WHAT??? Banning Packed Lunches!

[MojitoMagnet]

So apparently Packed Lunches are likely to be banned!

guardian article

I suspect the main reason is to drive down the cost-per-meal for school dinners. The idea that anyone should be able to dictate what my child eats is so repugnant I'm lost for words. By all means give schools the power to intervene if a particular child is regularly sent to school with a bag of crisps and a mars bar, but taking the choice away from everyone else is ridiculous!

This was the reality at my son's elementary school here in Italy. You had teo choices, pay the four euros a pop lunch money for school lunches. Or take them out of school for the entire lunch hour.

It meant that there was always a high percentage of kids to be fed in house. And therefore there was no impetus to maintain high quality meals. Becuase unless you were free midday to take ypur kids out you and the smallies just had to suck it up.

And this was Italy, the land of quality, healthy cuisine has by and large been the staple diet of the majority. Until profit margins and trapped consumers tip the balance.

Personally in a context where packed lunches were an option I would fight any push to make school lunches obligatory tooth and nail having experienced the poor quality that can ensue once a near monopoly has been achieved.

Remember that little girl who got in trouble for posting pics of her school dinner online? They looked rank.

I used school dinners a lot for dd1 and dd2, at least three times a week. Dd3 on the other hand doesn't like them. It would be cruel to force her to eat them.

Our school dinners are good, which I know we are fortunate to have.

With regard to cost, DS just has a 'packed lunch' in the evening so it's not a case of affording, it's just swapping the money allocation round. I imagine I'd spend £10 on hot evening meals (we do all eat at different times and different things though so maybe if you just do a big pot of something it's cheaper).

The lunches at Dd's school are expensive but revolting. I wouldn't want to eat them. It is all cheap carbs and loads of salt.

I know there is a problem with children being sent to school with crisps, chocolate, a fizzy drink and not much else, but the stuff served up in many secondary schools isn't much better.

That being said I wouldn't want the choice taken away.

A rather poor article - two slebby types write a paper and this becomes official No10 policy. Hmmm. And a couple of points are cherry picked and become the whole thrust of the paper? Because even the article says these are some of a whole list of suggestions.

The new spending on improving the dinners service and to add more breakfast clubs is mentioned, but isn't the headline, despite those being the much more solid departmental policy.

The Guardian isn't known for being politically neutral. This looks like an attempt to damn a report before publication, and to move the chatter to predictable Gove-bashing, rather than looking at the very serious point of the effects of poor nutrition and what can be done in schools to improve it.

Anyone see the Nick and Margaret programme last night? Would better nutrition in schools and more breakfast clubs help?

That bit of the paper if likely to happen - they've got the figures for it. The "banning" bits won't happen, and are not the important bit of the report. The disproportionate emphases in them are lovely stuff to please a certain crowd (Daily Mail uses same tactics to slant the stories it wants to present in certain ways too).

I would take dd out of school and home educate her if this came in. That's how strongly I feel about this. She has ASD and has the same packed lunch every single day, it's pretty healthy though inc 3 portions of fruit and veg without fail. She just wouldn't eat if she had to have school dinners.

When my 2 were at Primary I was a SAHM and money was tight, but DH has a reasonable job so we didn't qualify for free school meals.

How would they force you to pay? If you didn't would your child not be fed? If you sent them in with a packed lunch would it be confiscated?

Apart from anything else this would be a complete nightmare for the schools! They would really be stuck in the middle, I bet they are really hoping this isn't implemented!

I suspect it's just another attempt to distract parents and get them up in arms about something that isn't going to happen anyway, so they can carry on their real attack on the education system virtually unnoticed.

Perhaps school meals should be free?

My children go to a private school, where school meals are 'free' (i.e. the cost is included within the termly fee, so no extra charge). 99% of children eat the school meals. Including my own coeliac children, and several others with allergies/intolerances/vegetarians etc. The food is all cooked on the premises, is good quality, and special requirements are taken care of.

I think perhaps school meals, of a fresh, healthy type, should be paid for by taxes. Allergies and intolerances should be catered for.

