to be fuming at the Little Book of Goodness my son brought home from school today?

[morethan2point4]

So, have you had one yet? If you have a child in reception this year you soon will, as they are being distributed to over 750,000 parents. They are apparently being published to offer 'key nutritional advice for their children who are starting school for the first time',but they're just school lunch propoganda!! According to their website..'The Little Book was developed in response to a recent piece of research commissioned by the Trust which discovered that parents had a number of concerns when deciding the school meal options for their child.' but this booklet doesn't offer impartial advice about how to choose between healthy school dinners and healthy packed lunches, it just implies school dinners are better than packed lunches. A wasted opportunity to offer advice on how to make packed lunches healthier, instead choosing to quote outrageous statistical 'evidence' that school lunches are best. For example,'72% of children taking school lunch select vegetables, versus only 6% who take a packed lunch'. Check this stat on their website though, and the next line in the survey concluded the packed children were more likely to have fruit, thats not in the booklet however! Also, 'select' is not the same as 'eat' is it? At least with packed lunches I know what my child has left each day (it comes home!)Ever tried to choose school dinners when your child has a dairy allergy? Or pay for four children to eat them? Shall I go on??? Who do I complain to about this, will parents assume that this booklet is factual, accurate and true coming form school, aren't they??

There must be at least 12kcals in a bowl of soup. I think most children need something a little bit more substantial.

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FFS

i got one this week - didnt realise everyone got them! i thought it was the council advertising school dinners to be honest!
felt like sayign my daughters packed lunch doesnt look like that and when she comes home she has veg and fruit here - its not all turkey twizzlers!!

Can't see the problem with LAs promoting school dinners, assuming that they're OK ones, tbh. I imagine economies of scale mean that the more dc take them the better.
I can understand feeling riled at the suggestion that packed lunches are less healthy if you know that the ones you provide are top notch (and even if they're not you feed your dc well at home so no great shakes). But there are enough dc being sent to school with a box full of rubbish to make it worthwhile pushing school lunches.
In essence it's in the interests of a) LAs (economies of scale) and b) The dc being sent with rubbish to promote school dinnners imo. If you're not interested, ignore. YABU to be "fuming". They're promoting school dinners not crack cocaine.
As an aside, and from personal experience, if a dc knows you're checking that their carrot sticks or whatever have gone from their lunch box, and they don't want to eat them, they'll bin them.

Many thanks to you all for this feedback on ?The Little Book of Goodness? (LBG). My name is Michelle Edmundson and I work for the School Food Trust who created and distributed the booklet. I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss some of the points raised.

Our aim at the School Food Trust is to provide parents with sources of information and accurate advice on school food. We wanted to showcase the healthy reality of modern school food and highlight to parents how much school meals have changed. We are obviously sorry to learn that some of you are not entirely satisfied, though we tried to make the booklet as representative of the issue as possible.

The book was created based on research with parents from all over the country. The research identified that parents wanted further support and help to make an informed decision on their school meal options. Overall, the booklet has had an overwhelmingly positive response (we have had to print a further 100,000 copies).

We apologise if the booklet offended anyone, this was not our intent and LBG in no way wants parents to feel we are telling them what to do. We look forward to getting more feedback and refining our future offerings - if you haven?t seen the final product I urge you to check it out here : bit.ly/XGZQT

If you are unsure what your school offers, ask your school if you can try the school food on offer and see what improvements have been made first hand

Thanks for your interest and I promise we take all the points raised seriously.

Michelle Edmundson
School Food Trust
Marketing Project Manager

Michelleed, I have studied the school menus over a period of 8 years (the period my children have been at school) and though improvements have been made, they are still nowhere near the nutritional standards that I would like my children to have.

I also compare them to the (free) school lunches that my nephews are receiving in Sweden, and I am aghast at the difference in nutritional and culinary standards.

Until English schools manage to ditch the junk food and cut out the iced cakes, my children will be taking packed lunches.

It's not hjust english Cory; I ahve no isues with teh occasional iced cake tbh (just handed out some I made earlier LOL) as myy boys need to gain weight, but I do find the hotdog and chipd meal sadly alcking, and chips just occurs too often still.

however seriosuly doubt this book will appear here,and perhaps reosurces could focus on ensuring all kids get the option- my nephews live in a town where there are no school meals. Which, surely, is worst of all?

Glad it's not just me I was hacked off too. At my dc's school the fruit and veg is there but they don't have to choose it,so it doesn't even end up on their plate. Personally I think the fruit/veg should go on every plate as even picking at it would be better than none at all. Also peer pressure would help I'm sure to make some kids eat it when they otherwise wouldn't.

I complained as my dc were getting "I ate a healthy dinner" stickers when they weren't they never choose the fruit/veg but clear their plate apparantly that is a healthy dinner-errr not in my book. Last weeks was fish&chips followed by flapjack and milk the weeks before f&c followed by choc drop biscuit and milk. How on earth is that healthy-there is more fat in that one meal than my dc would ever have in 2 days worth of food. I've nothing against fish and chips but I do have a prob with f&c,biscuits and milk in 1 meal. Why couldn't they have had fruit juice?

We live in Devon and they keep banging on about this award that award,Fresh Start menu and it's all cobblers. They have a stodgy pudding every day and my pet hate yog with artificial sweetener,hmmm wonder which most 5 year old would choose.

It's all propaganda and nobody is actually sitting down to produce a clever menu that actually gets fruit/veg into kids and is low in fat. Then they slate ALL packed lunches. My packed lunches are way healthier even though I put in a treat every day which I'm not supposed to be doing. I use w/m bread,2 portions of fruit/veg/decent yog with no hideous artificial sweetener and they eat it all.

For that reason I only ever buy school dinners when I really have to as I think they're a major rip off £1.95 and not at all what they claim to be.

Sorry Michelle, informed decision?? Then why are you not presenting the true facts from the research that supports this book...Just over 700 children wee studied, is that considered representative? From the fact that packed lunch children had more fruit than school dinners children, to the suggestion that children performed better after a nutritional school dinner, when that wasnt necessarily the case, to the fact that you didn't study the effect on childrens behaviour of a healthy packed lunch, to the fact you don't say what a healthy or non healthy packed lunch actually is, to the fact that Prue suggests in her introduction the right decision is a school dinner, when actually its a nutrional, healthy lunch, whether thats school dinner or packed lunch. I still say this was a wasted opportunity to share advice on healthy lunches, and s you neveer actually say what you consider to be a non healthy packed lunch, how can those that do send their children in with these be expected to know they're the ones the booklet is aimed at? This isnt information , its propaganda, its not balanced and its not even a true representation of the study that supports it.

I read it in the playground. Had a rant with a friend then chucked it as soon as we got home.
now if they could have taken the money spent off the price of dinners it would have been good