School Meals v Packed Lunch

Bun

I'm sure the amount is purely because the portion size is bigger.....but isn't that what punishment should be - a ten year stretch of turkey twizzlers????

RACHIE77

Bun wrote:

I'm sure the amount is purely because the portion size is bigger.....but isn't that what punishment should be - a ten year stretch of turkey twizzlers????

LOL! i think thats enough to put me off being naughty! I DONT WANNA GO TO PRISON!! NO TURKEY TWIZZLERS!

Yoga_Girl

Excellent, thanks for posting. I'm appalled that the government are still allowing that processed junk food to be served in schools. Have signed the petition and will forward the link on as well to everyone I know!

tiff

Have signed the petition, really hope it makes a difference

VickyA_2

I have just spent the last 4 weeks teaching English in an Italian primary school, in Florence. The school lunches there are great: for 4 euros (about 2.50 pounds) they get 2 courses, plus fruit and they're nutritionally balanced and not a chip in sight! And they're pretty tasty.

The first course is always a pasta dish - quite filling in itself - followed by either meat or a substantial salad. All the veggies used are organic too. All the teachers eat the school food, which is almost unheard of in England. I'm going to miss this sort of food when I go back to my sandwiches in the staffroom!

hilstep2000

I am a Teaching Assistant, and mother of two. I am appalled by the jubk that we serve up in our school, along with all the others in East Sussex. Signed the petition, hope we can get something done!

mightymo_2

VickyA, you are so right! It is very rare for the teachers to be eating the school meals!

My son only stays for school dinners when it is the "Christmas Party Dinner", but otherwise he has a packed lunch. I am a relief dinner lady at my son's school and I have seen the rubbish the children are given under the pretence "cooked dinners". I would not eat these meals myself, obviously the teachers don't want to - so why should the children?

zcaprd7

Al_Mac wrote:

What!!! I Pay £1.60 a day for my ten year old.

Although school are trying to improve, according to the letter last week.

Jamie has been a bit misleading with this one - the rest of the money is spent on those "excellent" dinner ladies wages...

jellyhead

we pay £1.55 (i don't, my son deserves a packed lunch lol!). i don't know what the ingredients cost is per day but the rest goes to pay for the staff etc. it's run on contract, county catering or something they're called. they may even have to pay for kitchen hire, i don't know but there's extra hours spent cleaning the floor, washing up, collecting money in and counting it, that kind of stuff. maybe in the good old days the staff were employed by the school so our whole payment went towards ingredients? we had lovely meals when i was a kid, plenty of fruit and veg. our school isn't too bad actually, they don't use turkey twizzlers or chicken nuggets. they run a 6 week rolling menu, we are given the menu for the following week on the back of our weekly school newsletter.

examining this weeks menu more close i see chips are about once a fortnight and there are ploughmans instead of main course and 4 choices of veg, 1 is veg sticks but i see that on tuesday potato salad counts as one?! then there's the potato portion too, not very healthy ... especially as cheese and potato pie is a main course option for that day lol! i can imagine the trays - cheese and potato pie, potato salad with mashed potatoes - at least the rice pudding doesn't contain potato :rotfl: but seriuosly would you want your child to eat that meal, i realise that potatoes are veg but still, imagine the afternoon energy slump after that initial sugar rush from all the potato!

i have volunteered in school for 4 years now and there's a definite difference between morning and afternoon, except for the kids who don't eat breakfast. those who do have breakfast are fine in the mornings but then after lunch something happens to turn them into dribbling glazed zombies with the attention span of a goldfish - most kids have school dinners, packed lunches aren't that common.

Peakma

I would love school dinners to be better.My kids won't touch them, so every night when I've finnaly got them all to bed, doing their pack-ups is an unwelcome extra chore. I started off trying to make these healthy, but they hardly ate anything, so we have slipped into daily crisps and chocolate and of course sandwich and fruit ( which they more often than not leave).This also annoys me because if they were at home I would encourage them to eat the healthier stuff first (they are only 5 wnd 6) but at school they just tuck in and obviously head straight for the "goodies!" then don't feel like eating the real good stuff.
So it would be fantastc if school dinners were more appetising and healthy. It would also save my partner and I arguing about whose turn it is to make up the packed lunches.Just out of interest do most people share this chore? Or is gennerally Mums job? (as my partner seems to think it should be!).I will now go sign the petition.