School Dinner Money: Oliver Twist

[roberta3]

My children have just come home from school with a letter saying that if their dinner money falls into arrears by over £30 a child will be "given bread, butter and a piece of fruit" and will not be allowed school dinners until the debt is paid off.

Fair enough chasing the parent for the money but what do people think about the public humiliation of a young child, just cos their parents are slack or in dire straits?

How does your school deal with dinner money debts?

I'm just incredulous re the action taking by this so called "Christian" school.

thats disgusting...

£30 translates into 3.5 weeks'-worth at ds's school. It seems pretty slack and careless to me for a family to forget to pay dinner money for 4 weeks. I would hope that the school would give warning that this is about to happen. Though I suppose that a family that was that slack would also be the sort of family that doesn't bother to read notes sent home with the child. Presumably a family in financial straits would be getting free dinners anyway. If not then its up to them to speak to the school and make some sort of arrangement.

we used to have to pay it upfront. not sure what they should do instead?

I'm actually surprised that £30 of dinner money debts occur! In our school if a child fails to bring their dinner money on Monday, they are still allowed a meal, but they have to bring their money in the next day.

Why should a child get meals every day if no-one is paying for them?

In two minds about this. I agree that debts should not be allowed - there is not enough money in the school dinner system to cover non-payers - but not sure about embarrasing the child like that. Although I do wonder whether they would actually do this and if it's not more of a threat.

At DSs school, arrears are "not allowed" but they are fairly vague about what would happen.

Oh God, I don't know. I really don't think it's on to humiliate a child in this way - it's not their fault is it?

At dss school, you get a "kick up the ar$e" letter mid way through the week if you've forgotten.

But obviously also agree its' not on to just not pay and the child continue to get school meals. It's a tough one - not sure how they should enforce this other than the way they are doing. Hopefully a parent wouldn't allow this to happen to their child and would send in a packed lunch or something.

I did get arrears over 30 quid once while my income support was being sorted, once it was sorted and the education welfare were informed they paid the arrears, so it can happen.

Yes, I suppose your circumstances can change quite suddenly, and 3-4w would probably not be long enough to get free dinners organised, but did you discuss it with the school asap, or did you let arrears build up, knowing that they would be paid in the end?

Sorry, didn't mean your circumstances, sparkleymieow, but anybody's IYSWIM.

I did keep the school informed but I know that soemtimes you tell one person and they don't tell the next person iykwim, so I was still getting reminder notes all the time