Packed lunch vs School dinner

[Ricekrispie22]

Since Jamie Oliver's school meal revolution, there's been a lot of hype claiming that they're healthier than a packed lunch. But this weekend I've been scrutinising my DC's school dinner menu and tbh it doesn't seem that far off from turkey twizzlers. So what are the dinners like st your school? do you prefer your children to have a packed lunch?

Dd always has a school dinner. Ds likes a packed lunch. One of dd's weekly menus:

If it's a state school in England menus are written to be nutritionally balanced across the week and criteria are pretty strict. So even dishes that may look unhealthy have probably been tweaked to make them ok. That said it does depend on the child eating each component and not just picking out the bits they like.
At secondary children don't necessarily opt for meals. There's nothing stopping them buying three slices of pizza at break and an ice cream and chocolate brownie at lunch. That's if they actually spend their money at school and not at the corner shop on the way home.
I guess there is no easy answer, depends on the child and to some extent what you put in the lunch box or serve for dinner. If a child eats 21 meals a week school dinners only account for 5 of them.

Dd was always entitled to free meals, still is but that's now an amount to spend daily.
She had tuna baked potato almost every day, but that was fine as I make varied meals at home.
It's entirely up to you really, I'd say give the meals a try, its one less job to think about, reassess in a few weeks.

Hit and miss at dd's some days seem good but there is pizza on the weekly menu twice once meat option and another day veggie version which seems unnecessary

I wish dd1 would do school lunches! She tried them for a few weeks in reception and hated it so we do packed lunches.

As long as I know she's eating it's fine I suppose. I also have to do packed lunches for dd2 (2 yo) for the CM. No wonder when I'm in the office I have toasted cheese or boiled egg - I literally can't be bothered doing my own lunch!

And I now make dh do his own too.

The taste of the food is poor - they eat it because it's convenient. I provide ds with a flask of hot food every day because he has health issues but he is more than happy not to have to navigate the school food.