Choosing school dinners, how does your school do it?

[Bensonbluebird]

The DSs have only been back at school for two days and the complete rubbishness of the dinner choosing system has got me thinking that there must be a better way.

So this is how it works at the DSs' school, where the children choose their dinner option each day. Bear with me, this isn't easy to explain. .. There are two little white boards (about A1 size), one for infants, one for juniors. Each board has three dinner options written at the top of columns and at the bottom of the column is a bag with coloured tokens in it. On tables in front of the white board are trays for each class containing a label for each child who has dinners, the child picks up their label, sticks it on the appropriate column and takes a token from the bag at the bottom of that column, which they then take to their class and stick to a chart. So far so good.

The problem is that the school has 350 odd children, I don't know how many of them have school dinners, but they are all trying to choose their dinner in the same five minutes between the school doors opening and when they need to be in their classes. It is complete pandemonium and the labels are always going missing.

If your school has a good system and you have the patience to explain it to me, I promise I will be brave and call for a revolution.

My children's school, list of menus for 3 weeks sent home. I keep mine on the fridge and use it to decide which days my children would like dinners for. We pay for dinners on a Monday by just sending the money in. Child can request a jacket/salad/sandwich bag in advance (someone comes around the classes I think), but if they want a hot dinner they choose from what is there when they get to the front of the queue.

My school, same list of choices is sent home (County wide is the same) and they order on a Monday too. They get their own copy of the coming week's list weekly and order from there by circling what they want when they have the list at home. The lady who does the dinner money collects all the order menus on a morning, collates it all and the correct number of dinners are ordered. There are year 6s who do dinner duty in the hall whose job it is to sit there with a copy of all the lists and to remind the children what they ordered before they go to the hatch.

my DC's school you are either on packed lunch or dinners and you give 2 weeks notice to change

the dcs on dinners just pick either the meat or veggie offer when they get to the front of the queue

3 week rotating menu is publishe on the school website.
The children pick 1 of 4 colour coded options.
When they arrive at school in the morning, they use the electronic whiteboard in their classrooms to select their choice. I'm assuming the office has the means to centrally collate the data for the kitchen staff.
Done.

Oh - and children can pick and choose day by day if they want to swap between school dinners and packed lunches (so long as there is some money in their school account - which can be topped up on a Monday).

You can choose day to day whether to have school dinner or packed lunch. Menus were given to us before term started so we could see the choices.
Outside each classroom is a white board with three columns, meat school dinner, veggie school dinner or packed lunch. You or your child write their name in the appropriate column on the way into class and of you are choosing school dinner you give the teacher or TA the money. Simples.
Tokens and labels seem like a right palava. Viva la revolucion!

Thanks everyone, interesting that there are so many different ways of doing it. I think that the most important things to the head teacher at the DSs' school is that they have chosen before they get to the classroom and arrive ready to begin the school day, that the kitchen only cooks what is needed on the day, that they don't need to produce resources for the choosing system each week and that the school has a record of what each child has chosen.
She's only likely to accept a new system if it does all those things too.

We have a three week rotating menu too, and usually get the menu sent home (haven't yet this term though) and having chosen before you get to school seems like a good idea (I suppose there would always be some who have forgotten). I'd like to know more about how the whiteboard system works - if they could record thier choice while they registered that wouldn't take up too much time.

I'll report on progress!

menu ( 3 week rolling ) is sent home at start of term. There is main, veggie or Sandwich option. Apparently Jacket spud too but no one seems to chose it). Dinner tickets are bought from school office, preferably in advance. They are kept at home or in childs desk or by teacher for little ones who have school meal every day. Free meals Tickets look just the same, tend to be kept in desk or by teacher for little ones.

Each day your child is having a school diner they take a dinner ticket into class with their name and option choice written on the ticket. Tickets are handed in in class. collated by school office into a list for kitchen . That list states per year number of main, number of veg, number of sandwiches ( and which fillings). also has noted on ( by year) which children are having veg, which sandwiches, the rest are main choice.

So, when little jonny is whining that he didn't want the main choice he wanted sandwiches we ( I work as and MTA) can check on the list that he did ask for main, if there is more question we can go back to the stack of tickets held by the office). Sometimes we get a child not appear for lunch as they handed ticket in AND have a packed lunch from home. Sometimes a child forgets they have a packed lunch and rocks up for school dinner.

thats rediculous!
my school: 3 options. at lunch, children take their tray shout at the deaf cook choose their main, side and dessert.theres always a salad bar too. If on option runs out it's tough luck but its only yrs 5-6 (4 cllasses) that are last and they take turns. Usually they don't run out as they make more of the favourites. friends school is very old fashioned: no options.turrines *sp are put on tables and served ip by y6 kids. if you dont like it you go hungry :(

3 week rolling menu here too. No choice as smallish school and cooked on premises. Can choose Mon morning which days school dinners/pack lunch. pay weekly or half-termly in advance.

Benson - that sounds chaotic.

Ours is a small school (100 pupils) and meals ate cooked on the premises. There are two choices each day, a meat/fish one and a veggie one, with a 3 weekly rolling menu.

The children choose what they want when they queue up, but the ladies who cook and serve it know them well so have a good idea of what each child will like or choose.

Our school has a dinner register done each morning - there are two hot dinner options each day either red or green. When the dinner register is done the child says either red, green or sandwiches. It takes about 5 minutes at most. The child is given a sticker at lunchtime showing which colour they chose and the dinner lady is given a class by class list of who ordered what to make sure no-one tries to swap when they decided the other option looks more tempting

A menu is sent home the week before, with two copies which you tick to show the options you want ( veggie or main, choice of pudding or fruit). One tick stays at home as a reminder, one is sent to school. The school keeps a record of which child has ordered what, the dinner ladies serve the veggie children first, there are fewer of them, then the rest.

Part of doing the register at our school is asking if the children want red (meat), green (veggie) or yellow (packed lunch) band. They get given a rubber bracelet in their colour which they hand to the dinner ladies in exchange for their lunch.
The TA keeps a tally chart for the office during register. We pay into a dinner account whenever. It's a small school (140 pupils).
System seems to be working absolutely fine.

ContinentalKat - that sounds like a good simple system. I know if I suggest anything that involves more work for the ofice staff it's not going to go down well, but I think I could sell an extra column in the register as being less work (they do that on the computer anyway, it would be easy to collate the data)

What I don't really understand is why the children even need to make a choice, the kitchen must know that if pizza is on the menu 99% of them are going to choose that!

you'd think so about pizza. BUT if pizza is the veg choice some families will prefer their child to have meat, or not to have cheese ,or a bread based meal, or the child prefers the other option... I do think that a kitchen team get to know their school and the likely trends in preferences.

Our school have recently stopped offering flavoured milk as so few children were choosing over water. Fish and roast dinners are always popular. Not so curry, chilli, cassrole type dishes.