A poll for those with lo's at independant primary, please help!

[Passionflower]

I'm really concerned about the quality of the lunches at DD's school and have made an apt with the acting mistress in charge about them tomorrow morning. So please would you help me out by telling me

a) what your schools charge and

b) what are the lunches like, are you happy with them.

Lot's of mum's seem to be moving towards packed lunches because of concerns about the food served at the school but I think it's really important for lo's to have hot food at lunch time and have decided to be brave and raise the subject with the school.

To kick off we pay £190 a term for hot lunch, £50 for lunchtime supervision only.

On the face of it the menu looks OK but I'm suspicious that there is a lack of fresh fruit and veg and I heard a rumour concerning Mr Kipling cakes this morning. They say that there is always fresh fruit as an alternative pudding but DD1 tells me this is just an orange or an apple, regardless of the season.

cam.
So what happened passionflower? How did you get on? Shame some people think that choosing independent education for your child automatically makes anything you write on Mn, or any opinions you seek, up for a good snigger.

To rish getting off the point - I would just like to point out teachers do not start at 9 and finish at 3.30. To offer them more pay by doing over-tiem - erghh when do we do planning/marking/assessment etc!

school lunches at my school (prep) are OK - they are included in the fees. Always have salad bar, pasta, baked pot, soup and 1-2 hot choices + veggie and sandwhiches, plus fruit (varying types - melons. kiwis, oranges, apples, pears) hot stodge pudding, cold pudding, yougurt! Sounds amazing - but sometimes it is a bit off!

Well looks like there's a bit of solidarity among we merry few who private ed .

To update for anyone interested I am to write a letter to the head mistress about the lunches and at least one other mum has said she'll put her name to it too. In the mean time I have decided that as it's summer term DD1 can have packed lunch if she want's to (she's well up for it because the girls with packed get to picnic in the garden when it's sunny). I'm going to run my own meal plan to save stress and she will basically have cooked but cold iyswim.

Thanks again everyone for your interest

To offer them more pay by doing over-tiem - erghh when do we do planning/marking/assessment etc!

Good point, and it's again part of the way that education simply is not run properly.
Large parts of non-teaching work can be viably off loaded, and teachers allowed to focus on what they are supposed to be good at.
That means more staff, and increased use of assistancts, though very firmly as support, not teaching.
When I talk of schools being 7:30 - 8:00 organisations, there is an opportunity for flexible working in that, and I note many in this forum want flexible hours.

Only read a bit of this thread, but why would we want to send our children into school for 12 to pick them up at 8? My youngest is getting ready for bed at that time!! What an odd suggestion.

DC - are you losing touch with reality?
oMarking, planning and assessments is hardly something that a support worker can do - a teacher needs to know what written work students are doing, and as for their own planning.....

I suggest you contact Ruth Kelly with your plans for a flexi-time approach to school hours - actually I would LOVE to be able to fit DS's education more conveniently round my work hours, and drop him in and out on a drive-thru principle for long or short periods between the hours of 7am and 8pm - good luck with your campaign

Presumably it would still have to be the teachers who planned their lesson though, and marked the work they set, and assessed the pupils they taught. Not sure you've really thought this through DC.

Apologies to Passionflower for using this thread though. And to SueW who I was rude to. I am actually very interested in school meals, which is why I was reading the thread int he first place. DC's post made me choke a bit and I appear to have lost my manners. Sorry!

marking and planning assignments is given to teaching assistants..I was surprised too, but just been looking at job specs locally this morning

I thought of sending my children overnight - they could then sleep all day and I wouldn't have to see them at all.

Only if it contains hand-reared meat and hand-picked organic veggies and is cooked by Gordon Ramsay, Batters

No probs Becky .

DC sometimes I think you live in a parallel universe. My sis is an analyst working at the office of national stats for the dept of education. I will pass your thoughts on education to her and seriously enjoy her reaction.

