Five minutes to eat school dinner?

katrina1981

Completely agree with you lostinrates, in fact packed lunches used to be eaten in the class rooms when I was at school. They have been told it is too messy to eat in the class rooms. Not good to pressure children at dinner times.

thunderbird

katrina1981 wrote: »

Completely agree with you lostinrates, in fact packed lunches used to be eaten in the class rooms when I was at school. They have been told it is too messy to eat in the class rooms. Not good to pressure children at dinner times.

I agree, it should be a relaxed time for them to socialise with other pupils. Really it is the school's problem to sort out alternative space for the pupils to use - not for them to force the children to eat more quickly! Maybe some of them could use the staffroom :rotfl:

I never had this problem, when I was little I went home for lunch - no one seems to do that any more? and at secondary school we ate in our form rooms - or anywhere we fancied really!

Sammy85_2

Perhaps its just teething problems with seating arrangements and by the time the last kids got in there was only 5 mins of lunchtime left? It is in no way acceptable just thinking it may not be the norm?

When i was in secondary school we used to go in by year group, each year having a different coloured ID card and each week who went first was rotated. If you didnt have your card you had to join the last group, which usually meant you'd spent all of lunchtime queued up and had very little time to eat.

toshkininny

How many classes are there in each year? Our primary school has the little ones in first 10 minutes earlier than the rest of school - Reception and Yr 1, then the rest of the years are called in and staggered, when one of the dinner ladies can see that there is not much of a queue for a hot dinner and that there are spaces for the next class to all sit down.

If there are any slow eaters left towars the end of lunchtime and when the dinner ladies are clearing up, then they usually sit on one table while everybody clears up around them!

katrina1981

Sammy85 - yes you may be right, just early problems, hopefully it becomes more organised over time.

toshkininny - only one class per year, some not even at full capacity, so not a big school by any means.

wantnomoneyworries

Did your daughter manage to eat her lunch? If she did in that time bet she felt ill after? If not bet she came home hungry!!

make_me_wise

I work in a junior school, so years 3-6. We have nearly 900 children who have lunch in the space of 1 hour 20 minutes. It is like a military operation in as much as classes come in at certain times, mainly for the childrens safety.

However no child is ever rushed. Any dinner lady who carried on as you described happening at your childs school would be given a verbal warning. It is crazy to stand over a child and rush them eating like that. Children are very active in classes. Many at our school have games, swimming and whole year assemblies after lunch. The last thing we want is for any of the little darlings to hurl up their lunch because they had been made to cram it in their mouths quicker than the speed of light.

My advice is go to the school office. If they cant make allowance for you to raise your concern with the head or deputy head then ask to speak to the head of year. I think you are quite right to be concerned.

katrina1981

greenyj, yesterday she only ate her sandwich and yoghurt never had time for her drink even. Today I told her to have her drink and sandwich first, but she rushed to eat the rest of her food. Earlier she asked me to put a really small sandwich in her lunch bag, what a shame.


make me wise - wow 900 children?, our school has about 100 and they cant even cope with them, thanks for your input will ask in office about seeing head/head of year.

MX5huggy

Can you not start by asking her class teacher in the 1st instance? Not every issue needs the heads input.

flea72

DD quite often comes home from school, with little lunch eaten and says they didnt have time

what she really means is, she was too busy playing and missed her slot, so had to rush in at the last minute and shovel down a few mouthfuls

F