School dinners, who can afford them?

[darcymum]

Following on from another thread about being required to pay for school dinners for the first term at school I wondered what proportion of school meals are taken by children who do pay for them?

DD1 starts school in September and I plan to send her in with a packed lunch, as do other parents I know, mostly because packed lunches are cheaper. I have three DCs who will be in the three consecutive school years and definitely couldn't afford for all three to have school dinners. I know that the fact is about £2 for a hot meal is very good value but they will get a hot meal at home in the evening.

If I was entitled to free school meals I would send them every day, which made me wonder if it is mostly children getting free school meals who take them up. Anyone know? I have heard the argument that it might be the only hot meal children get but that could be equally true for children with parents not getting income support (or whatever), which case all children should get a free school meal. Maybe the money would be better spent increasing benefits for people with children and letting parents provide packed lunches and to having school dinners at all.

Sorry very tired rubbish post, going to bed now.

dd (6) can choose day to day whether she fancies what is on offer so has a school dinner around 2-3 times a week. The dinners are priced by what they choose e.g. the sandwich is cheaper than the hot option, so the cost ranges from around £1.60 to £1.90 depending on what she buys.

My three all have school meals. It costs £1.80 each a day, so £27 a week.

When my eldest started he had packed lunches, purely because he was scared of the dining hall and so packed lunches were less stressful. But when DS2 started I switched them both to school dinners. DD has subsequently started and has them too.

When DS2 started he wasn't allowed dairy due to an intolerance (which he has grown out of) and they were really good at providing meals which he could eat. They even had dairy free ice cream!

I prefer it if they have a hot meal at lunchtime. DS1 has an after school activity (usually sport) almost every night, so I feel a proper meal at lunchtime keeps him going for longer. Also if DD is really tired when she gets home (she is in Reception) it's not the end of the world if she doesn't eat much of her supper as I know she has had a proper hot meal at lunchtime.

The school lunches are very good, made on site using locally sourced ingredients. They don't have choices, just one dish each day (with allowances made for speacial diets). My three clear their plates every day and often have seconds, so it is money well spent for me.

I really don't get how you can think that packed lunches are cheaper but then it does depend what you put in them.

Mine are £2 a day so is £30 a week for mine to have school dinners.

I pay for school dinners from a low income because I hate making packed lunches, DD gets bored with the same things all the time and I find peer pressure creeping in.
X has this in her lunch, Y has that, and I can't be bothered with it, so school dinners it is.
They do really good meals at her school too, and she enjoys them.

I reckon a lot of our evening meals at home are less than £2 a head!

We pay for DS to have a school dinner. It costs just under £2 per day. It saves me having to think about making a packed lunch, and means that he gets a variety of food.

It's not just the food you are paying for, but also the staffing and the other costs, like wahsing up, electricity etc.

DS1 is in high school and he takes £2 per day for the canteen which is enough for him to either have a sandwich or if a hot meal is on that he likes - say curry and rice he will choose that.

DS2 who is in primary takes a packed lunch four days a week. Today he has taken cheese and biscuits. On a Friday he has a school lunch - these are £2.10 per day. This is the day they are most likely to do a roast which he is very fond of and on a Friday night at home we have bacon butties or something quick for tea so at least I know he has had something substantial.

Apart from a Friday, I do a hot dinner every evening.

ah good point buzzing.

still, from the other thread it looks like we won't be entitled to free ones, so it'll probably be packed lunches for us.

At the primary DS attends, school meals are semi-compulsory (you need a good reason for your child not to have them, such as allergies or severe financial hardship)

From September packed lunches will be allowed. However children bringing their own lunch will be charged 2 euros for canteen overheads - staffing etc - so it would work out more expensive, and heaps more hassle, to send him in with his own lunch.

But this is in France, where only one hot meal a day is not considered healthy or sufficient.

Does anyone know if the take up rate is much higher for children on free school meals than not? Common sense suggests to me it would be.

"I really don't get how you can think that packed lunches are cheaper but then it does depend what you put in them."

I spend about 50p a day on packed lunches. If you put in juice boxes and things like dairylea dunkers then I can see the cost going up but packed lunch is very cheap if its a sandwich/homemade cake/pasta salad/fruit etc. Our school allows flasks of hot food so they often have pasta or beans etc.Even if I doubled the cost of packed lunch, it would be £5 per child more per week. For my 3dcs (if they had all started school) it would be about £600 a year which is a lot for us.

I think I would pay in secondary though, as they eat so much more at that age but I will only have 2 years where I have to pay for all 3 at once.

We can't afford them. They are £1.85/day.

We will have two in school come August.

Much cheaper than £1.85 for her packed lunch.

I'm lucky in that I could afford them, but I still wouldn't spend that one account of its complete shiteness. I'd rather put the £2 towards better quality food to have in the evenings. I know the quality varies, but around here it is truly terrible.

I started my son on a packed lunch of a sandwich, some fruit, and a youghurt frube, and juice. The only time it cost a lot, were the times I allowed him an Innocent Smoothie in his lunch bag...

So, it really depends on what you habitually put in the bag. But I did find that my son would come home and say Z had a cake bar, Y had dairly dunkers, and Q had crisps, and why do I never get anything like that. School dinners put a stop to that.

Dd1 has packed lunches through choice. We could afford dinners as there is only her at school, atm. it would be £8 per week.

I can't really make packed lunches cheaper than this. None of us eat sandwiches/yoghurts etc so I buy these things in just for dd1's packed lunch. Which comes to approx £10 per week.

I'm sure that packed lunch that I used to make for DS1 cost almost as much as a school meal.

He used to have a sandwich (cheese, ham or tuna with salad), a yoghurt (either Yeo Valley or Rachel's), a homemade biscuit or flapjack, fruit and a fruit juice.

I supposed if I'd used cheap processed ham and cheap sliced white bread it would have been cheaper, equally juice "drinks" are cheaper than pure juice and you can get value yoghurts. But that wasn't the sort of thing I wanted to feed him, and I can afford not to have to.

My DS would like packed lunches, but he won't eat sandwiches, he won't eat cheese, he won't eat ham. In the few instances he has taken a packed lunch, he's had a yoghurt, a hot cross bun and some crisps. Fussy little monster.

I would like my 2 to have school dinners but I am on mat leave and can't afford them until I return to work.

It is around £80 per month for my 2. We have packed lunch stuff in anyway as dh takes lunch to work.

I hadn't thought of the staffing/cleaning/supervising angle.

Dare I suggest that packed lunch people should pay a 50p a day service charge?

The packed lunch kids make a fearful mess and someone has to clear it up.

dd1 had packed lunches through primary and now that she is in secondary takes money for the canteen,she gets £10 a week.

dd2 takes a packed lunch to primary,she quite often asks to go to school dinners but I can't afford to send her to school dinners and give dd1 dinner money too. I think school dinners, in the primary, work out about £8 or £9 a week.

Packed lunch is cheaper for us.