If your children have school dinners...(asking a favour here, pretty please!)

[marthamoo]

Can you please ask them what kind of things they have? Since the blessed Jamie O stuck his finger in the big school dinner pie ds1 has been having more and more bizarre meal combinations - so much so that I'm inclined to switch him back to packed lunches) Some examples over the last week:

pasta and baked beans (as in a pile of plain pasta, a pile of baked beans), chocolate chip cookie for dessert.

shepherd's pie, with sliced potato topping, with roast potatoes and peas (not too bad - but potatoes and potatoes)

tuna pasta bake and croquette potatoes (I thought they weren't to have potato 'products' any more unless home made - I am slightly sceptical at them moulding weeny piles of mash into cylinder shapes and coating them in breadcrumbs - for hundreds of children),

pasta and baked beans (seems a bit of a fave this - twice in one week) but this time with carrots

And today - I think the best so far - croquette potatoes (again), cabbage ...and a pile of grated cheese.

I don't even think he's eating many of the vegetables ie., he loves cabbage but said he couldn't eat this as it was "slimey and watery" - seems to be a common theme, both school sweetcorn and school peas are "not like the ones you give me, Mum" - ie., school's are cheap, rather than Green Giant and Bird's Eye

I'm paying £1.60 a day for this weird and wonderful fare! Is anyone else's child having such off-the-wall meals?

These don't sound like complete meals. Are you sure your ds isn't just selecting bits he wants to eat from the full menu?

Also don't you get a menu? We do - it is a months worth of meals which then gets repeated until the term finishes. We get one sent home and there is one posted on the kitchen door at school.

No, no menu - we did get one ages ago when the catering company changed...but nothing since. That's the thing - they do sound so bizarre that I wonder if ds1 is just picking odd combinations himself but he says not - he says that is what he gets given, with little scope for choice. The way he describes it, by the time his year get in (after the infants) that is what is left - though they have 'more food' in tins for the Year 5 and 6s. I don't know how much of this is accurate (because it sounds appalling) and how much is how ds1 interprets what is going on. He is very much a head in the clouds kind of child.

agree with lm and mm, sounds like he is just picking the bits he wants. we get a menu sent home too and that was the reason my kids dont have school meals. it proudly announces they only get chips once a week but they have things like potato smiles and other variations on that theme almost every day. apparently there is as much salt in 3 potato smiles as in a bag of crisps! (that wasnt mentioned on the menu btw). menu did sound more sensible than what your ds is having tho. switch to packed lunches, then you can join in with the joy of lunch box envy

oh oops, you're mm arent you. am tired. agree with lm

mm that doesn't sound great does it.
I now have dd as well as ds1 at school and so get a full and detailed picture of school lunch,...sometimes
We get a menu and in fact it does tally. Yesterday they had roast pork, carrots, green beans and mashed potato except ds1 doesn't like the school mash (?) followed by jam sponge and custard or for dd, biscuit. Home made biccies always on offer.
Monday it was lasagne and garlic bread (they certainly ate that from their breath lol). Today dd was ill but ds1 had noodles with chicken and some veg can't recall what. Anyway you get the picture. DS1 also ofetn has cucumber and tomatoes "in a bowl" which is clearly an optional extra on a regular basis.
I'm quite happy with this (we only pay £1.35 as well) as it is all cooked on the premises, chips once a week etc. I'm also too lazy/busy in the am to do packed lunches tho if I felt they weren't eating their cooked meal (as I know some children won't) I guess I might have to switch.

Today's meal was tuna pasta bake, garlic bread and grated carrot. Yesterday she had hotpot with potato topping, roast potatoes, grated carrot (they have a lot of grated carrot!) and cabbage - she detests cabbage at home but apparently school cabbage is delicious. Other meals have been things like roast lamb with roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, mange tout and carrot, sausage casserole with rice, sweetcorn and broccoli, bacon and sausage plait with mashed potatoes and baked beans. The pudding always seems to be cake and custard (although I think there are a variety of different puddings like flapjack and bakewell tart which dd identifies as cake).

Listening to what she tells me, they can choose from a variety of food, so where the combinations have been weird and wonderful (pasta and baked beans have featured here too!) it's been her choice to have them.

I am going to have a school meal with her on Monday (oh frabjous day! Caloo calay!) so I guess I'll soon find out for myself whether the meals are as good as the school claims them to be.

How are you wangling that WWB?
I would love to see the school food.
Had reservations about school dinners ( I don't do s**t food) but I asked for a menu and while not what I'd cook I can live with it.

Some mothers complain at paying £1 60.
You get what you pay for imho.

I would if I had the slightest chance of finding it! He always refuses to tell me which is a bit of a concern.

moondog, they've invited all of the parents to come and have a meal with their children as part of their healthy eating awareness week. They started a new healthy eating kick in August, and they want the parents to see how it's working. Even the children who take a packed lunch have been asked to have a school meal with a parent - presumably to try and encourage more children to have school meals (which the school can control the quality of) rather than packed lunches (which they can't).

