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.

Special diets would be discussed individually at DD's school and wherever possible would be accomodated.

The whole school is nut free anyway.

"Special diets would be discussed individually at DD's school and wherever possible would be accomodated."

• which is why it will never be compulsory, apart from the cost of course - because you can't decree that everyone has to have something if you can't cater for everyone.

I would be willing to pay for decent, warm school meals - not available at my dc's school atm.

I paid to sample them when ds started school. I had spaghetti with blobs of tomato (possibly tinned), stringy slimy lumps of cheddar cheese and peas with some dried herbs through it, on the side I got a slice of white dry crusty bread (no butter), a glass of water and I couldn't bring myself to eat it all, felt ill all day after I ate it. I passed on dessert, which was fruit salad with a blob of something on the side that looked like jelly fluff. DS asked for an orange for dessert but they didn't have fruit - he had a few, very small, thin slices of chicken, with about three small broccoli florets and a slice of bread. Cost £1.90 per meal.

There's more than just nut allergy, and for those with severe allergies they won't give guarantees - which is exactly what you need if you're trusting someone with your child. I'm not asking for schools to be dairy/egg free, just that someone take a minute to think about cross-contamination, which on the face of it seems complicated and so scares people out of wanting to help. It's like banging your head on a brick wall, trust me.

Dreamteamgirl, My niece lives in France. They do have a lunch that all children are supposed to eat, if you have a special diet, let's say vegetarian, you are not offered an alternative and will have to eat the side vegetable only, and desert if it does not contain gelatine or animal fat.

When I was a teenager in Switzerland, I used to work in holloday camps in the summer. If they were a child that was vegetarian or Muslim, we were asked to LIE to them and tell them it was OK for them to eat it! I will hate myself to the day I die for having taken part in this!

yeahhh ....

See, my son, on a Monday, is supposed to be offered Lamb Hotpot with 'seasonal vegetables', or Jacket potato with cheese and salad, followed by 'a choice of a crunchy cookie or apricot crumble'

However, he is second sitting. So what he would actually get is a jacket potato with 'seasonal vegetables' (it's always frozen peas, which he hates), a piece of white sliced bread (no butter) and a 'crunchy cookie', ie - a biscuit.

So this balanced nutritious lunch turns out to be potato, peas, bread and a biscuit.

I stick to a ham sandwich, flapjack and a banana thanks. We would actually get free school lunches but they are NOT nutritionally sound.

But it does work at DD's school BalloonSlayer. I guess they just don't have many people with special diets perhaps.

Rven - I can understand your concerns with DD's diet as it is very specialised.

I think it depends on the cook budgeting properly and cooking enough. There is always some left over for those who want seconds at my school and there are always children who do! The meals are lovely... I always have a school meal and sit and eat with the kids. The thing that really annoys me is that only myself and one of the learning mentors do this... the rest of the staff have sandwiches delivered. Children are much more likely to try something if they are sitting with an interested adult who is eating the same thing, instead of a member of the welfare staff who stands over them with a cloth in their hand ( because it's their job to do so... I have no arguament with welfare staff!)
I would welcome children sitting and eating with a knife and fork instead of eating with their fingers out of a lunchbox. It's a good time to chat with them too.
Obviously, special diets would have to be considered and maybe parents of those children would feel safer packing a lunch.

Love the idea of them growing some of the ingredients too... we currently do that for cookery club.

shockers, could you give me some ideas of what you are doing at cookery club? My dcs both go to the one in our school but so far only have done sweet things (pepermint crumble, coconut ice, fruit salad, fairy cakes) I have spent a fortune in icing sugar in the last few weeks! Have you got any suggestions of savoury things that did work well to be made with a group of children so I can pass them on to the teacher?

shockers - DD's school has changed how they do meals a bit, for juniors anyway. But the infants currently still in tables (they are mixed YR-Y2 tables), each headed by a teacher or member of staff. The meals are served by the teacher, and the teacher eats with them. They are encouraged to try the food if not sure, can have seconds and are encouraged to converse with one another. Often the staff will lead this to get them going.

Why stop at children being compulsorily educated and fed by the state?

The state could bring them up too. Stop them watching too much TV etc. This would mean no more SAHM/WOHM conflict.

The state could also gestate them for us. Eliminating the risk of a child being exposed to drugs or alcohol in the womb.* Also removing the need for maternity pay, saving the government £££££££s.

Difficult to achieve? Well, some sort of bottle contraption would seem to be in order.

Stop me if someone else has already thought of this...

• unless they have been allocated a lower-caste career of course.

They've done minestrone soup and sodabread, hotpot,lovely salads with freshly shelled peas sprinkled over, tomato and cheese tarts and they always do a sweet too ( quite often involving strawberries as we had a glut of those this year)
I run the gardening club... the learning mentor runs the cookery club. It is always a main course and sweet which they all sit together and eat.

Where I live there are no school meals.

Seems to work alright.

School meals in big cities came in I think in Victorian times to give poor urban children at least one decent meal a day.

Surely that need has gone?

BalloonSlayer you took the words right out of my mouth! Why on earth is it the school's responsibility to dictate my child's diet??

The kid with the biscuits for lunch is the same one whose mum would pass chips through the fence. You cannot remove autonomy from parenting. Everyone will not place the same values as you on every aspect of raising a child. Whilst I obviously agree that biscuit-kid is being short changed by his mum here, she might be much better at other elements of raising DCs and think I'm a shocker for not doing messy craft projects.

That sounds great, Mutt.

Every time I think of letting my DC's have school lunches I happen to walk past the kitchens and smell thie chips cooking. (Yuk!)

And the menues aren't' that balanced...pork patties in a finger roll & Ice cream.....Chesse and tomato pizza & sticky toffee muffin....well stick to a healthy lunch box for now, thank you.

I know 2 single mums who's children qualify for ree school meals, are aren't really happy with their children recieving them because their poor quality. They do, though, for financial reasons.

Mutt

Fair enough, but there must be many schools where the need is tiny and could be met in other ways other than direct provision.