School Dinners - again!

[Creole]

Hi all,

I'm interested to know the views on people about about this subject. I know it had been debated to death both here and on the media.
But basically at my son's school, the school dinners are really fantastic (they claim it had been before the Jamie Oliver programme), cooked from scratch with wholesome meals and ingredients. But yet the majority of school children are still on packed lunches. Parents have the choice to sample these meals through taster sessions that they organise every so often. But still kids are coming in with packed lunches.
The school have tried and failed to win these parent over but to no avail.
There is also evidence out there which seems to indicate that kids concentrate better after a good hot meal than a cold sandwich.
My son has been pestering me for packed lunches as he is in the minority, but I so want him to have a hot meal at lunchtime.

So why are people so in favour of packed lunches when you have a good choice at school? Is it a middle class thing? Or parents want to control what their kids eat at school?

Anyone??

I think the kids have more control over the packed lunches when out shopping etc and the parents are just giving in. When my DS goes to school he will be getting school dinners which are great at our local school. I would prefer him to have a 'proper' meal and is saves me the hassle of making up sandwiches etc!

Agree with schneebly - I think it is a result of kid pester power if the dinners are decent. Some of the kids will be incredibly fussy and not like any of the dinner options available. DS is in reception and has dinners but went through a phase of wittering about packed lunches - wasn't sure if it was the logo'ed lunchbox or the food that was doing it for him. But I stuck to my guns and his friend has converted to dinners.

we get a leaflet at the beginning of term telling us what will be available on hot dinners. they say its all healthy and boast that they only have chips once a week, but they do potato smiles and waffles through the week aswell which i dont class as any better than chips (possibly worse due to salt content).

there also isnt enough info - if they state fish fingers they dont tell you if its actual pieces of fish or the minced up floor sweepings you get in cheap ones.

left over food in packed lunches is left in the box so you know what your child has eaten. ds2 is very fussy and he only gets something sweet in his box the following day if he eats his fruit. if he was on school dinners he wouldnt eat any fruit or veg and i would have no way of controlling what he chose.

My DS' school dinners are supposed to be healthy as well and the menu states that they must have at least one item from each section. ie, main meal, carbs, veg etc. My DS started reception last September and is not 5 until August. The problem that I found was the menu choices are not adhered to, so when I asked DS what he had for lunch it was quite often Spaghetti hoops (classed as pasta! - I know it is, but it takes the biccy abit) bread and potatoes. The schools reason is they can't force anyone to eat anything. My view is in reception is a child really supposed to know what the different food groups are?

I have since started him back on packed lunches where I know that he gets a healthy balance.

DS takes in a piece of fruit to eat in the morning with his milk and has the school fruit in the afternoon. They are offered limited choices for food as in a main and a vege alternative and a salad bar - that kind of thing and DS does seem to come up with some alternative concoctions. He seems to have cucumber every day for instance, generally along with whatever the main is.

Also his descriptions of what he has had can be a bit inaccurate. Eg went to his friends for tea and had "chicken and potatoes and cabbage and toast and gravy". So I thought about this and suggested that he had toast after school as a snack and then a chicken dinner later. But he insisted he had the toast with the rest of it. I then spoke to my friend (the mother) and he had pork with crackling (the toast), pots and asparagus.

TBH I am not 100% happy with the dinners but nor would I be 100% happy with a packed lunch. My friend started her DS off on sandwiches but his favourite are peanut butter which is not allowed and he was not really eating much so moved him onto dinners. I am fairly confident that my DS eats a portion of veg/cucumber/both every day plus fruit morning and afternoon. So I give him another dinner with veg at night followed by fruit and that's his 5 a day.

