Free school lunches for infants - what do you think?

[KateSMumsnet]

Starting this month, in accordance with plans announced last year, all pupils in English primary schools up to the end of Year 2 will be eligible to receive free school meals.

How do you feel about the changes? Is it money well-spent, or could the funds be put to better, more targeted use? Has your school had to make any changes such as building new rooms or using classrooms? Are you glad to have lunches taken care of, or would you prefer to make your child's lunch? Have you seen the new menus, and are you happy with them? Will any of you be opting out?

We'd love to hear what you think - do let us know below. And keep your eyes peeled for a guest post on the nutritional value of school meals, coming later this week.

p.s For those of you still making a pack-up every morning, try out this recipe for the perfect lunch box bars (you can still make them even if your DC are at Uni, we won't tell)

Having taught kids who come to school having no breakfast or a chocolate bar and a fizzy drink I can see the benefit for some school children. It helps us because we don't qualify for fsm, but are on a low wage and £10 makes a big difference, for example I can buy more fruit and vegetables for the home now with the money we save. If the money for those who do not take them up could be used elsewhere in the school it could further benefit other pupils, or if parents were given vouchers for fruit and vegetables etc... to have at home that might work.

I think it's an ill thought out publicity stunt of an idea. Our school only has funding for 85% of pupils because that's how many took it up last term, obviously this term that figure is much higher..not sure where the shortfall is supposed to be coming from but presumably something is being cut. Or the quality will be even lower.
I have yet to try the meals themselves but am not impressed with the menu. Very meat heavy, lots of stodgy carbs and puddings everyday which is completely unnecessary in my view. Yoghurt and fruit would be more than sufficient.

I'm not sure why it had to change from means tested being free to everyone? We are lucky, we can afford to pay if we choose to. Surely it would be better to take money from some parents that can afford it so that it can be improved for all, better quality of food purchased for example?

Seagull - What is that statistic? 1.9% of what? Did you hear that spouted, out of context, by someone criticising the policy by any chance? Because it is disingenuous at best. There is an increase of 1.9%. It is the increase in children achieving expected levels at key stage one English. It is one of several levels measured. It does not cover all similar measures (for instance it doesn't measure maths or increases at other key stages, all of which were higher) nor does it measure academic performance other than as a percentage of children crossing a threshold (a threshold that is already highly targetted). As one of many tools in evaluating nuanced academic impact it is useful. But it is not an indicator of the impact of the pilot on academic performance as a whole.

A more rounded single indicator is available. The pilot found an average increase of two months academic achievement (i.e. at the end of the two year pilot the children were, on average, two months further ahead than they would have been expected to be had the pilot not been implemented).

Even if it were true (it isn't) that only the disadvantaged gained - is that so bad? If it is, it's no wonder we have increasing polarizatioon in outcomes for children based on how well off they are if every policy has to be primarily of benefit to those who can already afford good food.

peppapigonaloop if that's what the school are saying about the funding it is untrue the funding is there for every child in reception and KS1.

It was in the gov study.It was for reading and 2.2 for maths.The results were better for ks2(but not much)who aren't having them.

My point was as there weren't particular advantages for the non disadvantaged kids let's focus on more of the disadvantaged from 4 until 18.

Also if the free school meals study was so reliable and impressive and a guarantee of a whole 2 months improvement I do so hope they will be raising expectations by two months across the board in KS1 and raising the bar accordingly in Sats.

That equates to them making two months more progress than similar children who weren't in the pilot which could equal a whole year ahead by the time they are transferring to secondary!

The number of students achieving expected level at KS1 in reading is nearly 90%. There are only another 10% points to increse by. A increase by 1.9% is nearly a fifth of the possible increase available. That isn't so insiginificant. And as I said it is a threshold measure. It completely misses any attainment above that.

How do you propose the disadvantaged are better targetted? Extending FSM without making them universal doesn't actually do the job. We are spectacularly bad at helping out the less advntaged in schools. Policies constantly lead to greater gaps, even when they are ostensibly intended to help. And yet here we have a policy that demonstrably does the job and you are against it?

"Does the job" For a start many schools aren't even getting the same quality and portion size as those carried out in the study.There seems to be a massive difference across the country going by threads on here.My dc's school dinners and just about every school I've ever taught in bare little resemblance to those described by those involved in the study.

