Free school meals for all infant children

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What do you think? I think it's a great idea.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24132416

I'd rather keep my CB too. Still, we do have wonderful food cooked on premises, so it will be a boost not to have to pay for one of the children. Mind you, they are quite expensive in comparison to others, and I wonder if this subsidy will actually cover the costs of these meals, or if it is just a generic Sodexo style figure.

well this puts me in jolly awquard predicament next september.

Eldest loves school dinners.But to have whole weeks worth of school dinners works out at £35 a month.

So we comprimise and do 2days most weeks and in run up to pay day as we pay by cheque as no packed lunch stuff in house as waiting until get paid do a food shop.

Its just gone up to £1.80 per day was £1.75 bt just over border they pay £2.15 so thank mysel lucky.

Shes attended 2schools the first was quite large primary had own kitchen and each day she had a choice of 2dishes.

They have 4week rolling menu and give out leaflets/ website so parents can see what what.

Generally ours quite healthy council say is all locally sourced as checked all this when horsemeat thing came out.

But her new schools very small village school no room to build a kitchen so its made off site in nearby school kitchen.

downside is nightmare to get veggie option have to book days in advance.

upside is they must transfer 10%over so dd1 often gets 2nd helpings.

but next year dd2 due to start and dd1 year 4. They in same dining room.lt will mean we will have to fund school diners for her.
Then dd3 starts 2015 so if contunues will have year of payng dd1 as she will be year 5.

Most siblings attend all through primary and will resent this

DS wouldn't eat the meals at his school even if they were free. Fusspot will still be getting a packed lunch.

It will interesting to see how this all works out- I can see trouble ahead.

When I was helping out at our junior school, I asked some of the pupils what they had eaten for lunch. One of the girls told me she only had a banana and an apple in her packed lunch because 'mummy didn't have time to go shopping'. That girl seriously needs a free school lunch. And so do thousands of other children.

I suspect that some of this is also a kneejerk reaction to the shitstorm that will be unleashed over Daniel Pelka.

Chusband, on your point re fussy eaters. Obviously only anecdotal. When i was small i would eat almost nothing apart from very plain, chicken based food. My mum would take me home for lunch as i wouldn't even eat a packed lunch. At 10 I then went to a girl's school where the choice was "this or nothing" and if you didnt at least try the meal you got no pudding. The food was awful but within reason i will eat anything. I doubt that would be the case if i had not gone to that school

In an ideal world, yes it is a good idea. But right now, I think it is a dreadful, vote grabbing proposal.
The beneficiaries of this proposal are not low income families (since, theoretically they will already be in receipt of FSM).
In Essex a consultation is currently out to save money by removing/reducing the provision of free school transport under a variety of circumstances, affecting primarily low income families.
It is madness to withdraw support from poor families to transport children to school at the same time as providing FSM for higher income families. That simply makes no sense to me at all.

It's a cautious welcome from me. But it seems rather stupid to me to spend £600m on free school meals when the country is utterly broke. So broke in fact that the govt had to save £1billion by cutting child benefit in a stupendously unfair way.

Noone wants to see hungry children but at the same time this is just a bribe to the electorate and a nod to the lib dems so they can point to something come election time.

For me I fear that now the economy is starting to pick up, the government will start to spend money in an attempt to regain votes when in reality we've done fuck all to reduce the deficit except piss a lot of people off.

Our kids will still be lumbered up to their eyeballs with our debt. And treating them to a couple of years of free school dinners isn't really going to be what they want to hear when they ask what the fuck we wasted all the money on.

This is bad policy, though good politics.

There's no such thing as a "free" lunch.

I am opposed to the policy.

So people who survive on benefits are struggling to cope after having their benefits cut, because there is not enough money to go round.

Yet, the children who round here live in their half million to a million pound houses get a free school dinner simply by virtue of their age.

How is that right? I would rather see the money (if we have it spare) being used to help those who really need it, rather than wasting money on those who really do not need it at all.

Another ill thought through, wasteful policy that seems to have dominated the whole time the coalition have been in power. And again, those who really need the help are screwed over once again.

Another example of how this govt screws over the poor to help those better off.

I have just been trying DD in school dinners now she's in year 1. She is loving them so far and is eating a wide range of food even though she has always been a fussy eater. It will cost me £11 a week so free school meals would be great. I will only benefit for one year as it doesnt start til September.

