starting in reception - school dinners or packed lunch?

[rachelp73]

My son is starting in Reception in a couple of weeks and while he is very excited and ready for big school, I can't help wondering how he is going to cope with lunches. He is not a huge fan of sandwiches but does eat things like curries and pasta which seemed to be on the menu given to us by the school, so at first I thought it would be better for him to start straight onto school dinners. He is also very naturally skinny and I thought that a bigger lunch might help him gain weight a bit.

However, I am starting to worry about him staying for school dinners as he is quite fussy about daft things like a bit of meat "having a brown bit" on it (his type of words), or him picking bits of tomato/pepper skin out of his teeth etc and being put off the whole meal.

He is also fussy about trying unfamiliar foods, and still not great with a knife and fork (we are still cutting his food up for him). Plus I'm worrying over little things like his ability to actually CHOOSE his own food at the counter (he's not very good at making quick decisions and I can just imagine them being too busy to wait while he decides what he'd like best). Another worry is that the dinner ladies will force him to finish what's on his place even if he hates it and that will put him off going to school altogether. Plus he's a very slow eater.

How neurotic do I sound!? I wonder if I'm pondering over it too much because I remember hating the whole school lunch thing myself when I was in infants as I was quite fussy and very slow to eat and the dinner ladies were real dragons! Plus the food was disgusting. I ended up going home for lunch I think for a while, but don't want to go down that road with DS!

If I send him with a packed lunch I've got the problem of what to put in it as I know schools are keen for packed lunches to be healthy but he's not that keen on most fruit, and frankly he could do with a lot more calories that he'd get from a couple of pieces of fruit -I would really want to put a chocolate bar in there too as well as some grapes or something, to give him energy. (he seems to need it, I think he's got a fast metabolism or something). Would they confiscate chocolate?!

I really would prefer him to stay for school dinners as I hope it might encourage him to try new things and be less finicky(also less hassle for me in the mornings!), but I just don't want to put him off school altogether if he gets all het up over lunch times.

Is he best starting off with a packed lunch, with familiar foods, while he settles into school? Then perhaps he can switch after half term or something?

What have other mums done? Also, do kids tend to want to do whatever their friends do?

I'm aware this might come across as neurotic but it was an issue for me as a kid and also it put my nephew off school when he didn't get on with school dinners in reception (his mum didn't actualy coax the reason he was miserable out of him for weeks and was really worried about him!) He was fine on packed lunches, and actually now, a few years later, he is happily back on school dinners (as that is what his mates are on!)

Aaaargh - what do I do?

Blimey WilfSell - are you one of 'us'?! Your post is absolutely on the mark!

My sons' school dinners at the primary are very good. DH samples them every so often.

it will be harder to switch from packed lunch to dinners, rather than the other way round so I'd start off with the dinners and see how it goes - my twins start in sept and we will do dinners to start with, esp as they will be starving by lunch time I think they'll be ok, not sure I will at paying for the 2 lots though

No sparkle, not a council type but I am in favour of public services and in this case I think people take them for granted somewhat.

It is partly self-interest though . Our lunches are ace but each year there are fewer and fewer kids taking them and I find it so depressing after so much work is put in by councils and school cooks.

Our school does tasting sessions and the food is great. I'm in favour of LESS choice for kids (surprising how much they eat when it's put in front of them) at school meself, as long as there is one alternative and lunch staff are supportive (not of the 'you must eat this or you can't leave the table' variety).

We will have new catering contractors in September who are promising locally sourced produce and the menus look very good. I have to say that I couldn't have recommended the previous firms meals if asked for an honest opinion.

Message withdrawn

WheresTheHamster, obviously my making out that dinner ladies' only job is to cut up food was tongue-in-cheek! However, your post has triggered MORE worries about how my PFB is going to cope all lunch time if he's not happy for any reason - are dinner ladies (I assume it's lunchtime supervisors we're talking about as opposed to the people who actually COOK the food?) allowed to give cuddles to an unhappy child in this politically-correct day and age?! I just have visions of DS on his own in the playground desperately wanting to join in with someone's game but not knowing how to, and becoming tearful - would the "dinner ladies" try and get involved with that sort of thing? Would they notice? I kind of imagine them as prison wardens during recreation period - wanderng about checking that no dastardly plots are being hatched! Are they more cuddly than that?!

sigh I can't help feeling that my PFB would do much better on a nice sofa at home at lunchtime watching Rainbow and Pipkins and drinking Heinz tomato soup, with a Penguin for afters. Oh, and a blue tupperware beaker of Dandelion and Burdock from the pop man.

Only messing, I think he will be fine either way. It's just trying to work out which way he will be MORE fine.

The one thing I know is that the lunch menu looks yummy and would fatten the little Peter Crouch up nicely, and that he has to stay on dinners or packed lunch for half a term at a time. I will wait and see if I get any further info from the school over what happens at lunch. Youse lot have given me lots of food for thought - geddit? I made a funny there, you see - god, can't you tell I've had some wine? Aha! Think I've cracked the whole thing - will sneak some vodka into his drink and he'll be laughing either way!

