Free School Meals For All Primary In London?

[roses2]

Hi, a few months ago Sadiq Khan announced free school meals from September 2023 for 1 year for all primary.

I've heard nothing since and the school haven't mentioned it.

Does anyone know if it's going ahead for sure?

https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-mayor-does/priorities-london/free-school-meals

It is according to this council

https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/info/20025/schools_and_colleges/61/free_school_meals

Yes, definitely happening from September. Our school has been in touch with parents about it. I think it’s a brilliant policy, just hope it soon happens countrywide.

I hope countrywide they take a more pragmatic approach. I'd like to see access to free school meals and the thresholds substantially lowered so more can claim and with more ease, I'd also like to see extra benefits/money for those who have children with sensory needs for example which means they have to have a packed lunch and don't benefit at all from FSM. Those on decent wages who can afford to pay should do so- that includes me and DH so I'm not saying let the rich pay more, but there's much better ways imo to spend the money.

My school emailed me in July. My dd will get it in September

It’s a great idea - it’s only possible because of the excess in business rates in London so I don’t think countrywide is possible/how long it will last. Our school is doing it and carried out a survey of parents to find out what the take up will be - I guess they are thinking more parents will ditch packed lunch if it’s “free”.

London schools already get about twice the funding per child compared to South west, so a bit more won't matter.

The downside is that no new capital has been made available to improve / extend school kitchens so if the kitchen was at capacity but previously 30% of dc bought packed lunches schools have had to find other money so they can upgrade the facilities to feed all the pupils.

In Scotland it’s free p1-p5 take up in our school is around the 70-80% in the free years. It drops down after that. I’m a mean mummy so my rule is school lunch is mandatory but a lot of people do a mix of packed lunch twice a week on days where dc doesn’t like anything on the menu.

There’s always two hot options or a school
packed lunch of a roll, carton of milk, fruit and a treat which is pretty much what I’d send in anyway.

I think a lot of cooking is done out of house now. So there are large centralised kitchens. The orders are taken from schools first thing. Food is delivered before lunch and kept hot and dished out by the dinner ladies. My friend is a dinner lady and she says they only use about a quarter of it as it as built when they cooked everything from scratch.

No it isn’t.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. This just means taxpayers are buying meals for other people’s kids.

Personally I’m very happy for my taxes to go towards meals for other people’s kids. Universal free school meals is a really good use of taxpayers money as far as I’m concerned.

@Badbudgeter , it depends who runs the school, if it's a small academy trust with only a handful of schools then the lunches may be prepared on site, the free lunch initiative is across Greater London so it goes as far as Twickenham/Kingston etc.

Agree on universal free school meal at primary school is a better use of tax payers money.

@Badbudgeter it was supposed to be the whole of primary by last January and then up until not too long ago to include p6 from this august . It's had delay after delay in the roll out. Meanwhile dd going in to p6 has had to take packed lunch for the best part of the last 2 years due to kitchen issues meaning no hot meals could be provided and the packed lunch alternative was shocking. We've not seen much benefit from it at all.

That's rubbish, how hard is it to offer up a decent packed lunch option? Sandwich, carton of something, fruit and a muffin/ traybake it's hardly rocket science. My DS is going into P.6 so we have benefitted from free school lunches throughout. Generally the lunches are fine but our LA has centralised supply to make it more cost effective. Which seems to be common sense but maybe it's different in other LAs.

I can’t agree it’s a good use of taxpayers money when schools are so poorly funded. London schools already receive much better funding so perhaps they could share a bit of their surplus. Or redistribute to those who are actually poor rather than every child

I’d agree that there is a big gulf between those that are poor enough to benefit from free school meals and those who receive them. I think the current threshold is much too low. Cutoff point is earning a bit less than £200 quid a week. Im struggling to imagine trying to survive on £200 a week although possibly get benefits on top. My fixed costs are more than double that and that’s before I’ve paid for food/ petrol/ dc stuff.

I think it would probably cost more to means test it than to just do it. If all kids r-2 already get them, plus a large chunk of juniors and then another big cohort are on the cusp (the threshold for income is way too low) you're going to spend loads on administering means testing, designing it etc for just one year to exclude a relatively small cohort. Not worth it for a 1 year scheme. It's costing 130m which sounds a lot, but is not a lot in government terms.

There's also already a stigma around FSM which means families don't sign up when they should- this will remove that. I think a lot of parents probably remember 'meal tickets' from school which were considered pretty humiliating. The universality is an important principle, means everyone gets it who should and there's no stigma.

My children’s school haven’t mentioned it, apart from doing a survey a little while ago to ask who would take up the free meals.

I really hope it’s going through as we’re really struggling financially since the cost of living crisis began, and it’ll be such a comfort and a relief to know that my children will be provided for at school.

Seems like an utter waste of money. What about all of the families that can comfortably afford to pay? A wealthy family gets a free school meal for their child in London, but a family who earn just over the threshold for FSM outside of London has to pay?

I agree that it has not been thought through properly. Whilst it might sound good, it will have quite a financial impact on the schools. More children are likely to have meals and so more equipment (crockery, cutlery, fridges/freezers etc) will need to be bought. Additional staff may be needed. Also, the money being given to schools does not quite cover the cost and so schools will have to pay the shortfall. Whilst previous posters have mentioned London schools have more money, this isn’t really the case as costs are higher. London weighting for all staff has to be paid for starters.

I don’t agree with this policy, which is only for one school year. The money could be much better spent, to go some way towards funding schools properly. It would be better to lower the FSM threshold so that all families who need free meals get them. Those who can afford to pay, should pay.

All of the objections raised (wealthier parents should pay, bigger kitchens needed etc.) were put forward when the free school meals for Key Stage 1 children policy was introduced. I don't think anyone would rewind that policy now, it's widely considered to work well. The only good thing Nick Clegg mananged to bring in when he was part of the coalition government!

In wales all primary school children get free lunches which seems to be working well in my daughters school

@N4ish , I would agree but at the time there was a central pot to apply to for funds to improve the kitchen facilities.

Single parent benefits and unemployment are less than £200 a week after rent, for parent and one child.