Breakfast and lunch for a year

[AlizarinRed]

So the SNP are promising that all school children will get breakfast and lunch for a year for free if they get lots of seats in the next election.
Is it because I haven't read the detail that I think this is not a great reflection on the SNP main party in the country that children need fed daily despite them being in power since 2007.
I have also read half of Shuggy Bain, the booker prize winner, and after much of the world have read the book, then read the headline that our children need fed by the state they will think Scotland is a bit of a third world disaster? I've only read half of Shuggy Bain because it is so dispiriting and miserable, think Trainspotting or Angela's Ashes but worse, that I can't face the rest.
What am I missing here? Are the SNP our saviours?

I always thought the idea of a free school lunch was to make everyone equal and remove the stigma around state handouts. Same idea as uniform. But I've never been to a British school so find the system confusing at times and dislike the whole state/private divide.

Also just recalled when my children were at private school in an affluent area of Scotland there was a breakfast club - 30 pc of children on scholarships - but only a very few of those children were at breakfast club . It did have to be paid for. Majority of children attending were from homes who could afford breakfast . So it’s clearly something other than finance . Maybe too many parents have children in daycare from such an early age they aren’t used to doing breakfast .

We used to use the Breakfast club as childcare tbh. We gave breakfast in the mornings anyway, so anything else that was eaten was on top of that. We both work full time and before I was working from home I had a commute of an hour, so if I was going to get to work at anything approaching a reasonable time the drop offs had to be done early.

As far as I can see, there is no identifiable stigma now as kids themselves may not even be aware that their meals are free. It's all done on the office.

Free school meals for famines in poverty only started at all when I was at school. The teacher would call folk out to get their free dinner ticket back then. I also seem to remember that the tickets were a different colour but that might be wrong.

Completely agree with jellycat.

Also on a practical level most schools no longer have the catering facilities to cope with this. (Lunch hours are short. Our primary doesn't even have a kitchen),

I stopped DD3 having free school lunches because she had what I strongly suspect was food poisoning so often. She wasn't a sicky child before school dinners and she ceased to be when she stopped having them. Calling the meals on offer "nutritious" is currently a stretch.

Atm I would settle for the State actually fulfilling its role as educator, whether that be remotely or not. Until the school system can guarantee that in all circumstances it should leave parenting to parents with support from social services etc as required.

Will it be good quality food or just bread and jam?

The quality of food is actually a problem for me. My son usually has porridge & fruit or whole meal toast & fruit for breakfast. I don't actually want him then getting some white bread with jam at school.

I would also question quality - there was a consultation about drinks on offer in primary schools about 18 months ago. They were proposing to stop offering fruit juice, replacing this with flavoured water or flavoured milk. So replacing a wholly natural product with artificial flavours and sweeteners, on the basis it would be sugar free. Utter nonsense, plain water, plain milk or fresh fruit juice are much better for children that artificial, chemically enhanced drinks, why no one seemed to have thought about that before suggesting the policy for consultation is beyond me.

As a policy, it could do more harm than good at a national level if your disorganised struggling parents miss the club, and the kids who've eaten breakfast at 6 end up having another round of sugary cereal or jam and toast just prior to school. Poorly targeted. I know my dc often eat 2 breakfasts - they can get away with it but lots won't.

I suspect it's an attempt to win over the votes of working parents who will be thinking free childcare rather than free food.

Yes I've yet to see a breakfast club offering porridge, it's a health and safety problem we were told.

I would also question quality - there was a consultation about drinks on offer in primary schools about 18 months ago. They were proposing to stop offering fruit juice, replacing this with flavoured water or flavoured milk. So replacing a wholly natural product with artificial flavours and sweeteners, on the basis it would be sugar free.

Do you know what the outcome of this consultation was @Jellycatspyjamas? I confess I'm horrified to hear this, but it does seem like the typically short-sighted solution to a problem that we tend to get these days. We only have drinks with all natural ingredients in the house (no sweeteners or other chemical crap) and I'd be pretty pissed off if the school were serving this.

The quantity needs addressed to. Only my youngest qualified for free school meals as I think it started when he was in P2. As a P2 child the amount of food they got was plenty.

In P6 or P7 they get exactly the same amount and it's just not enough. Especially if they are saying this is a child's main meal of the day.

www.businessinsider.com/never-seconds-martha-veg-payne-2012-6?r=US&IR=T

A few years old but it's really not got much better since then. And currently according to my local council website they're only offering cold food "because of Covid".

Sadly, yes, those who would benefit most from free breakfast at school are those that are least likely to attend for it.

The quantity needs addressed to.

too.

(Hangs head in shame)

@RaspberryCoulis, very true. My ones (P5 and P7) always say that food is not enough now, while it was plenty before.
My young one gets extra yogurt leftover when she gets the chance :D
Anyway in these times of grab bags we tend to go for packed lunches.

And despite all that there is still a lot of waste (I am told, at least).

The other issue is space pressure. In my kids' primary school there is one hall space which is used for PE, assemblies, lunch and everything else. There is no way they can have all children seated at the same time eating so used to have staggered lunches with P1-3 going at 12, then the rest at 12.30 as fewer in that age group took lunches. On dry days, the packed lunch children had to eat outside.

Another local school has a separate building with a sports hall and dining hall, but no kitchen. Meals are prepared remotely and then shipped over.

It's all these sorts of issues which mean the proposal will be quietly shelved in a few months once we've all forgotten about it.

@RaspberryCoulis, are you going to my primary? :D

It's all these sorts of issues which mean the proposal will be quietly shelved in a few months once we've all forgotten about it.

Well, once everyone has voted them back in again. Did they wever meet any of the other pledges? Class sizes etc? I genuinely don't know as my DC are adults now.

@Arkadia i think these issues are common to loads of schools. The school I went to - only one hall which was used for everything (same era of build as the one my kids went to). School my mum taught at - 1920s school with large dining hall but no kitchens. School in the village where my inlaws live - tiny Victorian three room school with portacabins in hte playground, no hall, no kitchens.

Struggling to see a health and safety issue with overnight oats.

My method. Bung in fridge with milk or diluted fruit juice. Serve with fruit (fresh or canned). Add granola crunchy bits (although DD3 does without this step as prefers no crunchy bits). None of the hassle of a toaster. Also cheap and much easier to store than bread.

I do wonder what planet the so-called experts are on sometimes.

My son's primary school already had a breakfast club free to all children from 8am that has disappeared since covid came along.

I agree with what you're saying btw. Not a great reflection on them at all.

Maybe it's the risk of it being served too hot and mouth burns or a central pot? Beats me too I was flummoxed, cheap, traditional, low sugar. Nah that'll never work!

They manage to serve soup so I’m not sure why porridge is a health hazard.

From what I hear our breakfast club offers sugary cereal, which the kids love. The lunches before Covid sounded ok, but I never tried them so can't vouch for quality. I think most of the salad and a lot of the fruit that are self serve went to waste.
Since Covid we had some variety of packed lunch which sounded pretty bad. So we make our own now.

I really dislike the idea of juice or flavoured drinks in school. Both have links to obesity and fruit juice along with sugary yoghurt is the bane of dentists so why push it onto children in school.