We do packed lunches because dd is Gluten intolerant – although the school claim they can cope with that we have had too many bad experiences to risk it. Also it is important to us to have a main cooked family meal altogether in the evenings and there is a temptation just to have an evening snack if you have a cooked meal at lunch time. Finally I can ensure a healthy diet if I provide the food – lots of fresh fruit, veg and salad goes into dd’s lunch box – no crisps, no biscuits or cakes. Having said that, we would probably do school dinners if it wasn’t for the gluten issue, as I suspect the convenience would outweigh other considerations - but, even though our local school dinners are not bad, I suspect a well chosen and prepared packed lunch is healthier.

My dchildren always had packed lunches when they were at primary school.
My youngest was very slow at eating a cooked meal and she wouldn't had finished her dinner in time.
The youngest 2 are still at high school and they have packed lunches most days.They just take money on PE Dauys or when they have alot to carry.
We have a cooked meal in the evening and the girls don't wont a cooked mael twice.
The othe reason is that I know what goes into a packed lunch and it is generally more healthy then what they buy at school. Although they do somrtimes buy soup and salad.
I don't think a hot meal always makes a childs concerntration better a packed lunch can be just as good as long as it's healthy.

I work in an infant school at lunchtime and to be honest the children with packed lunches do seem to eat more, not necessarily of the things most of us would fill lunch boxes with IYSWIM. The hot dinners are def. nutritionally more sound now than they were pre Jamie's campaign, but most of it goes in the bin! The children are encouraged to choose and eat, but mostly they turn up their noses and say they don't like it. I must say though, I am appalled on a daily basis at the junk which finds its way into a packed lunch, mostly processed junk bought buy pester power. The children always want to eat the chocolate bar, or the crisps, over the fruit! I would personally ban the stuff, but I'm not the head, just the cuddly dinner lady.!!

my dd1 is in reception and she has packed lunch 1 week then hot dinners the next. her school also does freshly cooked healthy meals and they only have chips once a month, they are not allowed chocolate or sweets in their lunch box which results in most kids on hot dinners so they can have a pudding!

my kids would love hot dinners but the preparation is contracted out and as we are a new school (approx 12 years old) we have no kitchen!
I refuse to give my dds hot dinners due to only pence being spent on the ingredients (whilst I would be paying approx £1.70). I have looked at the menu and I would be happy with them eating this kind of thing once or twice a week but honestly feel their health would suffer if they were eating this day in, day out. I have requested the school to allow children to have dinners for part of the week on a prearranged basis but this has been refused.
It comes down to the food not being good enough for my children

My ds loves his school dinners

I wouldnt swap him to sandwiches unless he was eating terribly but as his favourite foods are sweetcorn and grapes i dont have to worry.

Out of the 25 in his class only 5 have hot meals, the rest take sandwiches

DD will have no choice when she starts school in September. All the girls have to stay for school dinners and there isn't choice as far as I am aware either, other than pre-arranged alternatives, such as vegetarian and others. The food is all cooked fresh on site and is healthy stuff on the whole. The girls are served in family groups/tables and encouraged to have a sociable meal together.

I am all for it. Don't think 5 and 6 year olds need all that amount of choice. And havinghad dinner with them before it takes ages for the little ones to even make up their mind over what they want in the first place!

But the thing is some parent have already made up their minds about school dinners before school starts. I remember at our welcome meeting, a mum was asking about where pupils eat their packed lunches and this was before the dinner menus where distributed.

Surely a hot meal on a cold winter's day is a lot better than a cold sandwich.

The head at our school is considering compulsory school dinners for reception next year, I think it is a good idea as at least then everyone would try it. DS has dinners and it has improved the repetoire of what he will eat massively, although i'm not over impressed with the 'cracker and butter' he has for pud most days as he won't eat dessert and the cheese offered is dairylea.

but perhaps they had already asked about the
school food when they visited the school - It
was one of the questions I asked when visiting
potential schools when dd was 3 - and I had
already chatted to the woman who is in charge
of preparing the food (who is a friend of mine BTW)....

