Tell us about school meals (or why your child doesn't have them) and you could win a £250 voucher for the store of your choice

[carriemumsnet]

The School Food Trust would like to know about the school meals in your child's school (or why you choose to give your child a packed lunch instead). They're also interested in your views of the school meals you had when you were a child. The survey is open to all mums in the UK with at least one child at school. Everyone who takes part will be in with a chance of winning a £250 voucher for a store of their choice.

Here's the survey again in case you missed the last link

[arwen]

On the whole ours are excellent. a 3 week cycle although always a roast weds fish fri but 2 options every day, veg or meat. My bugbear is that they choose in the morning at registration meat or veg but often by the time they get to the front of the queue there option has gone.What is the point in offering them a choice?

[MrsWeasley]

One issue I have with our school meals is the choice, over a week they are offered a great variety, from roasts, pasta to curries but the daily choice is limited
eg beef curry or vegetable curry but if you dont like curry you are stuck.
pasta with chicken or pasta with vegetables, what about those who don't like pasta?

[MumHadEnough]

Done

I'm in West Dunbartonshire and our school currently has free school meals for all p1-p3 children. He had them in p1 for the pilot of the scheme and has them now again in p3, its fab! I don't have to rake about for lunch money in the mornings or worry about packed lunches :D

[AtheneNoctua]

That's a fantastic idea, Fillyjonk. Didn't Jamie Oliver say a while ago that the way to teach children about nutrition is to give them compulsory cooking classes?

[Fillyjonk]

I've done it

only thing is, my kids are at what is technically a private school. The set up is a little different-the kids help prepare the lunch, as part of the curriculum. They also bring some of the food to be used. There is no separate charge for the food.

oh trust me to be to be difficult ;-)

[moosemama]

their meals not 'there' meals. Just noticed it, sorry.

[DMspecial]

Done. There is nowhere I can say that the school provides healthy meals but my child prefers rubbish.

[squilly]

Done.

[moosemama]

We are another veggie family who struggled when they were on school meals as there were never enough veggie options to go around, the dinner ladies apparently thought fish was a vegetable and my boys were fed either a salad wrap or baked potato almost every day. (Ds1 retches when he eats potato so they stood over him while he struggled to force it down!)

They also used to do strange things like give them a salad wrap with a plate full of overcooked, cold carrots, peas and sweetcorn. Apparently to make sure they get a 'balanced' intake.

I have been to 'bring your parents to lunch' day three times and was horrified every time at the poor quality of the food which was barely luke warm, overcooked and frankly completely unappetising, when surely they must have been pulling out all the stops bearing in mind the parents were going to be eating it as well.

Bizarrely they have won awards and some competitions for there meals - I honestly don't have a clue how.

On top of all that the dinnerladies were absolutely horrible to ds1 when he had only just started reception. Rather than helping him make his choice they shouted at him and told him to hurry up and stop holding up the queue. The poor little lad was so small he couldn't even see over the counter to tell what was on offer and has sight issues anyway so should have been given extra help - they did know about this. That coupled with all the noise in the echoey hall so he couldn't properly hear what they were saying to him meant he ended up just freezing in panic as he approached the counter. When I went to his 'bring your parents' day they had the audacity to say in front of me 'oh, here he comes, Mr Slowcoach Indecisive' and believe me, it wasn't said in a nice jokey way they were actually being bitchy to a four year old! Needless to say he went on to packed lunches the next day and has never looked back.

So now I give both of them a healthy packed lunch with a home made healthy treat such as apple, oat and raisin muffins or something similar each day. At least that way I know they are getting a good quality, well balanced meal that they are happy to eat and will finish.

[hippopotamouse]

Done!

[AtheneNoctua]

and in baby medicine
and in squash
and in drinks (i.e. fruit shoot)
and in sports drinks (except Gatorade)

The list goes on. And you exactly right. It is because it is cheaper. I am generally not a supporter of increased taxes, but I think nutrasweet shold be taxed so it is more expensive to use than sugar. Then we would see a reintroduction of sugar.

And the thing that REALLY annoys me is that manufactuers are allowed to market it like it's a good thing. Buy our drinks, it's got no artificlial flavours and it is sugar free. Turn over bottle, and read "aspartame". WTF?!?!? Not in my kids' lunch.

It's okay, I am walking away... breathe in... breathe out...

Athene backs away muttering "nutritious my ass"

[clumsymum]

Athene, that's my hobbyhorse too. I hate and detest the idea of these artificially produced sweetners, partly because we don't know the long-term effects of their use on growing bodies/brains, and because it is utterly unncessary in the majority of the population.

Sugar is not evil. Okay, it rots teeth if they are not cleaned (so clean them), and it adds weight if it isn't exercised away (so get the kids up doing excercise).