Scaryclary and WWB - those sound more balanced meals. I'm going to go in and ask for a menu.

I'm not quite sure what your last comment means, moondog - I pay £1.60 a day of which I believe the money actually spent on food is something like 21p. Paying more wouldn't make any difference unless they spent the extra on food, and not overheads (I'd love to know where it all goes as dinner ladies are on a pittance). My 'complaint' (if indeed it is that - I need to know if I'm getting a true picture from my dippy son) is that school dinners are supposed to be improving, not getting worse.

Oh great idea WWB!
(Might suggest it in next PTA meeting)

mm,I think £1 60 is a paltry sum.
Your point about only a small portion of it going on the actual food holds true for many things-wine is the same.

If you are bothered about the quality of them,the only answer is to make your own.

I think it's a brilliant idea, even though I'm not looking forward to school cabbage and sitting on chairs made for 5 year olds!

Moo, do you think that they would let you have a copy of the weekly menu if you asked? Or perhaps you could ask to have a word with the cook? I know that I could do either of those at dd's school, just wondered if your school would be so amenable.

This week:
Mon Lasagne/ veg lasagne + carrots & peas
Tue Meat feast pizza/tomato pizza + s/corn & baked beans
Wed Lamb cruch & gravy / cheese n onion crumble + roast potatoes + fresh veg medley
Thurs Chicken chow mein/veg chow mein + peas & s/corn
Fri Tuna & s/corn bake / spicey bean bake _ green salad + chips

Every day can also choose salad bar. All prepared fresh on site

Well, I have no experience of mass catering, but 4 x £1.60 is £6.40 - I can feed 4 people pretty well on that. I see your point though, I couldn't do the same on 84p. But this Government says they can feed children healthily in schools for that - and claim they are doing. That's what I really want to know about - hence my post. And it sounds like wwb and scaryclary's schools are doing pretty well.

So I'm really none the wiser Either ds's school dinners are rubbish, or he's picking weird stuff off the menu. He doesn't want to go back to packed lunches, btw.

And milliways - that sounds pretty good too. Thanks for that.

My children didn't have school dinners until we moved this year (West Sussex, where we used to live, don't do them). At the new school, they started off keen to have the lunches and appeared to like them but when I went to an open day and they had smaples of lunch on offer, I have to say it looked and tasted disgusting!

Ds2 and dd asked for packed lunches this term, but when they kept on leaving bits of the lunch I had provided, and making the lunches took all my breakfast time, I decided they could go back to school dinners.

Anyway, good luck with the tasting WWB. My sample was really horrid!

Thanks, lonelymum ... I was hoping that wouldn't be the case

Although dd says the food is delicious, and according to the dinner lady who looks after them in the dining room, her plate is always cleared so perhaps it won't be that bad!

Actually I am in school all day on Monday and we are having lunch - we are interviewing staff but I am quite keen to have school lunch. Wonder if that will be possible?
marthamoo I wonder if yr ds is just choosign odd combos. Can you see if you can get a menu and then speak to someone about encouraging him to make more balanced choices? The dinner ladies must have to advise the children a lot I would have thought, in our school we are only talking 4-7 yos who are hardly used to selecting their own food!

mm,the only way you'll know for sure is to get the menu....

Anyone read last Sunday's Observer Food Monthly btw??
Very intersting article about obesity and health problems amongst Hispanic kids on the Texas/Mexican border and the heroic efforts of govt. health woorkers to combat the problem.
Apparently a favourite snack is a soft drink (which is a litre and a half in size-that is over two pints) and a bag of crisps. Costs less than $1

The Dinner Lady cookery book by Jeanette Orrey is great-- our school started a health kick just before the Jamie thing this year and, while our cook is doing brilliantly (can send you some menus if you want mm)I lent this book to her recently to add a bit more variety. each recipe in the book gives quantities for 4 or 96 people! It's worth a look, as it shows just what can be done.

Also, can you ask whether the food is replenished for each year group? Because if pasta and baked beans is all that's left after the other years have snarfed the good stuff, that's pretty annoying!

DS school lunches are delicious and I keep teasing him by saying why hasn't he bought me home some in his bag or pocket.

They are all cooked on site freshly

The menus are sent out each half term and are called week 1, 2, 3, etc.

He chooses some strange combos too {he is 10 years old and in class 6} and has been having them for years but sometimes he just chooses weird choices

DD's menu improved this year. Can't remember exactly what she gets but it's things like chicken pasta with veg, mousakka, roast chicken (roast beef alternate weeks), fish always on a Friday and something else.

They get the option of fresh fruit or yoghurt for pudding except on Friday when they get a "good girl lolly".

They don't get a choice other than having the veggie option. It's much better than even last year and far better than 2 years ago when things like processed chicken were on the menu.

Hers is included in her school fees.