Time limit for school lunches?

[undercovamutha]

My DD has had a bit of a stomach bug over the last few days, but as she was feeling a lot better she went into school today.

When I asked her if she had eaten her lunch (she hasn't eaten much for a couple of days), she said she stuggled to eat her meal, but they had her favourite pudding. However apparently when she had just started eating it she was told that it was time to go out to play and that she had to leave her pudding. She left it and went outside, and was then starving when she got home.

She is only in reception so may have got the wrong end of the stick, or be exaggerating what she was told, but it has got me thinking. Does anyone know if schools wait for the kids to finish eating (within reason) before they go outside to play, or if there tends to be a time limit?

If they have different "sittings" for the age groups they may hurry them out like that. DD1 asked me to stop putting certain things in her lunchbox as they take too long to eat.

Reception have an hour to eat at our school.

After that we hunt them out, so they can stretch their legs, before they go back into the class room.

IMO if she had eaten her main course, I would not be be too bothered about her pudding.

Our school rushes them. It's a real bugbear of mine. They're hurrying them after 15 minutes.

I don't think DD has anywhere near an hour for lunch - think the whole of lunchtime is only 50 mins IIRC. I would guess 15-20 mins for eating is probably more like it.

She didn't eat much of her main meal today (cos of feeling a bit bleurgh and picky after the bug), so really needed to have something in her stomach - even if it was cake and custard!!! I think there should be adequate time for both main and pudding.

My DSs school have the year 1s and 2s in first for lunch and then the reception children go in. This gives the reception children more time to eat their lunches.

Definitely rush them out at dcs school and ds often comes home with items uneaten. He's a chatterbox though so that probably doesn't help .

Bugbear of mine too - DD is the world's slowest eater and I was told very sternly that 'she will learn to eat quicker'. Well she's been in preschool two years now and guess what - she still hasn't managed to eat her whole lunch - ever

Oh my god - and I thought it was just my DD ! This is a huge issue for her at the moment - she takes a packed lunch and she has been begging me not to put too much in her lunch box because she does not have enough time to eat it, ends up starving and also sometimes gets told off if she has not had enough time to eat it !! It's madness.

OP - you are not in North London by any chance, are you? Just wondering whether our DCs may be going to the same school of draconian rules !

I don't think it's necessarily to do with draconian rules - some schools have dining halls while others have one main hall which is used for everything. In the case of the latter, that main hall will be timetabled for almost every minute of the day so there is no time between the end of lunchtime and the beginning of the next lesson.

In a short period of time there must be a huge turnover - the entire school using it to eat in x amount of time, followed by a short time to clear away everything so that it's fit for use for the next lesson.

Yes, same at our school.

There's two sittings (infants and juniors). Infants go first, and as soon as they have finished eating they can go out to play.

After 25 minutes the juniors come in, so any last stragglers of infants are really chivvied along at this point.

My 4 y.o (reception) child was distraught last week because all the other children on his table had finished and gone out to play without him (slight over-reaction, admittedly, but he's only just started staying for lunch at school).

I think they should at least let them go one table at a time, when every child on the table has finished eating.

We have this at our school too. Ds comes home most days with things left in his lunch box that he didn't have time to eat.

We have one hall which we use for everything. We like the children to be out by about 12.30, 12.40 at the latest so the hall can be cleaned and cleared away ready for the next lesson.

BUT we don't rush children and if they are still going then we make arrangements for the slower ones to take their lunch (be it school dinners or packed) and sit on one of the picnic benches outside, weather permitting. If it's wet then we just let them stay in the hall for as long as it takes.