I think there are a lot of myths about what happens in the lunch hall. In our school, DS told us he was just given stuff. In fact when we asked it turned out the lunch staff pay very close attention to what reception kids especially are getting on their plate.

I'm not doubting anyone's kids but please ask the school what is going on at lunch service, not the children. I bet you'll find they have a clear policy about serving and helping (little) children. Kids like to play games with food in order to get what they want (we all know this don't we?).

rachelp, if its a good smallish school they really do and will help the little ones...

my dd is very fussy and also very very underweight. when we visited her school we got the chance to have lunch there so she could see what it was like having school dinners and she got on quite well with them even though i thought she wouldnt.

most schools now have the opttion of sarnie anyway if thats what he eats,

WilfSell, school is not so small - now oversubscribed and reception year has 3 classes of 30. How are they going to help 90 brand new little ones as well as the rest of 'em?

Seashells, what a good idea for schools to let parents and child try lunch there! Seems obvious, although not to our school..... They do have a sarnie option though. But if it's got any kind of "green stuff" near it, it'll be going nowhere near his mouth! I really think that school dinners would be good for him, his fussiness, and his weight, the more I come to think of it.

Who'd have thought it would be that much of a minefield, this starting school lark?

I am a reception teacher and my nursery nurse and I go with the class to the dinner hall and help the children make choices and help cut up the food if necessary we don't just abandon children when the lunch bell rings please don't worry.

haven't read whole thread so sorry if not relevant... but at schools in our area families get the menu home to look at and children often choose just to have school dinners on the days they know they definitely like something. so it would be common for a child to have a mixture of packed lunches, school dinners (and indeed go home for lunch) in any one week.

we are able to choose weekly
I don't really want to do that with DS1 though (PFB going into reception in september)
We are going to do 3 days packed lunches 2 days dinners
For the last week of the school holidays we are going to make packed lunches for us to have so that he is ready for it (we have normally had a hot meal at lunchtime)
The school seem really good at feedback about what has been eaten.

I would go for school dinners - you might find eating with his peers will encourage him to try new things.

Our dinners are very good, lots of variety too, salad bars etc, so he would be encouraged to try sthg different (tho I would be surprised if anyone forced him to eat it).

I would make a big effort to get him cutting up his own food in the next couple of weeks. He really needs to be able to manage that. (MDS a bit busy at our place certainly to cut up anyone's food )

You have to give at least a week's notice to swap between dinners and lunches at our school. Fair enough IMO.

At our last UK school you could choose daily whether you wanted school dinner or packed lunch which was great. My main concern with little ones was always "will they be able to carry the tray" which was why mine usually had packed lunch

Schools vary, but I really wouldn't send chocolate. I have yet to see a school where you are not specifically asked not to send chocolate/sweets in lunch boxes. Some will let it pass so you only risk pissing off the other parents whose kids will go home and say "but X brings chocolate" but some schools will actually take anything "banned" off the kids which is bound to upset them.

Hello - just thought I'd mention that my DS has been in a school nursery for over a year and the first school started offering school lunches for the nursery kids. They didn't get a choice though and didn't have to go to the counter.

He loves them, and will eat a much larger selection of food than he does at home. The school dinners are £1.90 though and I probably wouldn't be able to afford it if i had 2 children.

Another point worth mentioning re DS school is that they monitor packed lunches - no confectionary, no pop, no crisps. I don't have a problem with them checking , but my DS eats a much bigger selection of hot food than he does cold.

The school also offered a day last term for parents to join their DC for lunch to see how it worked / what they were given. It was great ! Amazing to see peer pressure in action - they got macaronie cheese (DS doesn't eat cheese) and he wolfed it down after his mates started eating.
xx

DD just finished Reception and we were worried about her having school dinners for the reasons you mention. However it has gone really well. They only have 2 choices - the main one and a vegetarian option. We get the menu for the next 2 weeks so we can explain to her what she is likely to get each day - this gives her a chance to work out what she wants to do.

Up to a maximum of twice a week she can opt out of the main option and ask for "a Ploughmans" which we take to be bread, cheese and some salad.

Up till Christmas she was mad keen on the Ploughmans and still chooses this rather than overly spicy or unusual food. However according to her teachers she is doing well and trying a bit of most things now.

I'd definitely give the school dinners a go if I was you.

Our experience of school meals has been very good. We opted for them because there are very few foods we could put in a packed lunch - my daughter doesn't like cheese, tuna or cold meat, for example. Another drawback of packed lunches is that - at our school at least - they're not refrigerated. Even if she was willing to eat it, I'd be worried about my daughter having a tuna sandwich which had been gentling toasting for three hours in summer.

I had a lot of the same worries about how she'd cope with having to choose her food, what she'd choose and so on but it's worked out well. The dinner ladies who serve the food 'help' the children with their choices so that they get a reasonable balance (everybody has to have vegetables or salad, for example) and my daughter has tried things she probably wouldn't at home. The food is intersting and varied; menus are on the LEA website but we can't pre-order - this is mass catering, not the Chinese takeaway!