Thanks for the menu batters, it looks better than ours and i'd be more that happy with it. On the plus side I think with a bit of pressure we can probably get the cooks up to that standard. I have found my copy of our menu for this term, boring but here it is (2 week rolling menu):

Monday week 1
Chicken supreme with rice and broccoli, or
Pasta with cheese and veg
Homemade blueberry muffins

Monday week 2
Chicken korma with rice or
Jacket spud with tuna mayo and veg
Butterfly cakes

Tuesday week 1
Cheese and tom pizza with salad or
Jacket spud with tuna mayo and salad
Fridge cake

Tuesday week 2
Minced beef pie with potato croquette and carrots or
Pasta with tomato sauce ad/or cheese and veg
Fruit salad

Wednesday week 1
Homemade sausage rolls with baked beans and creamed potatoes or
Pasta with tomato sauce and/or cheese and veg
Stewed apple and custard

Wednesday week 2
Macaroni cheese with green beans or
Jacket potato with baked beans
jelly with fruit

Thursday week 1
Bacon, leek and sweetcorn risotto with green beans or
Jacket potato with baked beans and/or cheese and veg
cookies

Thursday week 2
Roast chicken with potto wedges and salad or
pasta with cheese and salad
crispie cakes

Friday week 1
Fish finger with chips and peas or
Pasta with cheese and veg
Chocolate cake

Friday week 2
Sausage and pasta bake with sweetcorn and peas or
Jacket spud with cheese and veg
Banana cake

no one forced me I just like boring people

Actually I completely agree with DC's suggestion that teachers need more assistants + admin support. Although I agree marking (though boring) is necessary to assess students' progress and identify weaknesses and strenghts to inform how you teach them I can certainly see a case for using professional paid markers (themselves experienced teachers)occasionally. If these markers used a proper mark scheme (like exam markers) and provided a summary for each student (what they did well, what they need to improve using comments from the mark scheme) they could actually spend more time per student and mark in more detail than ordinary class teachers could ever hope to. I actually know of one college which does this.

Regardless of what you think about marking though I would love my own admin assistant (or at the very least one for my department) to do my photocopying, organise meetings, track down missing homework/ students, do my filing etc. These are tasks that certainly don't require a degree, PGCE, MA and the rest but would make my life so much easier and make me a better teacher.

And yes it would be absoutely wonderful if any work we did outside school hours was paid. We'd all be millionaires!!

I have been assured that the food is homecooked on site, the exception being the fishfingers, chips and the pizza bases which are frozen.

Here is the letter I'm sending to the headmistress....

Dear Miss X
Our daughter DD1 is currently a pupil of (insert school name) in middle preparatory and her sister DD2 is registered to attend lower preparatory in September of this year. The reason that I am writing to you is because my husband and I are concerned about the quality of the cooked lunches served by the school to the girls.

Whilst we fully appreciate that we are able to provide our daughters with packed lunches should we so choose, we strongly believe in the benefits of a hot lunch to children and would be very disappointed if we felt that we had to do so because the lunches provided by the school are not of an acceptable standard.

Our main concern is about amount of fresh vegetables and fruit provided and the balance of the meals in general. We feel that the vegetable component of the main dish seems to be rather in the manner on an afterthought rather than an integral part of the dish and that it would not be unreasonable to expect more than one vegetable to be offered at each meal. We are particularly disappointed to note that baked beans seem to be considered by the kitchen to be an adequate portion of vegetables. (Here we would refer you to Wednesday of week 1 on the menu). Whilst we do not have any particular objection to baked beans in principal we do not consider them to be an acceptable alternative to fresh vegetables served with the main meal of the day.

We are also concerned to note that on this terms menu there is at least one day each week on which no meat or fresh fish is offered. On week 1 this is Tuesday and on week 2 it is Wednesday. In consideration of the amount that the school charges for the provision of cooked lunch we deem it to be unsatisfactory to only provide what we consider to be essentially supper dishes rather than a proper cooked meal.

Our last point is regarding the fresh fruit provided as an alternative to pudding. DD1 has informed me that this is always and without exception either an orange or an apple. Whilst we fully appreciate the budgetary considerations, and by no means would we expect the school to provide imported out of season fruit, we cannot understand why other fruit is not offered when in season locally.

My husband and I very much look forward to receiving your response to the points that we have raised.

Yours sincerely,
Passionflower

Does that look OK guys?

Miiiissss!! I didn't make Batters do it, Miiissss!! She wanted to do it all by herself.....

Ah, morals