School lunch rant - Would you complain?

Becles

looby75 wrote: »

many parents, myself included asked the exact same thing and were given some dismissive answer about them being part of a nutritionally balanced meal for school dinners but they couldn't say that for packed luches as they were all different so it was much easier to just ban all packed lunch children from eating those things.

That's the response I got when my son was on packed lunches. When I pointed out that lunch was one meal of the day so suppose he had porridge for breakfast and meat and veg for dinner, then having a piece of cake with an otherwise healthy lunchbox is part of a nutritionally balanced set of meals. I didn't get a response to that.

My son pointed out to the headmaster that the staff room is full of chocolate biscuits and tins of sweets and asked why the teachers were allowed to snack on banned foods. He was told that the teachers were adults and were responsible to make lifestyle decisions on their diet. My son asked why I wasn't allowed to make lifestyle decisions on his lunchbox and that question never got answered either :mad:

Got this weeks food menu here and the desserts are:
Monday: Chocolate treacle sponge with custard
Tuesday: Fruit flapjack with custard
Wednesday: Rice pudding
Thursday: Sticky toffee pudding and custard
Friday: Marble cake with custard

So if school dinners are allowed cake/sponge pudding three times in a week, I really don't think it is fair taking cake out of packed lunch boxes.

elvis86

pukkamum wrote: »

I'm sorry but is being a meat eater not a 'choice'?????
I choose not to eat meat my DH chooses to eat meat.
What about the children for whom vegetarianism is a part of their religion ie Hindus.
I have never read such tosh!!!!!!!

What I meant, is that a diet that includes meat is generally considered "the norm" in this country. In fact, I know vegetarian parents who give their children meat, as they didn't want to feel that they had deprived them anything/didn't want to force their beliefs on them (not that I'm saying for one second a vegetarian diet cannot be healthy - I'm practically vegetarian myself due to having a vegetarian housemate and it just being easier!). So even they recognised that a diet including meat is "the norm".

Fair enough, in a school with a high proportion of vegetarian children, a vegetarian menu may be practical. But in your average village primary school, where a handful of kids might be vegetarian, I don't think its at all practical to expect the school to offer them a different veggie option every day of the week. And it would be silly and churlish of the parents to demand this, if, like I say, vegetarian options were offered perhaps a couple of days a week.

meritaten

for the parents of those kids with plastic lunchboxes who have to keep all the peelings sarnie bits etc and the lunchboxes stink!! if you wipe them out with a damp cloth and then sprinkle bicarbonate of soda into them, leave them a couple of hours or ideally overnight then rinse them off in the morning the smell will disappear. I too got fed up of buying new lunchboxes after they got left at school for a weekend or even overnight! then MIL told me thats how she got smells out of tupperware boxes. didnt look back after that and it saved me a fortune!

rosalie-lavender

This is discussion is quite interesting because I can see both sides because I am a Mum and I also work as a lunchtime supervisor in a Primary school. It is also interesting to see how much schools vary in policy and food provided.

Our school have a vegetarian option available every day and it is almost always different each day. Ours is a relatively small village school and we manage it. Some of our children are vegetarian for religeous reasons and they pay the same for their dinners as the meat eaters, why shouldn't they be entitled to a vegetarian option every day. It doesn't have to be anything fancy.

We have a policy of not throwing the packed lunch rubbish away because we had issues with children throwing away virtually all their lunch. It makes it easier to stop that if most of the rubbish stays in the lunchboxes. I think a bit of common sense has to be used though. If a child has a half eaten yogurt, clearly has had enough or really doesn't like it, I throw it away. I wouldn't want my child to bring home a lunchbox full of yogurt and don't inflict it on other parents. I also will throw away half empty cartons of drink if need be.

It is true what someone else said earlier that whatever you do as a lunchtime supervisor you never please everybody. We have parents that insist their children must be virtually forced to eat everything and others that are happy to have their children eat nothing. Most parents are very pleasant but some of them can be quite aggressive and forget you have a hall full of other children other than just their one.

