School kids eating outside

[SistemaAddict]

Parents livid after schoolchildren made to eat outside in the rain www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/theyre-treating-kids-like-animals-18871993

Not my dcs' school but I raised the issue in the summer of where mine would eat if it was bad weather. I was told they didn't know! Year 7 has priority to eat inside if it rains but otherwise they all have to eat outside. Bloody ridiculous. I don't have solutions as the day isn't long enough to have 5 years groups of over 300 each eating in 2 canteens.

Seeing as there's no social distancing anywhere in school it seems a bit pointless anyway to be making them uncomfortable outside in this weeks wind and rain. Imagine January and eating outside? Ffs

School literally cannot win, whatever they do (inside, outside, no lunch, shorter days...) there’d be a group of parents irate about it. Maybe puddlesuits for teens, with a big peaked hood, could become a fashion trend....

In my DDs high school (Scotland) - they use gym halls, assembly hall, dining hall for different year groups (they have also said they can stay in classroom if appropriate - not science) but as all Windows are open I've had 2 out of 3 with colds and it's not even winter yet!

Only if pouring are they allowed in too

Surely over the summer they could have built shelters or something. But then there's no money is there. It feels impossible. What are other countries doing?

Ours have to sit on the floor in the sports hall. Defo not ideal but I dont know what else they can do - the government won't give them any extra funding and they were already stretched. Hopefully won't be for too much longer

My dd's school had a load of parents making shelters like bus stops from pallets. They'd need loads for a secondary school though!

Wow surely this can’t continue when the weather is really cold? I’m shocked it’s happening in the rain to be honest.

Surely there are enough rooms in a big school to accommodate lunches?

My dd is only in year 5 in a small primary and they are trialing a few scenarios at the minute, normal lunch hall for years 1-4 and years 5 and 6 are eating in their classrooms. Reception not back until next week.

I wouldn’t be impressed that with set up.

More whinging. My dc are in school, i have no idea where they eat lunch, but i trust the school to sort it to the best of their ability. We all really need to keep calm and carry on.

Other countries either do fund schools well enough anyway that they have money to build shelters if needed or else they have been given extra funding. Schools in England (don't know about other UK countries) have been given no extra funding to deal with Covid. Not even for hand sanitiser and cleaning.

Dd2 gets extremely cold extremities on even mild days and needs to wear gloves otherwise they turn purple and painful. It's not raynauds but similar.

@Deadringer

More whinging. My dc are in school, i have no idea where they eat lunch, but i trust the school to sort it to the best of their ability. We all really need to keep calm and carry on.

This, a million times over.

Our school is insisting all students eat indoors. They have to spend their entire lunchtime queuing to get in the hall with barely anytime to actually eat. If you need to use the loo at lunchtime you won’t be able to do both. You get detention if you eat or even drink outside of the dining hall. It’s ridiculous.

Surely if it’s raining they can stay inside the classroom they are in?

Is it really whinging to expect children not to be eating outside in the cold or wet? it's not like we live in a country with a warm, dry climate where it's lovely to eat outdoors all the time.
Maybe things will change over time when they realise this isn't a great idea.

I’m not sure that posters from other parts of the country realise just how bad the rain was in the north west yesterday. It was practically horizontal and extremely heavy from just before lunch time until we’ll after school finished. It would have been awful trying to eat outside in those conditions. It was DS’s first day in year 7 yesterday and he got absolutely soaked just walking 10 minutes to meet me to take him home.

I grew up in Australia where packed lunches are and were standard. You ate outside unless it was raining. If it was raining then you ate in classrooms with some degree of teacher supervision. May have been prefect supervision in senior school but I was always in the music block for lunchtimes so don't remember what else happened! Inhale lunch quickly before choir practice starts ...

Many Primaries are asking children to stay in their classrooms to eat their lunch, but then they are only having packed lunch.

Not always so easy to have hot dinners in any other room than the dining hall

Ours are doing hot dinners in the classroom. Not that hard is it?

How do they get the hot food to the classroom?

LadyCatStark completely agree. I’m down the motorway in Liverpool and it was horrendous yesterday. It was dd’s first day back and was glorious in the morning so she didn’t wear a coat and her dad dropped her off at school in the car.

The heavens opened in the afternoon and he took her new raincoat with him when he picked her up and said lots of kids didn’t have any coats and were soaked. We definitely have yo-yo weather here, today is lovely!

That’s stupid

Why can’t they eat in a specific classroom per form class or something

I'd no idea schools were doing this? For real? I have primary-aged DC and had no idea this was a thing.

That is idiotic. Surely they don't have to just eat in the canteen. Some classrooms could be used too in order to accommodate everyone indoors on a bad weather day!

I wouldn't choose to eat outdoors in the cold and rain, so why should children be expected to?

@MillicentMargaretAmanda

Other countries either do fund schools well enough anyway that they have money to build shelters if needed or else they have been given extra funding. Schools in England (don't know about other UK countries) have been given no extra funding to deal with Covid. Not even for hand sanitiser and cleaning.

Lol. No they don’t. Other countries are also full of parents whining about lunches, masks, physical distancing, buses, lack of funding, blah blah blah. It’s very interesting. I assume it’s stress related, but we know how much people live to whinge even with no pandemic, and it’s practically a sport in the motherland. If it helps, recess/ playtime/break runs in my neck of the woods outdoors up to -20. Mumsnet and weather related break time horror is always entertaining. Lunch is an intriguing new twist. No idea where mine eat lunch. School will have made the best decision they can based on their individual circumstances. I am still laughing at all the perfectly organized other countries. Boris is pretty much par for the course, however much we love to believe he is in an incompetence league of his own. We do like to be the best at everything though. It reminds me of those M&S ads. Not just incompetence, this is British incompetence. It MUST be better than everyone else’s. is it a colonial thing? 😂😂😂

@ineedaholidaynow no idea but they seem to have worked it out. Older kids eat in hall in shifts and younger in classrooms

Our school is doing staggered lunch hours, the younger kids eat in the hall and the others in their classrooms. They have to go and collect their lunch from the hall, it was hot food today, might not be every day.I’m reading this thread has made me realise that we are quite lucky!