How to stop the lunchbox police!

mammyof7

A few years back I actually removed 2 of my kids from a school for having their packed lunches confiscated. The headteacher would look through every lunch box and take out what she deemed to be "unsuitable". The offending food would then be sent home with a letter attached to it explaining why it had been taken.

Among the things that were not allowed were cheese strings (she said they were not proper cheese), yoghurt tubes and processed meats !!!.
This happened for a good few weeks and in the end up I removed my daughters. This was after many meetings with the headteacher who just would not budge in the slightest and was adamant that she was perfectly entitled to rummage through lunches taking whatever she liked out.

All this resulted in many parents taking their kids out of school and articles in the local paper. Might I just add that this was the same b***h who refused to let my reception aged daughter sit with class mates for dinner as she was the only one who took a packed lunch. Instead she had to sit in the library by herself with no supervision as apparently "pupils whom paid for dinners also paid to be looked after by the dinner ladies!!!" She was eventually permitted to be in the same room but on her own table after I told her that no way on earth was this happening!

Fast forward a few years and as a trainee teacher I dread the day I am sent to that school!:eek::eek::eek:

sassyblue

If my childs school regularly looked through my childs lunchbox l would be furious. I know my hands and the area l made his lunch in are clean, l don't want every Tom, !!!!!! or Harry rifling through it adding germs.

meritaten

Now I am just more concerned that actually doing a 'campaign' may be counter productive!
There seem to be some schools (Head teachers, Dinner Ladies) who seem to be acting on thier own initiative! exactly what can you DO about those?
most of you seem more than capable of sorting out problems with lunchboxes - even if you have to take the child out of the school, as one poster did!
Its really difficult to get a sense of HOW much of a problem this is just from this forum.
I need to think very carefully - but, so far NO-ONE has given me any indication they would be interested in a 'lunchbox' campaign.

btw - has anyone noticed what items the major supermarkets and food manufacturors promote as 'ideal for lunchboxes'? most of them would NOT get past the food Nazis!

atrixblue.-MFR-.

VfM4meplse wrote: »

Correct, a commonly used term amongst those of us that treat children in a clinical capacity.

I make no apology for disliking Soreen malt loaf. Perhaps you would like to grow up or cultivate an IQ? Alternatively you could stop "reading" the redtops. Or perhaps you were part of this mob?

meritaten made no assumption to your "peads" remark and infact said that part dis-interested her.

what i read as her OP was about lunchbox policing and gave an example of what was picked out as unacceptable and a 4 yr old given a row for it.

i dont care if you dislike meatloaf, i prefure not to read disgusting language in an open forum where anyone including children may read it. you obviously didnt use your IQ when posting such language and your attitude towards this thread shows your not capable of anything constructive other than to show yourself up.

moomoomama27

meritaten wrote: »

There seem to be some schools (Head teachers, Dinner Ladies) who seem to be acting on thier own initiative! exactly what can you DO about those?

I know that's what I find the most shocking!

If they find something unsuitable, then they shouldn't be taking away a childs food, they should allow them to eat it, and then at the end of the day request that they don't have that item again! Seems awful for a child to go hungry

Also I think for the school that are passionate about policing lunchboxes, they should provide an acceptable list!

meritaten

This is my problem moomoomama - Its brilliant that kids are given healthy eating advice in schools, and that school dinners are much healthier than they were in the Turkey Twizler years! but, what do you do with schools who go the extra mile and police lunchboxes like Nazis! while letting the school dinner kids have desserts which would be confiscated in lunchboxes? I cannot get my head around it............how DO you deal with that?
How do you deal with schools which tell kids 'if you eat that its BAD'! 'you will get fat'.
How do you deal with such ignorance of REAL healthy eating? and how do you help parents figure out whats ok to send in lunchboxes and whats not? is it a national problem - or is it a few schools whose savvy parents are posting on here?
I really dont know!

atrixblue.-MFR-.

the girls school has it right i think, they have a score sheet, whilst the inspect the lunchbox they dont take away and educate in the classroom they dont single out a child and punish them for eating something they THINK is a wrong type of food to eat.

the girls school will send home a letter with the child with good healthy food information and tick box food scale sheet if the child brough in apple sandwiches and a fruit drink with a packet of crisps the child get praised and the sheet is ticked off fully, if not the sheet reprasents what the child SHOULD eat but the school doesnt force their healthy eating by banning chrisps etc because they would rather a child ate than starved untill it got home.

Becles

*Louise* wrote: »

I would be really annoyed if my child was told off for the contents of a lunch that I had packed. Likewise I would not be amused if something was 'confiscated'. In these cases, do the schools offer the children a healthy replacement instead?

At our school they say they will take the "bad" food away and give them a piece of fruit instead. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I know a girl who had a slice of carrot cake taken away and her mother went into complain as the girl has a number of food allergies and this particular recipe was given to them by a dietician!

chika

I haven't read the whole thread but I just want to raise a couple of points. The "cake" that the school kitchen serve isn't normal stuff, it has barely any sugar and make with some kind of margarine so isn't very tasty. Its all part of the governments health guidelines.

I don't think the dinner ladies/headteachers take food away from children to be nasty. In the school I work in we will remove fizzy drinks, mars bars etc. However the amount of time I walk through the dining room and shake my head at the things that these so called parents feed their children. For example I noticed one ks1 child with a packet of dairylea lunchables, a massive Galaxy muffin and a can of coke. Now call me interfering all you like but there is no way I could stand by and watch a very young child eat/drink all that mess. A quiet word and the child was given a school dinner.

Another thing to consider is the effect of this "bad" food on children. As a teacher, I don't want to spend an afternoon dealing with 30 children who are as high as kites and can't sit still because of the sugar laden, e number laced meal that they ate during lunch.

busiscoming2

In the school I work in, we don't ever remove food from children's lunchboxes, but we inform the class teacher and ask them to chat to the parent if we feel the luchbox contents are an ongoing problem. Some children are repeatedly sent in with chocolate sandwiches, chocolate bars (yes more than one) and crisps, or the dreadful (IMO) Dairylea dunkers which constitutes their sandwich part of the lunch. One six year old came in with a Terry's Chocolate Orange to eat after his Jam sandwich!!

Our school dinners are much improved since JO's interference. Each child is given a menu for the following week to take home and complete. There is always the option of fresh fruit and salads each day, so it is up to the parent to decide.