AIBU re school lunches?

[Stillnoidea]

DS's school serves cooked lunches 'family style' ie they serve food to a table of ~10 children and the children help themselves. The school does not allow packed lunches. There are some adults supervising but there is no portion control as the children serve themselves. Over this school year there have been a number of times when DS has only got a very small lunch (eg I chicken goujon only) as the other items have run out on the table (in that case wraps and potatoes) or scraped their plate into the sweetcorn bowl for example.

Here's my AIBU: the school say it is DS's responsibility to ask for more. I really feel it is the school's responsibility to ensure they give him a proper portion. He's only 8! (and if he doesn't like the food obviously he's not going to ask for more).

I have raised this with the school several times and they just say they will supervise (which seems to fade away after a week or so) and that DS needs to ask for more.

At least with a traditional serving line the school knows they have given each child a proper portion to start with, and can also keep an eye on how much of it they eat. I don't think I'm being PFB as he's DC 3.

So, whose responsibility is it to ensure my child gets lunch?

Midday supervisor here. We absolutely do keep an eye on how much children eat. We're demented trying to get some of them to eat a reasonable amount. But this method of serving lunch sounds insane. What on earth are the school thinking?

We had this system when I was at school but back then the 'servers' who were selected responsible yr6 kids were too scared of getting into trouble to do anything than serve it all correctly. We did used to try and spot the bit of cake that had the most chocolate on and keep it for ourselves but that was a perk of being a server.

I would write to the head saying if they’re going to serve their lunches “family style”, you expect your DS to be allowed to eat his on a tray in front of the telly.

My 8yo (currently awaiting an ADOS, to be fair) would not be able to cope with that at all. He’s fine at the family dinner table, but the perceived injustice of missing out would ruin the rest of his day and impact his learning. It sounds miserable. Yes to emergency sandwiches. I would also make a note each day of what he’s had, maybe for the rest of the year & consider a chat with the head of governors about it. As a school governor, I would want to know. There should be the option to send a packed lunch.

Sorry I think this is lovely, so much nicer than queuing up to be served ( which makes me think of prison tbh), much more natural and sociable. I think your son needs to be more assertive tbh. A teacher on each table would be nice, how else do children learn table manners ?

I do realise I am in the minority with this, eating en families was a bit of an obsession of my mothers.

Are they allowed to refuse sandwiches? I'd tell them they either sort out the portion management or you WILL be sending in a packed lunch.

Thanks for all the extra input. To answer a few of the Qs:

There are no yr6s currently as it is a new school, so maybe that is why it is not working as it should.

cosmic exactly!! and I also find it annoying that they are unwilling to look at other solutions, but only proposing variations of what they have been trying (and has been failing) all year.

suburban

still it may be nice but it isn't fulfilling the school's responsibility to ensure my child has lunch!

He does get plenty of eating en familie at home (so is as civilised as an 8yr old boy can be alien)

scooby I don't know - I was hoping someone on here might know.

These systems can work really well but, as others have said, it needs an adult or sensible y6 monitoring and portion control rules set out in advance.

It was the system we had at school when I was a child and it worked well. It was seen as being a really responsible job to be selected to be a 'server.'

I went to three primary schools and one had this. But we had mixed tables eg using the years you have now, on each table you had

2 year 6
2 Year 5
2 year 4

One of the year 6 was a 'prefect' and served up to the others.

No one on the table could start to eat until everyone was served.

Although the food came to table on one plate / dish there would be exactly 6 servings of everything.

Prefects also cleaned up afterwards and if you got to the hall early you helped set up, and proper places were laid with knives and forks.

I think that as it is a new school they have not got the system going properly so the children don't actually know what they are supposed to do.

If you can suggest something to the school, have a server, once the server has served then everyone puts their hand up and an adult checks each child has food.

After a week or two they will get into the habit of being fair.

Thanks sashh that is a good idea.

latest update (although probably of no interest to anyone but me ):

1st day back after half term and school have banned break time snacks for ALL of the class because some children have been bringing snacks that aren't fruit.

I didn't believe it when my child (who only ever has fruit) told me but apparently he is not wrong.

And I hadn't even threatened my emergency sandwiches yet!

I don't think no snacks is bad, they shouldn't really need snacks if they have a nutritious breakfast but that obviously means they have to get a decent size serving of lunch. I would have a word with them about the unfair serving that is going on.

I remember my junior school had this for a while. It was rubbish. The 2 older children who were supposed to be in charge of dishing out used to dish all the good stuff on to their plates and the younger children would get all the stuff they didn't want to eat. Decades later I still remember the day that I was dished up an entire plate of soggy cabbage for my lunch and nothing else - I've no idea where any adults were on that day. I don't remember any adult supervisor ever seeing what was happening. I was probably about 8 and shy so it was very hard to speak up. I did go home at the end of the day and tell my mum though. I was so relieved when she contacted the school to complain and our table servers' reign of terror came to an end!
It's a rubbish system.

little I think it depends on the child, and given they know that the lunch is an issue it's surprising they've taken out another source of food during the day.

(Or actually it's not really surprising as they don't agree lunch is an issue and think it is totally reasonable to not feed a child lunch!)

This is a common practice in private schools but there's an expectation that a member of staff is "sharing" the lunch with the children. Is that the case here? Are the staff not eating with the pupils?

So if they get a tray with lunch they will probably eat it but they wouldn't choose to ask for it if it isn't there.

Absolutely OP! DS was the fussiest eater on the planet and had school served a set menu family style he would have gone hungry all day, every day! Especially if the other kids were digging in first and leaving nothing, he would only have been inclined to "try" something new IF there had been some left......

Fortunately his school has a system where there are 2/3 choices and the pupils choose each morning before class starts, it's then served by line.

There are odd days he comes home hungry because he's just had a spoonful of peas and a yoghurt but these are very rare and he eats a far wider variety of food than I could EVER get him to eat at home!

No - just children on the tables

When I was at school there was 8 to a table and the two at the top picked up the food from the kitchen and then served it onto the plates which were passed down the table. The two servers got the last portions so they made sure there was enough for everyone. Also, every week we all moved up one place so that everyone had a turn serving.

I agree with you. If you're going to serve family style you need to supervise each table. The more bold kids will take all the good stuff and leave the shy kids with the dregs.