to want free and compulsory school meals?

[LissyGlitter]

I really think that they should make school dinners compulsory. Two choices, both healthy and balanced, preferably seasonal, even better if it can be local or grown/raised/cooked by the kids themselves. One of the options could be vegetarian/vegan, but any other dietary requirements would have to be proven by a doctors note or religious requirements. The kids would kick off at first, but they would soon have to learn to eat what they are given. It would stop parents sending a packet of biscuits for lunch (my sister is a teacher and sees all sorts of ridiculous packed lunches sent by parents who obviously don't care) and would teach kids to try new foods. They would most probably end up healthier as well.

Love the idea of free! And wouldn't mind if they were compulsory - DS has them anyway so it would not be a problem for me and I can see the benefit. Do agree that children with special diets need to be catered for though. DD's pre-school caters for any diet requested so don't see why a school couldn't.

YANBU, if it means I can stop making bloody packed lunches every evening!! I LOATHE it with a passion!

Funnily enough, I don't mind making the exact same things if it is actually lunch time. Not quite sure what pains me so much about it!

However, yabu to say it should be compulsory and allergies should also be catered for without fuss.

YABU

I hate the idea of someone telling me what my childrenshould eat. I would carry on giving my DCs a packed lunch even if school meals were free!

Packed lunch does NOT equal parent who do not care! I am so tired of hearing that!

Some parents might make the "wrong" food choices sometimes, it does mot mean that parents who give lunch boxes are all dumbos! Would you apreciate it if I was saying your DCs are having school meals because you cannot be bothered to feed them yourself?!?!?!?

I didn't say that all kids eating packed lunch have parents who don't care, just that some do, and if the option to send a five year old to the cupboard to pick out his own lunch (so obviously they will pick wildly impractical things) is removed, then hopefully those children will get at least one decent meal that day.

Free is fine, compulsory not on.

I like sending a packed lunch, I always had one and it is something I enjoy doing for DS. There are rules about what can go into a packed lunch at DS's school, which sorts out the problem of junk food being passed off as food.

I don't understand the obsession with "hot" meals here, does lunch have to be hot?

So would you put yourself foreward to be the food police and decide whiche parents pack a decent enough lunch then?

I am very selfish when it comes to my dcs, I feed them to the best of my knowledge of nutrition and financial capacity but I could not care less about what little Tom or Luke have for lunch!

Morloth I do agree with you WRT hot meals. Although, In the winter (on My DCsd demand) I often send them with a thermos of soup/pasta/chilli con carne... so packed lunch can also be hot if you wish so as well.

"The kids would kick off at first, but they would soon have to learn to eat what they are given."

ROFL at this. Oh if only if was that simple...

YABU.

I wouldn't expend too much energy on this though, it's never going to happen.

My DCs school was recently rebuilt, without a kitchen.

Someone (not me) asked at a meeting whether this was perhaps a mistake as the law was changing and hot school meals were now going to have to be offered by law. She was looked at as if she had just farted.

The hot meals that are offered are brought in airline-style, I gather.

Sadly, I feel the OP's dream of "even better if it can be local or grown/raised/cooked by the kids themselves. " comes from cloud cuckoo land.

As far as I'm aware this is what they do in Finland, and Finland has not only a brilliant record on Primary Education but also a low rate (for a western country) of childhood obesity.

Bar the free bit, DD's prep school does have the system you suggest.

School meals are compulsary and they are included in the school fees.

There are three meal options:

• hot main meal
• hot veggie main meal (usually a veggie version of the above)
• jacket potato and salad

There are then two dessert options:

• the main option - what I would call a proper traditional school dinner type pudding
• fruit

There is a three week menu plan. All is cooked freshly that morning on site. The meals are balanced and nutricious, offering a suitable diet aimed at children. I have eaten at the school a number of times in the past couple of eyars and the meals are good.

Pupils make the decision in the morning as to whether they are having the main meal or a jacket potato. Veggie option is available to anyone who is preregistered with school as veggie. Special diets are only prepared after consultation with school, such as for medical reasons.

No parents complain. Children really do get used t the idea. As DD told me - who wasn;t keen on the school curry - if I don't eat it I am hungry, so I eat it; and after having it for the first few times she now enjoys it. They introduced the jacket/salad option this year to enable a bit more choice after pupils suggested it at the school council. It was trialled and now in place. There hasn't been massive take up and most children still have the main meal most days, but it is there as an option.

The JO thing was never going to succeed IMO. It was too much too soon, and they expected it to work too fast. These things take years to work, not weeks and months. The Government and the media, and the public, did not give it a chance.

I think the policies and campaigns need to come into primary first and given chance to filter in and work, and then move up to secondary.

But compulsary school dinners can and does work in many places.

But it needs the support of parents to do so.

By throckenholt Mon 02-Nov-09 11:43:35
I wouldn't like this. We eat as a family in the evening - we wouldn't be able to do this if they had had the main meal of the day at school.

Why not? DD still eats with me and DH for a family meal most nights. Only nights we eat seperately is when DD is out at a club such as Brownies and Drama, two nights a week, and this is because it is too early before she goes and too late for her when she is back.

Hulababy that's exactly how it is at my kids school and it's a state primary. Not the free or compulsory bit but the menu options and your last three paragraphs.

Last three paras of your post of 13.35 I mean.

Sadly, although the MNetter packed lunches always sound great, many are not - even where there are so called healthy eating policies. In many schools these are not adhered to and it is very common for children to come in with very dubious packed lunch options. So you do still have children essentially eating a junk lunch sent in from home - and there isnt that much schools can do about it.

But making anything compulsary means that even people who are perfectly able to give a reasonably healthy lunch do not get the opportunity to do so and that is definitely not on.

Hulababy, the school healthy food policies do not always make much sense anyway.

Our school policy says fruits only at break time. Some dinner ladies have taken upon themselves to only autorise fruit for desert to children who come with apacked lunch while children on school diners are allowed a pudding. Here is an interesting thread on the subject I suspect some of you actually were on it . For those who weren't, do not be put off by the chocolate in the OP, there is some very good points against school food policies on it.(Even by posters that aren't me!)

Great idea.

I live in Italy and we don't have the option to send packet lunches. Children, surprisingly [grin, seem to survive.
Meals aren't free though, but they are means tested.

School lunch is compulsory at DDs school (private, so its charged for in the fees). They do veggie and halal options, and cater for various allergies e.g. nuts for individual pupils. I'm not aware of anyone having any problems with this; I don't doubt that if there was some particularly difficult multiple allergy case an exception would be made.

DD was incredibly fussy, but has gradually become less so and I credit school meals more than my own attempts to widen her tastes - you could have knocked me down with a feather when she announced she liked cabbage!

A good friend and her 3 DCs live in France and it is that way there

The whole school sit down to a 3 course lunch, sharing the table with the old folks home. It sounds idealic

Dont know how they cope with dietry needs, but I assume they do

They'll pretend they do Riven, as usual, but when it comes to the nitty-gritty it'll be all too difficult (even though WE manage) and our DC's will have to cope with 'manky' home food like poor waifs.