Five minutes to eat school dinner?

gratefulforhelp_2

sunshinetours wrote: »

Amzing how some people want a battle at every occassion.

Asking about, or complaining about a policy is not starting a battle. A healthy school (and I don't mean one where they police the contents of lunchboxes) will have a dialogue about it without the need for stress.

I bet either the pupil has misunderstood (maybe because an adult failed to express themselves clearly) or there was an overzealous member of staff.

No school is going to actually express that as policy.

sunshinetours

gratefulforhelp wrote: »

Asking about, or complaining about a policy is not starting a battle. A healthy school (and I don't mean one where they police the contents of lunchboxes) will have a dialogue about it without the need for stress.

I bet either the pupil has misunderstood (maybe because an adult failed to express themselves clearly) or there was an overzealous member of staff.

No school is going to actually express that as policy.

I know and that is what I said in the rest of my post, so go to the class teacher and not the LEA or governors or straight to the head etc like some were suggesting.

Most problems can be sorted by a simple quiet conversation in the right ear i find - some people love to blow up and make idiots of themselves but I guess we are all different

katrina1981

Thanks for all the replies. Caught the attention of the deputy head today and she said she would look into it, apparently according to my daughter the headteacher was in the dinner hall supervising lunch today and she had more time to eat. No minutes were being shouted down today.

Some interesting replies as to who to complain to.

gratefulforhelp_2

sunshinetours wrote: »

I know and that is what I said in the rest of my post, so go to the class teacher and not the LEA or governors or straight to the head etc like some were suggesting.

Most problems can be sorted by a simple quiet conversation in the right ear i find - some people love to blow up and make idiots of themselves but I guess we are all different

There is nothing wrong with asking head/governors/office staff. In our primary school, they can't afford full time office staff so they(she) aren't around at lunchtime. So one would ask head/chair of governors. No one would be making an idiot of themself by asking the question "is this school policy".

The class teacher would not necessarily be around at lunchtime.

toshkininny

katrina1981 wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies. Caught the attention of the deputy head today and she said she would look into it, apparently according to my daughter the headteacher was in the dinner hall supervising lunch today and she had more time to eat. No minutes were being shouted down today.

Some interesting replies as to who to complain to.

Well hopefully it's been noted and it won't happen again.

dizziblonde

No way on earth I would be around at lunchtime when I had a class of my own! Was usually doing an impression of a tornado running around trying to set up the afternoon, get some of the morning marking done, inhale a sandwich in under 5 minutes and find 30 seconds to visit the loo! Never had any input into lunchtime routines and wouldn't have known anything about the lunchtime shenannigans unless told about it.

More of a thing I'd go in at the head end of the school with myself rather than at the class teacher end since it was obviously a whole-school thing... quicker than getting it passed up the line from the class teacher to the head and back to the dinnerladies from there.

gratefulforhelp_2

dizziblonde wrote: »

inhale a sandwich in under 5 minutes and find 30 seconds to visit the loo!

So so true.

sunshinetours

gratefulforhelp wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with asking head/governors/office staff. In our primary school, they can't afford full time office staff so they(she) aren't around at lunchtime. So one would ask head/chair of governors. No one would be making an idiot of themself by asking the question "is this school policy".

The class teacher would not necessarily be around at lunchtime.

All schools are different we agree on that. I think the point you've missed completely from my post was that I was referring to some of the replies encouraging early "confrontation" as you see so often on here, whereas I (and i think you) agree that a word with whoever the appropriate person for that school may be would be a better approach.
At our school parents are ncourage to approach the class teacher at the end of the day with any queries or to contact the head at any time

toshkininny

dizziblonde wrote: »

No way on earth I would be around at lunchtime when I had a class of my own! Was usually doing an impression of a tornado running around trying to set up the afternoon, get some of the morning marking done, inhale a sandwich in under 5 minutes and find 30 seconds to visit the loo! Never had any input into lunchtime routines and wouldn't have known anything about the lunchtime shenannigans unless told about it.

More of a thing I'd go in at the head end of the school with myself rather than at the class teacher end since it was obviously a whole-school thing... quicker than getting it passed up the line from the class teacher to the head and back to the dinnerladies from there.

s'alright, you have enough holiday during the summer time to make up for all this running around!

QuackQuackOops

katrina1981 wrote: »

Hi

My daughter has just gone into year five at her primary school, it has always been a problem as the dinner hall is small, but now they only have five minutes to eat a packed lunch with a dinner lady counting down the minutes :mad:

Now I plan to see the head when you can eventually get an appointment with her, just wondered if anyone knew any guidelines on amount of time to eat?

Thanks

Oh my. Yet another case of a parent kicking off big time because of something the children have said.

When will parents learn that children do not see the world the same as an adult. 5 minutes to them might be 20 to us.

When your child tells you something how about you check out the facts before you get annoyed? Otherwise you're going to be a nervous wreck by the time shes 16 because teenagers are the biggests liars going and hyperbole is their middle names.