Food in choir boarding schools

[OboeMum]

Interested to know how chorister parents have found the food offered by boarding choir prep schools? It seems to me that these children (from 8 years old) work really long hours and I assume schools treat them like young 'athletes' in terms of nutrition to give them the sustained nutritional needs required to help them grow physically and flourish both in their academic work and singing.

Schools often publish their food menus.

DS is next to a school like that and the kitchen and dining room windows are in the basement so visible from the pavement. It all looks and smells very nice (and clean). Bowls of fruit on the side too.

I don’t know if choristers particularly need a special diet though!

Agreed menus are a good starting point but I've often found that school menus don't necessarily tell you cooking methods or provenance of food. I'm not implying they need elite supplements just comforting and sensible foods that give them sustained slow release energy and a reasonable quantity of fresh fruit and veg. Some choristers start their day at 7am and finish after 7pm so that's a long working day for adults...let alone children. I read on another thread about choristerships that parents felt there were way too many biscuits as a conveniance food for example!

Have you visited the school - maybe not in the days of Covid - and we have always been offered a lunch in the school canteen - these days they do seem to focus on healthy options and meat/veggie/special diets etc.

Ask the school (sometimes they will go into the food and prep) and if you know any parents, ask what the children think of the food.

Children usually get biscuits don’t they as a treat at school?

Thanks! Yes... biscuits as treats fine! I'm not an extremist but having never thought twice particularly about what my other children at state day schools eat for lunch I realise it's quite something else to rely on a school 24/7 for your growing child's needs! Someone wrote that they felt their child survived on shop bought biscuits at their boarding choir school and another that the lack of care and attention given by staff to ensure their child ate sufficient fruit resulted in constipation. I was surprised to read this in 2020 given what we now know about diet. I'm looking for a school which follows NHS guidelines as a minimum but also allows choristers treats as and when...especially as away from home and no doubt there's some degree of comfort in eating slightly naughty homely treats!

Boarding chorister school? well I learn something every day.

@OboeMum

Agreed menus are a good starting point but I've often found that school menus don't necessarily tell you cooking methods or provenance of food. I'm not implying they need elite supplements just comforting and sensible foods that give them sustained slow release energy and a reasonable quantity of fresh fruit and veg. Some choristers start their day at 7am and finish after 7pm so that's a long working day for adults...let alone children. I read on another thread about choristerships that parents felt there were way too many biscuits as a conveniance food for example!

Surely ALL boarding schools should be meeting the nutritional needs of their students, irrespective of a specialty or not? Each school will have differing ideas / menus / cooks etc. I think you would need to approach the specific school you are interested in and ask them directly, not all boarding school fare is created equal!

They're allowed to be singing at the moment??

No chocolate?

I have always been told chocolate is bad for the voice. This is excellent when you're chaperoning backstage as it gives you a great excuse to confiscate all chocolate which saves hours of trying to sponge it out of (white) costumes (looking at you Sound of Music Children)

@Witchend, yes indeed, no chocolate backstage, and no Ribena!

I've known vocal coaches advise that apples are also bad for the voice; not sure how true that is.

OP, I have a DS who is a boarding chorister and the school food is very good, but it's the same food that the non-chorister day pupils get. Not sure that the energy requirements for singing while standing still are quite the same as for singing in more active contexts, such as prancing around a stage in musical theatre.

Thank you @ChoirDilemma - good to hear first hand from an actual chorister parent! It's not really the activity of singing I think they need a good diet for but more than length of the day. For example most places seem to have an hour's morning rehearsal before school and instrumental practice and then it's straight into the school day. I'd want to know that the school set them up with something sustaining so that they didn't start lessons already a bit low on blood sugar! A bowl of sugary cereal or white sliced bread and jam for breakfast for example, to do a whole morning's school would put any chorister at a disadvantage to day boys coming in with tummy full of porridge or weetabix or wholemeal bread or eggs etc for breakfast. We are constantly told as parents that for our children to concentrate at school we should give them a sustaining breakfast. I've heard of this still happening in choir schools in this day and age (rationale being nothing more than 'the boys like it!') and was keen to find out what chorister parents' experiences have been as I'm sure enjoying school nosh when your child is there 24/7 goes a long way to them being a happier child! I was impressed by King's Cambridge who seem to follow a low sugar regime but strike a great balance with tweaking their recipes to provide homely, comforting freshly cooked food and snacks that children enjoy. That's all that I'm looking for really - but I've some places just don't seem to be able to get it right and don't even manage consultations with parents on it despite being asked so I've excluded such schools from my initial choices. Seems a crying shame for any school to let itself down like this, as it seems pretty easy to me to strike a sensible happy balance between healthy eating and enjoyable foods children like, and I personally would feel irresponsible as a parent knowing you've given up my young, growing child to obligatory boarding as chorister but discovering a school didn't particularly get their chorister food arrangements right when it's hardly rocket science!

DH and I were both choristers. We both remember bourbons, jammy dodgers, custard creams and squash in the vestry before services - or even the dreaded pink wafers - and DH was also given milky sweet tea from when he was a probationer (my parents didn't allow me caffeine until I was a teenager). Good memories

How many are left?
A handful?