It should be brought in for the whole school though.

It's just politician's being politician's and implementing policies that they think will be popular rather than in the long term best interests of the country.

I agree with LFN, it's a bad policy but good politics.

I hope that politicans will give the teacher the power to throw the heap of crap that some parents call a packed lunch in the dustbin and give the child a proper meal.

My theory is that this is a way for the government to save money. Schools are allocated a large part of their budget according to how many children claim FSM. Once everyone gets FSM, the incentive for parents to let the school know their child qualifies disappears completely. Because schools don't find out all those who are eligible thet therefore cannot claim their full complement of Pupil Premium funding. Therefore the schools get less money. I didn't used to be a cynic......

I agree with others. Help the people that really need it. Don't help the people that don't. Isn't that just common sense??? There is little point in giving everyone benefits. Buying votes are they?

What about children requiring special diets and where is the limit drawn for this? Will every vegan and vegetarian be catered for. All allergies. And those who require halal meat or to follow religious food laws that Jewish people follow? What will the consequences be of a child with a severe allergy be if the meal they are given outs them in hospital?

Puts

And what would the plan be at the schools where it's first fine first served. There have been loads of people in here saying that their kids lunches consisted of bread and rice because they run out of everything else by time they get to the front.

Even if it was free there's no way anyone would be happy with their kid having no actual lunch and stuck with left overs every day.

Where is the research? I just can't understand why they have decided the infants are worth £600,000,000,000 more than the juniors.

It is quite clear to me, from the small sample on here, that it is doomed to failure. A great idea but will fall down on the practicalities.

I can't actually believe, given the thousands of stories on here of kids not eating, or still being hungry, shit lunches, or kids ending up with bread and water that the results of this research were entirely positive.

If they looked at a school in a poorer area where the packed lunches were appalling and the school had good quality food then that would explain it but that's not true of a large percentage of schools, many dont even have kitchens.

So yeah leaf your right. Where did this research come from.

I know kids on FSM who still take packed lunch 1/2 times a week on days where they don't like what's on the menu.

Take up of school meals is currently around 40%.

I agree with those saying many infant schools will struggle to feed more than half of their pupils. Most simply won't have the facilities or the space.

I think it's unworkable and nothing more than a cynical PR stunt for Nick Clegg's Lib Dem conference speech today.

Apparently the report that states the academic advantages suggested by the three pilot areas under Labour recommends that the universal free meals should be for all primary pupils and that is should begin in the most deprived areas and be gradually rolled out. I wonder whether the LibDem adoption of free meals for infants will favour the most deprived areas in this way. If it doesn't, I will be more convinced about this announcement being an entirely cynical one to big-up the LibDems at conference and in the pre-election period, a bribe rather than a concern for education or welfare.

Certainly they seem to be announcing it in a manner that specifically emphasises their capacity to exert pressure on the Conservatives -- they stress that it was part of a quid pro quo, with Tories being allowed their tax break for marriage in return for infants' free school meals. That demonstration of influence seems to be the point of the initiative. I suspect that the marriage tax break will be a windfall favouring medium-to-wealthy income brackets. And the extension of free school meals to all income levels certainly does that. So the deal seems to represent a gift to the more-likely-to-vote wealthier segments of the population at the cost of poorer people (since the 600m has to come from somewhere and many cuts have disadvantaged the poorest).

I don't know what to think about the fact that the report was undertaken by a school catering company. It seems a rather warm and fuzzy business from the tone of its online presence, but that could easily be just a chosen marketing image and their report does seem a little bit like turkey farmers voting for Christmas.

"I agree with those saying many infant schools will struggle to feed more than half of their pupils. Most simply won't have the facilities or the space."

Schools have almost a year to plan for this. Prehaps they will have to have staggered lunch breaks, build a new canteen or take on more staff.

I think that there can be pockets of social deprivation even in the most leafy of areas. Its often at the posher schools where having free school meals is a stigma.

I think that having free school meals for every child would be ideal, but schools need time to plan this and phase it in. I think the practicalites of making free school meals universal for all children at once is difficult.

I am sure that this policy is a sweetener for the (long overdue!) abolition of child benefit in its present form.