Dd has had both school dinners and packed lunch and currently is on packed lunches. At her school, although the menus supplied sounded ok, they were for the whole county I think and of course the school didn't stick to them. If I knew in advance exactly what was going to be on offer each day I would have been happy as I could have discussed it with her and steered he towards a reasonably healthy choice. Like others have said, things like smiley faces and glorified chicken nuggets appeared far more often in reality than the menu would suggest. DD likes raw veg like tomatoes and cucumber rather than cooked veg and often the "veg portion" she was given was a couple of slices of cucumber!

Dd does actually eat a good range of foods and liked most of the home-cooked things (like curry). Often however, none of the thing she wanted would be left by the time it got to her turn. I resent paying £1.50 or whatever for a bowl of plain pasta and grated cheese and a dessert! She changed to packed lunches again last year when two of her friends were also changing.

Ds is now at school as well and there would be no point in letting him have school dinners as he would always choose the sausages/chicken nuggets, etc. Although his range is limited he eats everything I put in his lunchbox (and it's not junk, though he usually gets a biscuit or cake included). As I'm making one packed lunch I might as well make two so dd will have to stick with it. She often has soup in hers so does get something hot. My other reason for sticking with packed lunches is the cost - it is far cheaper to provide a packed lunch than have school dinners. The portions they get at school are very small also - you still would need to cook a hot meal in the evening. (I naively thought I could just make sandwiches for tea when dd first started!)

Silverbirch - the school food is fantastic and cooked from scratch. They have taster sessions for parents to try, but still the majority are on packed lunches - there must be something else about school dinners and not just about the quality.

But of course the taster sessions are fantastic - they want to impress the parents. Do all these schools with fantastic menus and taster sessions actually deliver on their promises - I'm afraid I'm a bit sceptical!

Although the food is great at our school, I know that dd is fussy, plain pasta please that sort of thing, I also think that £1.50 a day is a lot especially when dd has her free fruit inbetween morning break and lunchtime (!) so quite frequently isn't hungry enough to eat a lot 20 minutes later, she may decide in the future that she wants school dinners then fine, but we all eat a big meal together in the evening so we're quite happy with her taking packed lunches at the moment.

Well, my son seems to like it and the few that have it!

My point is, it seems parents have written off these meals without even trying them out.

My daughter goes to a fee paying school where lunches are included. They are good on the whole alternating home made pasta dishes and roast dinners with the occasional fish finger/sausage type meal. There is no choice in nursery but from reception onwards they have the alternative of a salad/sandwhiches from the meal of the day.

My friend has a dd at a local state school. She sends her dd with packed lunches as she says school dinners are too expensive. she does home made but very cheap food but as a family they all eat a hot meal together at teatime. She said to me today she wouldn;t like it if her dd ate the tyoe of meals my dd does as she wouldn't want her tea with the family.

Creole, I see your point about them rejecting it without trying, and I would question the parents choice if they were filling lunch boxes solely with crisps and chocolate – but there are a lot of other reasons for not choosing school dinners and packed lunches can be healthy and varied. Our own situation is unusual in that dd can’t eat a lot of what they prepare at school for medical reasons – but even if they prepared fantastic roast dinners every day, it is still an important part of our family life to eat a good breakfast together and a large family meal in the evening - two main cooked meals a day every day would be too much.

Hmmmm, we have a cooked dinner at home everyday and my son has school dinners, but anyway people are different.
I guess there is an exception with kids with special diets and also the cost of these meals.
But I really can't see why people turn their nose up to a good meal, which is more likely to be healthier than the average packed lunch.

Also, it's a bit like the private v state school debate. Some parents are quick to write off state schools without giving them a chance.

creole I think you are being a little unfair to the parents who choose not to give school dinners. They are entitled to make the best choice for their child and a lot of parents do not like the quality of meals our children are fed in schools.
I was 100% expecting to give my children school dinners before they started but I was not satisfied with the standard of food. It is improving but imo the standard is still lower than I would like to feed my children.
If parents choose packed lunches why should it bother you or anyone else?