Parents could choose to send children with packed lunches, but since this would cost extra, I expect the majority would not choose to. I think this would be a better idea than forcing children to. There will always be some cases where a packed lunch is required (a poster above with an ASD child who needs the same lunch every day or becomes distressed, for example)

When I was a child, at my village primary school, we all ate school lunches, it never occurred to anyone to do otherwise. When my children were diagnosed coeliac, it was really important to me that they were able to continue with school lunches - i see it as a social, educational, health thing. The communality of all eating together, at tables, with cutlery and good manners, the nutritional benefits of a proper hot meal, the socialisation of eating a wider range of food because they see their peers eating them - it feels like a core part of the day to me.

"It" won't happen as "it" isn't part of any Governement vague plan, let alone policy.

Given the Labour spokesperson remarks also reported this morning, this is a co-ordinated attempt to manage the chatter around today's report, to ensure only one or two points stick in the public consciousness.

One of them, BTW, was definitely attempted by schools during the Labour years. It was a spectacular failure then.

I'd be more than happy tbh, school dinners are excellent at ds's school and everything is cooked on site even fresh bread daily. He used to have diners but has packed lunches atm do he can sit with his mates. It's 2 quid a day and it costs the same as making up sandwiches etc BUT wouldn't be happy if it wasn't good food and cooked on site.

It sounds lovely at your school BumbleChum.

I don't think it is like that in the average state school.

LOL at the OP's repugnant!

Funny how the pendulum swings, eh?

Years back when I was a child, school dinners were the only option- or going home for lunch.

The idea was the deprived kids would get a hot and nutritious meal at school. It was a working class mining town.

I used to have school dinners 50% of the time, and walk home- a mile each way- for dinners the rest of the time.

Now, kids are getting obese due to lack of exercise and being driven to school over short distances, and obese due to rubbish food in packed lunches.

Not saying I agree with a ban- it's all about parental education and responsibility at the end of the day- but might be useful for younger MNs to know how it was in the old days!

curlew Do these private schools have separate kitchens for the vegetarians? And for the vegans?

And one more point- 'free school dinners' are and were available to kids whose parents were unable to pay.

I don't know. I just know from real life and from reading in here that many don't allow packed lunches.

Our school dinners are Okish but the parents of little kids seem to complain that they end up with random choices (lettuce + peas with no carbs or protein) and the Y6s often don't get enough to eat.

My dcs packed lunches aren't very exciting but they are balanced and healthy and I can do all 3 for £10-£15 (probably a lot less actually) a week as opposed to the £36 school lunch would cost. I haven't got an extra £20-£25 a week so how are they going to get it out of me? It's not there. If it was a private school they could kick us out but it's not.

missbopeep you really have to be on the bones of your arse to get free school meals around here. There are plenty of families who are are doing OK but can't magic up another £20 a week.

You have to have less than £16k a year to get FSM I think.

It really bugs me when people who have absolutely no fucking idea, grandly declare that free school meals are available to those who can't afford to pay for them.

They are not.

They are available to people who claim a certain limited number of benefits.

If you earn £9000 p.a. and you claim tax credits for example, you are not eligible for school dinners.

I know because I tried to claim them, because well-meaning but ignorant people kept telling me my kids were entitled to them. They were NOT. The criteria for receiving free school meals (or free school transport) are very tight. Poor people who are not eligible for IS or certain disability benefits, are not entitled to either.

Is anyone going to tell me that at £9,000 p.a, £174 per term for school dinners is no big deal? Because if they are, I can tell them they're talking through their arse.

It does my head in when posh people on MN assume that poor= benefits. Most people who are living in poverty, are working and are not eligible to claim the benefits that entitle them to the free stuff that people who have no idea, assume is available.

Yes, but if school dinners were mandatory then I reckon they would be cheaper ( due to the basic economics of cooking in bulk and price goes down) and there would be a safety net for poor families. I doubt the costs would stay as they are now. If you read the article- and others out today- then cost is something being discussed.

On the other hand, are you saying that you can feed 2 children 10 packed lunches for under £20 a week? That's £1 per child per day. Given the cost of crisps , cakes, cartons of juice, etc etc ( which SOME people include- not all, I admit) I doubt there is a lot of difference TBH.

If child benefit were completely scrapped, and the money used to provide 'free' school breakfast and lunch in state schools, and those who chose not to take the free meals could take packed lunches at their own expense, I bet the proportion of packed lunches would diminish dramatically.