Are “home lunches” still a thing at your children’s school?

[Gladla]

When my DDs (now late 20s/early 30s) were in primary school they used to have 3 options for lunch, school lunch, packed lunch and home lunch. For home lunch the parent would collect them at the start of lunch take them home, feed them and bring them back at the end of lunch. By the time they were primary 6/7 lots of the kids would use the home lunch option to go to the cafe in the village on Fridays.
We didn’t use them often but my parents would take my girls for a home lunch about once a week. They were also a very popular option on the day of the Christmas party where lots of the kids would go home to get changed or in primary 5 when they went swimming most of the girls would go home at lunch to dry their hair.
I was chatting to my DD today who has a 5 year old and I asked if her school had home lunches as I thought it would be nice for me to take my DGD out. She said nope that’s not an option!
I was a little shocked. I understand that there are significantly less parents who are around in the middle of the day and safeguarding has gone up, but it seems fairly innocent if someone if collecting the child from and returning them to the office.

AIBU to be sad this option doesn’t seem to exist?
Did anyone else’s schools have home lunches or still have them?

In the 70s at my primary it was cooked school dinners or home for lunch. My school was in the town centre and only a couple of families lived near enough to go home. Then they introduced packed lunches (the only people who stayed on school dinners in my class were those on free school meals); I don't know whether home lunch ceased as an option at the same time.

I'm trying to remember what the rules were at secondary - I know I did sometimes go home when I was further up the school, but I don't think I had to sign out or notify anyone! But in those days the site was open, with several entrances, so they would not have known who was on the premises anyway.

Was there any need to be so aggressive? 46% of children in the UK have two working parents, and many of those children will have a grandparent involved who might want them for lunch sometimes. Not everyone lives your life.

Gosh I'd forgotten this had ever been a thing!

I used to go home for lunch at least once a week all through Primary...I'm 39. And in secondary in Y10 or 11 we could go where we liked at lunch.

Dc are between 17 and 8 and it's never been an option (two different Primaries). The big ones in Comp also have to stay on school grounds at lunch time.

I did this, I used to walk home by myself. I loved it!

Also year 11 used to be allowed offsite at lunch.

No one does it now.

I never had lunch at school except for a packed lunch in secondary when we had a lunchtime club. Always walked home on my own or with a friend from P4 up to the end of secondary. This was in the 70s .

I went home for lunch in the 90s. I used to hate school and I loved coming home for lunch and then playing outside or at home before going back to school. It made school feel more manageable for me.

DD's school still have home lunch as an option as a special circumstances agreement. There are a 3 older children who have home lunch at DDs school - 1 has SEN (I know the mum) and struggles with school and comes home to regulate in their in their lunch hour.

I know for a fact that if my DD was aware that home lunch is an option she would want it. She likes school and enjoys it but any opportunity to come home early and she takes it - she wasn't even bothered she was missing the Christmas party last term because I had booked to see Santa as it was less than half price on a term time afternoon (DD is 4 so not compulsory school age). Last year when she was in nursery she did 3 half days and 2 full days and she really liked coming home at lunchtime. Even when all her friends were staying all day every day she would always ask to do her half days and never wanted to stop.

Aww I was so envious in the 70/80s of my friends who could go home for lunch. Memories!

I still do it. Every day. Collect my eldest from school, have lunch, then come back. It’s hard work.

i grew up in a country where there weren’t school dinners. Everyone brought in a packed lunch or did, and this is bit that feels so weird, now, anything they liked. Including at primary. Multiple exits to the school grounds, and everyone was free to come and go.

i would sometimes go home at lunchtime knowing there would be no-one home (single mum that worked) - letting myself in with the key that was round my neck on a string.

1970s rather than Dickensian!