I'd also like a bit more re staffing levels and how/if kids were actually made to eat it all ie if schools in reality don't do the same and have the same resources as the study it makes it kind of void and there is a fair amount of cash at stake.

When did they actually try raising the fsm threshold?

I would genuinely like to see statistics on children who actually eat worse as a result. Not in pilot areas where they got the good stuff but in other places where kids are having pasta and jacket potatoes and a shrivelled sausage if there's any left. I want to see stats on those. Because averages mean that some may well have done worse than before even though it's taken as a positive because others did better.

Why are you assuming the food in the pilot areas was different?

Our meals were no different during the pilot to what they were before and after.

But from what you've said that is very different to what the vast maj are getting up and down the country.

Fsm haven't just been rolled out to your 3 pilot areas but the entire country,it does actually matter what everybody else is getting or am I missing something.

It was clearly better in the schools they picked than in many others. I don't see how else given the reports on mn and photos people have put on various threads how the meals were remotely contributing to academic improvements.

Either they picked schools where food standards were higher, some of the schools made last minute adjustments to.improve things befire their turn or they picked areas where there were significantly high numbers of children who didn't get fed or were fed rubbish.

My experience of school meals was a tired pale bloated child who went off many foods and who's health deteriorated.

I'm. Not alone going by the many threads on this subject.

How else do you explain with, All these reports of appalling food and kids not eating or being starving after school or living off plain jackets because everything else was meat and cheese based, how they got the results they did.

They tried raising the FSM threshold as part of the pilot. There were three pilot areas. One, Wolverhampton, extended FSM provision for children in primary and secondary rather than providing universal FSM to primary students. They didn't see an increase in academic performance.

Gileswithachainsaw they didn't pick schools. The pilots covered whole LEAs in 3 deprived areas of the country

The DFE doc states teachers were reluctant to attribute the small improvement in concentration in the afternoon to fsm as there were other healthy eating initiatives going on at the same time.

Can't see any direct ref to no increase in academic performance with the threshold increase but a ref to lack of info being an issue re take up.

Staff were increased by 30%!

It's all a moot point if other schools aren't having the same quality of food or portions.

And what really annoys me is that a couple of hard to prove percentage points comes before appeasing hunger and helping out hard up families in ks2 and 3. But I guess we shouldn't be surprised with this gov.

Kitchen staff were increased to cope with cooking and serving larger numbers ... our kitchen staff went from 2 to 3 (as you say 30% increase)

We have had our first 3 days of FSM at my school. In my class each day there were 6 or 7 out of 30 not taking up the FS, compared to about 50/50 last year. This is a big increase. Last week and this isn't too big an issue. The week after then the new EFS start on dinners too i when we will see how much of an issue it will be.

The LEA changed their minds on our school building work so we have no extra space to feed children. The y2s will probably have to have hot dinenrs in the classrooms. In colder weather or when wet the packed lunches already have to eat in classrooms. This is not great and hot meals will be even worse as food trays will need to be carried fromt he hall to the rooms used, and there potential for mess in the rooms.

But we will see.

The LEA is saying we may be having some bigger building work next summer but goodness knows how or where - our playground is already too small for the number of children really and we already have two outdoor classroom pods, and the building is an old Victorian one so limited ways to extend.

We also already have to use the kitchen of the next door junior school (separate school, shared land) - we will see how they cope too.

Deprived areas, so high number of children on fsm anyway and others with parents just above the threshold but still struggling,.

What would have happened if it was done in a more affluent area

seaguls - this fsm meal plan didn't actually come from this Government iirr,.

No Gileswithachainsaw you can live in a deprived area and not be eligible for FSM and you can have affluent parents ...

They didn't have to continue with it or give Cleggy carte blanche to act as Mr Bountiful.But then old DC is friends with Dimbleby(owner of a catering chain). Yet another money making op to go with academy and nursery chains.

The report says they were schools with a high proportion of fsm eligibility.

They didn't continue with it ... It was a two year pilot ending in 2009
Labour we're looking at the evidence before introducing it nationally but a general election happened

mrz I was told by my school that they only receive funding for the 85% of pupils who had school meals last year. They were assessed at some point in the last term. presumably they have to make up the rest from somewhere else in the budget? no idea on that when pressed they were reluctant to discuss where the money comes from if 100% of kids take it up.