Would you want to know if you were paying £1.60 a day for your child's school lunch and they were scraping it all in the bin?

[sandyballs]

DD keeps telling me that one of her friends does this, she just eats the pudding but scrapes the entire main course into the bin. They are in Year 1 and the dinner ladies allow this if they have tried a tiny bit.

Now I would appreciate another mother telling me this, but not sure if everyone would. Views please.

God yes, I would - what a waste of money and food!

I would start with packed lunches instead (at our school they always had to bring home anything they didn't eat so you could tell) (unless they'd given it away I suppose )

I'd want to know. This is one of the reasons why my dds have packed lunches. (The school makes them bring anything not eaten home with them, including rubbish like banana skins and so on.)

OTOH 5-year-olds' versions of things are not always 100% reliable, so perhaps in your position I'd find a way of mentioning it to the other mum in a semi-light-hearted way (e.g. 'My dd said that on Tuesday she and [other woman's dd] only ate their pudding and scraped the rest in the bin. Do you think that's right? Was your dd starving when she got home?') and see how she reacts.

Great minds WendyW!

As a parent I would want to know.

As a dinner lady we have to report when a child doesnt est their lunch, It is also down to the teacher to inform the parents, which we have found that in our school rarely happens, so other then the dinner ladys being in the playground at home time and infroming the parents there is no way of us letting the parents know what is going on. Also there isn't enought dinner ladys in the dinner hall to be able to monitor what the children are eating. Think the school needs to have a book in which the childs name should be put into if they havent eaten their lunch, the book should be taken to the office at the end of lunch and then a standard photocopied letter could be done to send home to the parents.

Yes, I'd want to know.

No, I really wouldn't care. If someone told me DD wasn't eating her lunch I'm afraid my response would be "so what?". I'm sure your DD's friend gets fed at home. DD is a great little eater but (on my side) she comes from a family of school lunch refuseniks, my mum even lost her role as a school prefect (aged 15) because of her refusal to eat the school lunches.

If it was a regular thing (as opposed to an occasional dislike of what is on offer)I'd expect the school to notify me , if only to give us the opportunity to find an alternative or discuss it with the child. However in practice our kids eat better there than at home (dd has had a sticker award for a clean plate a few times). tbh if they don't eat well at lunchtime I think it would be self evident in behaviour later in the day. Agree with ellbell, not sure I'd make sweeping assumptions based on one comment from your dd though.

Yes.

School dinners are a waste, IMO.

Packed lunch.

Your friend probably knows doesn't she? Kid probably comes home hungry and cranky.

I used to trade bits of my packed lunch off.

school lunches rule!

But yes, I'm sure the mother knows anyway, surely?

Not at £1.60/day they don't.

Holy shit! That's a wad of cash at the end of the year.

Especially if you have more than one child.

I'd be annoyed that my child was being given a pudding at lunch time!

the pudding is the best bit for ds1 - they get custard a lot!!
SD - why would you be annoyed about puddings?

Nothing wrong with a pud at lunch. When my ds goes to school he'll have school dinners and just sandwiches for tea so he'll just get a yoghurt or fruit after that.

I grew up in a country where you bring your own lunch to school, so to me school lunch means a healthy sandwich, a piece of fruit and maybe a yogurt or something. Pudding is something I think of as a special (occasional) treat after dinner.

I hated the packed lunch because if I gave dd1 a yoghurt, she would open it, take one bite then have to put the rest back in-a lovely treat for me to open the dripping lunch box with everything coated in steaming rancid yoghurt! Then a child of another religion criticised her eating a ham sandwich, so now ham it seems is off the menu forever for her. They weren't allowed chocolate or crisps, and I ran out of inspiration.

I was overjoyed when she went back to school dinners.

Lots of kids seem to eat nothing IMO, and it doesn't always correlate with their behaviour.

Well ours are £1.45 actually but I think it's good value.

There's no way I could feed DS1 for that money. he eats a lot mind you. If I had a fussy eater I might think again.

But typical lunch for him might be lasage, brocolli, potatoes, tomato, cucumber, grated carrot, rice salad, bread, apple crumble and custard and a carton of milk. Hmm not bad then.

BTw I think pudding is OK if they have eaten main course. Fruit is always avaailable and mine often pick that.

At senior school isn't it great when they can walk to the local shop for sweets and a sausage roll

My DD proclaims " I HATE jamie oliver"

I used to do dinner lady when they needed someone extra. The little ones were supposed to ask before they started their desert and also ask to leave.
We were supposed to encourage them to eat more if they hadn't eaten their main course before they went on to desert etc.

AT my children's school they have now allow the children to select their food in advance as they found that with the older children especially they had run out of choice. Also they have a packed lunch option, which my daughter likes.

OK expat have been thinking about this.

2x brown rolls, 80p for 6 so 25p
2 x slices of (nice!) ham - about 50p
orange - 25p
2 inches cucmber - 80p a go so about 20p
4-5 cherry toms - about 20p
That's £1.40 and I haven't even put in a bit of flapjack or similar.
This is what DS1 would need for packed lunch. I mean of course it could be cheaper but I think it shows that school dinner is not bad valu e- as long as yr DCs eat it of course

I wouldn't be too bothered. I know what she likes and what she doesn't and since school provides a weekly menu of what's on, I can see when she'll be hungry and give her a snack for break which will make up for it and make sure that I have something available for school pick up time.

DS2's secondary school canteen charges 20p for 2 cream crackers

Food at school is obviously going to cost more than at home because it involves paying staff to serve and clear up.

I don't think it would do any harm to mention it (in an entirely light-hearted, non-judgemental sort of way) to the mother. But I'm not sure I would particularly want to know, myself.

DD1's appetite is small and I know that there are many days when she has one mouthful of each thing on her plate, plus wads of pudding. The puddings are reasonably filling (probably deliberately so), so she's not starving and I can get plenty of veg and protein into her later in the day.

For me, £1.60 is money well spent to avoid making a packed lunch every morning, even if she does waste some of it. And its a great investment in broadening her appetite. She now thinks that salmon and watercress pasta is "yummy" , which is nothing short of a miracle!