As for the OP and the TA saying it would undermine her authority if she apologised. I always apologise to the children if I do something in error or make a mistake that upsets them. I've never considered it undermining my authority, I just consider it being fair. After all I sometimes get apologies from the children when they have done something wrong why should it be beneath me to say sorry to the children.

It's a lovely job sometimes though. One little girl vomited into her lunch bag today. Lovely job clearing that up.:eek:

The worse lunchbox I have seen (apart from todays) was the one that had been left for best part of a school year complete with food. It was so mouldy inside that all that remained was copious quantities of green mould!

bestpud

Glad you are happy(ish) with the response.

I have to say though, I don't think it is right to force the TA to apologise to your dd.

She may well have anyway but forcing the issue like that won't help anyone imo.

I'll prepare for the flaming now!!

GobbledyGook

bestpud wrote: »

Glad you are happy(ish) with the response.

I have to say though, I don't think it is right to force the TA to apologise to your dd.

She may well have anyway but forcing the issue like that won't help anyone imo.

I'll prepare for the flaming now!!

Can I ask why?

I'm not forcing her to apologise, I've asked her too as it wasn't me she had in tears.

She wouldn't have apologised off her own back and I don't even know for sure if she will even though I've asked.

GobbledyGook

Just to update everyone the meeting at the end of the day had to be postponed until tomorrow as a child fell down some the stairs on her way out. They were waiting on her Mum and she needed to go to hospital so the Head was dealing with that.

pukkamum

elvis86 wrote: »

What I meant, is that a diet that includes meat is generally considered "the norm" in this country. In fact, I know vegetarian parents who give their children meat, as they didn't want to feel that they had deprived them anything/didn't want to force their beliefs on them (not that I'm saying for one second a vegetarian diet cannot be healthy - I'm practically vegetarian myself due to having a vegetarian housemate and it just being easier!). So even they recognised that a diet including meat is "the norm".

Fair enough, in a school with a high proportion of vegetarian children, a vegetarian menu may be practical. But in your average village primary school, where a handful of kids might be vegetarian, I don't think its at all practical to expect the school to offer them a different veggie option every day of the week. And it would be silly and churlish of the parents to demand this, if, like I say, vegetarian options were offered perhaps a couple of days a week.

So what are you saying that the 'handful' of kids who don't eat meat for what ever reason should either be forced to on the days when a veggie option is not available or starve?
I have worked and still work in the education system and i can tell you that there are in most schools many veggie kids.
And exactly how is a meat eating diet the norm?
Normal compared to whom?

GobbledyGook

elvis86 wrote: »

What I meant, is that a diet that includes meat is generally considered "the norm" in this country. In fact, I know vegetarian parents who give their children meat, as they didn't want to feel that they had deprived them anything/didn't want to force their beliefs on them (not that I'm saying for one second a vegetarian diet cannot be healthy - I'm practically vegetarian myself due to having a vegetarian housemate and it just being easier!). So even they recognised that a diet including meat is "the norm".

Fair enough, in a school with a high proportion of vegetarian children, a vegetarian menu may be practical. But in your average village primary school, where a handful of kids might be vegetarian, I don't think its at all practical to expect the school to offer them a different veggie option every day of the week. And it would be silly and churlish of the parents to demand this, if, like I say, vegetarian options were offered perhaps a couple of days a week.

What about vegetarian children who are entitled to a free school meal? Surely they can't be expected to go without on certain days of the week.

I think they should be obliged to have something meat-free each day. It doesn't take a lot of thought and as I've mentioned several of their current dishes have meat on them that they don't need to have (pizza, pasta bake etc).

elvis86

GobbledyGook wrote: »

What about vegetarian children who are entitled to a free school meal? Surely they can't be expected to go without on certain days of the week.

I think they should be obliged to have something meat-free each day. It doesn't take a lot of thought and as I've mentioned several of their current dishes have meat on them that they don't need to have (pizza, pasta bake etc).

If I said that those on free school meals shouldn't be so picky, I'd get lynched wouldn't I..?:D

I admit, I hadn't considered that. My argument was that as schools cater on a large scale, it may be difficult and unrealistic to expect them to offer a different vegetarian option every day. From the sounds of it, maybe I'm wrong.