It was normal in my 1970s infants to go home for lunch. Certainly staying became more popular after what would be the equivalent on yr2 but some went home up until late primary age. The lollipop lady worked lunchtimes as well as before and after school. I remember going home in the summer months and eating boiled eggs and soldiers for lunch in the garden at an outside table before going back for the afternoon. 😂

I used to love going home for lunch in Infants School, I used to walk home on my own which seems crazy now.
We moved when I started Juniors and it was a bit too far to walk so we stopped going home.
I remember people being allowed home for Lunch in Secondary. I was a bus ride away so it wasn’t an option but sometimes I’d go to a friends who lived nearby.

I know quite a few who do it, it's not an issue here. East of Scotland

I figured you were based in Scotland. My dh is 46 and he went to school through in Edinburgh and this was an option. They lived a short walk from school and mil used to watch them walk over. She'd feed them lunch and then send them back.I believe it is an option at our school but we have never used it as ours would moan about going back. Plus only really an option when one of us has the car as we live a 30 minute walk from school.

DS is 19 now but I insisted on doing this for a while during primary. School weren't too impressed but it was wonderful for him. He was later diagnosed with ASD.

We had home lunches but school lunchtime was an hour and a half 🙂 it was lovely but it's a long long time ago.

I can’t remember the dates exactly, but my DC had to “go home for dinner” because the NUT teachers’ strike meant teachers in that union left the school site at lunchtime and there was no cover. It was before the days of lunch time supervisors.

In the 1950s we took ourselves to and from school. There was no choice of school meal and no packed lunches.

We did this some days when I was a child (90-00s), although not in England. We had 1h30 for lunch though, and there was no handover for primary children (just a "lunch pass" that allowed you to leave the school).

House was about 15 min drive each way, 45-60 min for lunch.
I can't see this working in the short lunch period kids have in England.

I was jealous of the kids who lived close enough to go home for lunch back in the 80s/90s. My eldest would have loved that to be an option at primary school, but my youngest would rather play with his friends than eat his packed lunch most days.

This was a thing in my town and in 80s/90s, I did all three, packed lunch, home lunch and school dinner.

It was a thing in the 00s in some middle schools here too.
We were the last county to have middle schools (3 tier system) until they were changed into primary and secondary (2 tier system).

Home lunch was great for watching TV, buying sweets at corner shop, getting forgotten pe kit or instrument from home.

It was just nice to reconnect mid day, especially if you found school stressful.

I was at primary school in the late 80s and early 90s and this was a thing at my school.

My grandparents used to pick me and DSis up every Wednesday lunchtime, take us to the fish and chips shop around the corner and then back to our house to eat them 🥰

We used to get 1 hour 20 mins for lunch (compared to an hour for my DC 🙁) so perhaps that makes a difference.

I was at primary school in the 1960's and I think quite a lot of kids went home for lunch then. I always did and no-one ever collected me or took me back, we walked by ourselves. It was a different world then with so much less traffic on the roads and a lot more mums were SAHM and therefore at home in the middle of the day. When I went to secondary school I had to stay for lunch as it was much further away.

Was definitely a thing when I was at school on the late 90s. In year 7/8/9 if you had permission could go home for lunch. I only did it once when I went to a friend's.

That said in year 10/11 you were free to leave for lunch. Most of us nipped into town (5 mins walk from school)

Still an option here in West of Scotland.

Funnily enough I was just thinking about this yesterday! I used to go home for lunch in infant school in the mid 1980s. It seems bizarre to me when I think about it. It must have taken some time to get home and then back to school again (the school fields backed onto our house but majority of the time it was too wet to walk across the field, so we’d go by car on the road around from the front of the school instead).

My brother and I stopped going home because I would get back to school and see all my friends having such fun playing, and I was annoyed to miss out, so I wanted to stay. And my mother commented that once I did stay at school, my picky eating habits and time-wasting at meal times stopped. So there’s a lot to be said for the socialisation that comes with staying in school for lunch.

Oh I remember those! I used to go home for lunch sometimes. I had a key as parents were at work. But we had an hour for vl lunch back then.