teaspoon of jam and fruit sugars in the cake and fruit. While I'm sure the bread isn't great, over all I'd have no issue with this. Find out what is actually being given. I strongly doubt it's a large sandwich oozing jam and a slice of delicious cake.

The ones I checked had xylitol or sorbitol in them.

The truth about sweeteners - NHS

I wouldn’t worry about a jam sandwich, it’ll be a very thin layer of jam as well, so not really going to amount to much over a week. And as for the cake @JBeanGarden have you ever tried the cake on school dinners these days? They’re low fat and low sugar, and taste nothing like cake.

I want a jam sandwich now.

But there are important jobs in the country that need to be done to keep the country moving. The people that do those jobs need help with wrap around care and it’s annoying they are told they must spend more time and money on preparing healthy options for their kids rather than convenient options, when the school choose that convenience for themselves.

If you’re this spiteful at school, ditto.

I work two days a week. The after school provision at my sons school is not well used and only goes on until 4 so that’s all I can manage.

I have no money and my pension is affected.

Parents shouldn’t be in a position where they wish to use childcare (of any description, nursery, childminder, wraparound) but feel they can’t as the quality of care is poor.

It should be a given.