Main problem now is that artificial sweetners are cheaper than sugar, so tend to be used in tight budget scenarios (such as school meals).

[AtheneNoctua]

Hi Slng!

It is of course because the government has a target about school lunches. But, they don't have one about nutrition specifically.

I have one for them:

Stop feeding young children nutrasweet when they could have (moderate amounts of) good old fashioned sugar instead. (This obviously doesn't apply to certain groups, i.e. diabetic children)

Or how about this one:

Offer no crappy white bread... ever.

[slng]

What's wrong with packed lunch anyway? The survey gives me the feeling that school dinner is somehow preferable to packed lunches. I actually quite enjoy packing lunch for DS1 and he seems to enjoy having them. We have a good variety, and though I would like him to have a hot meal when it's cold he doesn't seem to be bothered. Maybe we are just weird, but DS2 is green with envy (he's in nursery and gets quite nice lunches cooked on the premises).

[AtheneNoctua]

"There never seemed to be any one-pot meals on the menu, which is a good way of getting vegetables into children who don't otherwise eat them. LEAs seem to equate absence of chips with healthy. "

Exactly!

If you want my kids to eat their veg you have to mix it in with the meal. Broccoli on the side will stay on the side. If you chop it up in risotto it will go unnoticed and be eaten with the rest.

[CanvasBags]

I let my DD have school dinners twice a week for a few terms because her younger sister was getting a hot meal at nursery and it meant I did not have to cook for them in the evening.

I was not terribly impressed by what she was eating. Eveything sounded so yellow. A sausage roll, piece of bread (wholemeal at least) and sweetcorn might not constitute unhealthy but does not scream healhty in my book either. If green and orange vegetables were available no-one was offering or coercing my 6 year old to choose them - which is a shame as she eats all vegetables at home.

There never seemed to be any one-pot meals on the menu, which is a good way of getting vegetables into children who don't otherwise eat them. LEAs seem to equate absence of chips with healthy.

[VulpusinaWilfsuit]

But I have to say, I just put my foot down on this issue and don't give in to packed lunch pressure. I think there is too much choice, in school, and at large, actually.

[VulpusinaWilfsuit]

I have echoed what clumsymum says here in my response. I don't think enough attention is being paid to the social and behavioural issues around eating together, playing etc.

I am a huge supporter of school dinners but think they are being thwarted by poor information, some poor services and crappy nutrition, and even where there's a good service (our school) lack of attention to what kids themselves want from their lunchtime. If packed lunch kids get to eat and go quickly and the older kids have to wait to get their hot lunch while all the littlies have theirs, then they are straining at the leash to take sandwiches.

I don't understand quite why a whole-school eating together thing can't work. Except, perhaps, for space issues. Perhaps that is one real issue to solve?

[AtheneNoctua]

Interesting point about the portion sizes. My DD eats about half what her peers eat. She would never ever finish. She would love to have school dinners but I have banned them on account that I suspect they are made our of crap. I say "suspect" because I don't actually know what is in it because Sodexho declined to share a list of ingredients with me. And if that's not suspicious behaviour I don't know what is.

[clumsymum]

My ds likes the school dinners (he'll eat anything anyway), but doesn't want to have school dinner cos his friend doesn't. At his school, packed lunches eat in a different room to the school dinner eaters. So ds takes a packed lunch so he can eat with his mate (which drives me potty, as I hate packing up every day).

[Blu]

ToAnswerYourQuestion - DS has ducked out of school meals for similiar reasons. The dinners are good. He likes most of them. But, as a selective veg eater, he doesn't like being forced eat the choice of veg if he doesn't like it, or the compulsory lettuce as an alternative.

So, he forgoes the otherwise excellent lunch and I make him a veg free packed lunch.And get fruit and veg down him at other meals. I wih they would just stop pressurising children to eat.

[IneedacleanerIamalazyslattern]

Done.
Dd goes to school dinners, she loves them we get fantastic selection here.
Menu sent out teice a year for spring/summer then autumn/winter.
SHe eats better at school dinners than packed lunch but does very occasionaly ask if she can get a packed lunch but always reverts back to her dinners.
She likes that she can usually choose a sandwich, yogurt and fruit OR a hot meal whatever she fancies at the time.
And she'll be P3 next year so will get one year of her free school meals and after that ds will be starting so he'll then get them.

[tkband3]

Done, but didn't answer q3, as there wasn't an option 'No choice as school doesn't cater for allergies'.

[snorkie]

my dc have always raved about their school dinners which I always took to be a great slight on my cooking. However, I've recently worked briefly at the school & eaten in the canteen & was tremendously impressed by the choice & quality. I don't know how much it costs as like hula it's included in the fees, but they are really, really nice. When I was at school the meals were all but inedible.