No lunch at school

[TowerTower]

Do some parents not feed their kids at school? My son says a lot of the kids keep asking him to buy them food and some he has said hes never seen them getting lunch ever and you might say oh maybe they are not hungry but these are the same kids that are asking him to get them food so they obviously are hungry. Is this common in secondary schools for parents to not provide their child with a lunch? I am by no means rich but surely feeding your child is a priority?

Just because they're asking him to buy them food, doesn't necessarily mean they're hungry, probably more that they see him as a soft touch.

Some kids might've eaten their packed lunch at break time.

As stated these kids do not eat at all, my son is friends with some of them (not all of them) he says they never have food

I would say it’s unusual for kids to have no lunch or no money for lunch every day, especially if it’s a whole bunch of them

At secondary school? Quite possible that the parents expect the kids to make their own lunch, and the kids can’t be arsed doing it. I still make my daughter’s lunch (because I’m making my own anyway) but I am told that many of her friends’ parents do not. I can’t remember when my mother stopped making my lunch, definitely wasn’t doing it by year 9 but I can’t recall before that.

Maybe they don't need it then.

A good breakfast and an early dinner means I often skip lunch.

They shouldn't be begging off of your DS though, so they probably do see him as a soft touch.

You keep saying that like you want the problem to be my son, he doesn’t buy them lunch.

Could their parents be giving them money to buy lunch (secondary school) and they are spending it on other things? They might hope to persuade other kids to feel sorry for them?

You pay online

I wonder if their parents are giving them money but they’re choosing to keep it and spend it on other things?

Do you know that they definitely don’t have money on their school account? My son won’t take a packed lunch, but the queues are frequently so bad that he can’t be bothered queuing up for lunch. So it may look to others that he hasn’t been provided anything. There is however plenty of money on his dinner account.

It is worrying if they’ve not even got that though.

Cross post!

It’s all done online

Im taking it they don’t ask other kids for food though?

They are probably taking advantage if in secondary but I would raise it with the school (confidentially so there’s no come back to him) just in case there’s something untoward happening, it’s probably fine but you never know and then you’ve done all you can.

The problem is not your son, I have no idea why you've taken that from what I've said?

The point is, that there very likely is no problem.

Many kids skip lunch but will try and pull a fast one and ask a mate to shout them a slice of pizza.

If children are expected, ie it is a legal requirement, to be at school for the whole day they should be fed at the taxpayer's expense.

Lots of parents barely feed their children at all. Working with poorly behaved children, they rarely have breakfast.

If rge kid has no money on their account, the school will provide a basic meal and then recover the money from rhe parents, oe my kids school allows the account to go overdrawn . Persistent offendees are considered to be neglecting their child and will be repirted to SS as such

Disagree 100%

When my GC were at school they sometimes didn't want to waste their lunchbreak queuing up and eating food. They preferred a pack lunch but that involved making it.

My DC were at secondary 10 years ago and even then it was all done on a pre pay card. Parents loaded it electronically on a weekly or monthly basis, and obviously it could only be used in the school canteen.

Far removed from the days when I saved my lunch money and spent it on fags from the corner shop

No-one here can really answer the question about why these specific kids aren't having lunch, OP. Maybe raise a safeguarding concern with school if you have credible reason to believe they're not being adequately fed by their parents?

How can you disagree? Children don't deserve to have food? You don't like children eating when it might mean that a child gets food when their parent might be able to afford to feed them? So you don't like that children in primary school get a free lunch? Yeah, fuck them kids.

Is it possible that these kids are eligible for free school meals (FSM) but the parents aren’t claiming? Food poverty does continue into secondary school and the school I work in does have quite a number of claimants.

If staff noticed that some students were asking others to pay for their lunch regularly it would be looked into, to see if they genuinely had no money or packed lunch ever from parents, or
they are just trying to blag some food off another student.

I don't think so. It's part of a parent's responsibility to provide food for their children, whether they are at home, at school or anywhere else. They can send the child in with a packed lunch or pay for school meals or give the child a food allowance to get a Tesco meal deal, but it does not become someone else's responsibility just because the child is out of the parent's sight.