Milk & fruit in schools

Poppy9

As an earlier poster mentioned the free milk initiative is a grant funded project. LEAs are not obliged to partake in the programme. Some may be reluctant due to past problems with grant claims. If any part of the grant claim is qualifed by the auditor the LEA has to find the money as the grant money will have to be returned to the government. Also a lot of work in compiling grant claims. Not as simple as just recording your expenditure. You have to provide activity analysis from every school.

The government uses grants to control how Local Authorities spend their money. If they give say £3m to a LA to spend on early years (children) there will be very strict criteria setting out how the money can be spent, what is and isn't eligible etc. The LA have to prove that they have met this criteria to claim the grant. This usually means that at least 10% of the grant will be spend on project managing and admin etc. the grant might not allow this as claimable expenditure. Also the LA will have to spend the money first and then wait 9 months to find out if their claim has been approved. If the money had gone direct into the RSG (Rate support grant) the LA would have been able to spend the money as they wished according to their own priorities i.e. they could spend it on Elderly or disabled persons.

bylromarha

Spendless wrote:

I was telling hubby that if they have been incorrectly charging and change it i've potentially saved parents upto £15.
Husband said what i'll have actually done is put everyones council tax up a bit more!!!

Good point! Although the parents of those kids will end up paying the extra to the council either through the school or through a raised council tax...all for a third of a pint of milk!!!!!!!!

Let us know what the LEA says

Spendless

jockettuk wrote:

iwas told it was a government thing that all children should get free milk untill there 5th birthday.. sounds like your school doesnt know this.. All schools nursery schools playgroups etc get government funding or similar to give all children free milk untill they are five

AFAIK its not peculiar to sons school. All schools in the town are doing it this way, though i will double check this with friends who have children at different schools.

Most of our schools have an attached school nursery. Parents who don't use the school nurseries tend to send them to private nurseries instead. People who live in a village whose school doesn't have an attached nursery tend to apply for an out of catchment place for the nursery year only.

The playgroups (pre-schools) are more used by parents the year before nursery (from 2 and a half onwards), and i found them hit and miss to what they provided, some water only, some water or milk, some offered juice.

I also suppose as pointed out by jellyhead it might be interpreted by my LEA to mean until the end of that school year. On the opposite side of the coin we do receive free fruit until the end of year 2 when a lot of the children will then be 7 even though when you look up details on it, it says provided until children are 6.

I haven't had a response from the LEA yet when/if i do i'll let you all know : -)

Spendless

Update- still no response from the council but i also sent an e-mail to somewhere that does Q & A about free milk.(name escapes me for minute) They have responded saying that all LEAs administer the free milk differently, but if i let her know which LEA she'll look into my query.

Will update if and when i get any more news.

Spendless

A response from our LEA!!!!

"I have sought advice from the powers that be.

Our procedures state a child in full-time education must pay for milk (unless they qualify for free school milk).

Therefore a four year old child in reception class does pay for milk, and a child in a nursery class does not.

The key point here is full time education".




So can i ask any members whose children are admitted to school the September after their 4th birthday (regardless of where their birthday falls) and who are not charged for milk in reception year until the child is 5 to let me know what LEA you're under (in a PM if you'd rather not say) and i will query this when i respond to this e-mail.

malolo

Sorry for going off on a bit of a tangent, I don't have any kids so don't know the state of these sort of things in schools. I was reminded the other night, after having a sniff of a new mouthwash I was using, that we used to have visits from dental nurses every fortnight at my primary school to administer mouthwash.

Does this still happen?

bylromarha

Spendless...Warwickshire LEA DEFINITELY give children free milk up to the age of 5 regardless of whether their 5th birthday falls in nursery or reception year.

Be interesting to know what terms they apply to qualify for free school milk...maybe you need to be under the age of 5 to recieve it LOL!

Spendless

Is there any other LEA apart from Warwickshire who give under 5s free milk in reception year, can anyone tell me?

I want to know for when i respond to the e-mail

Thanks

Sarahsaver

Leicester City education authority.
The kids in part time nursery get it here too.

jellyhead

some reception kids have a slow start to the year though, attending for morning sessions only until they're able to cope with full days. a few kids spend more than a term on mornings only, so i don't think that should qulaify as full time education.