Free school meals from Sept 2014

GwylimT

I don't see why people think this will cause schools a huge hardship, it really isn't that difficult to make sandwiches and to provide fresh fruit.

Our school has food issues, the number of children who have a lunch consisting of a bag of crisps, some sweets and energy drink is horrifying.

At our school whether you buy hot food or cold food you must have either vegetables, salad or fresh fruit with it, of course, we cannot control the minority of students who don't eat it, but at least it is there for them.

At my last school the food was horrendous, the kitchen was run by a catering company so they could only serve certain things and prepare food with certain ingredients. Apparently they served healthy balanced meals, so chips were banned as they are bad, but you could have a full English made with the worst sausage you can imagine and grey scrambled egg. My favourite was baked potato day, a half cooked potato and the only filling option was pasta in mayo, yummy!

mummyroysof3

ATM all my children get free school meals but just my youngest will through that new scheme as he turns 5 next month

laurahester

For those wondering about the school dinners of today and their nutritional value, here are the rotating menus for my school.

(wont let me post link so add in dots and remove spaces)
southfieldsch (dot) co (dot) uk / wp-content / uploads / 2014 / 02 / Cucina-Restaurant-Menus (dot) pdf

We are a 'healthy school' and have acreditation/awards for this but are certainly not unique in this.

GobbledyGook

GwylimT wrote: »

In all schools in the UK both adults and children are required to sign in and out of school for fire safety reasons, a school failing to do this would fail an OFSTED inspection as they would not be adequately safe guarding their pupils. Not only is this required for pupil safety, it is also done to prevent the fire service needlessly risking their lives searching for a child in a school building who is sat at home stuffing their face.

That is a school I would certainly not be sending my child to.

That would be pretty much every Scottish secondary school I've ever known then...

That said I do think going home for lunch is more of a Scottish thing. I went home for lunch most days when I was at a Scottish school yet once I moved to England (Primary school) it was pretty much unheard of/not the done thing.

At Primary we had to tell the teacher when she was taking the register what we were doing for lunch so they knew who was in and out of the building. At secondary (back in Scotland) people could come and go at lunchtime and there was no note recorded. I went to three different high schools and the only people I ever seen signing in and out were the S5/S6 pupils who didn't have a registration class - they signed themselves in and out.

However, that said, there were only certain parts of the buildings accessible to pupils at lunchtime so there wouldn't have been a mass searching by fire brigade for pupils (but presumably would have been needed for teachers and other staff anyway?)

Schools in Scotland don't come under OFSTED so the HMIe (the Scottish equivalent) must have different rules.

laurahester

GobbledyGook wrote: »

That would be pretty much every Scottish secondary school I've ever known then...

That said I do think going home for lunch is more of a Scottish thing. I went home for lunch most days when I was at a Scottish school yet once I moved to England (Primary school) it was pretty much unheard of/not the done thing.

At Primary we had to tell the teacher when she was taking the register what we were doing for lunch so they knew who was in and out of the building. At secondary (back in Scotland) people could come and go at lunchtime and there was no note recorded. I went to three different high schools and the only people I ever seen signing in and out were the S5/S6 pupils who didn't have a registration class - they signed themselves in and out.

However, that said, there were only certain parts of the buildings accessible to pupils at lunchtime so there wouldn't have been a mass searching by fire brigade for pupils (but presumably would have been needed for teachers and other staff anyway?)

Schools in Scotland don't come under OFSTED so the HMIe (the Scottish equivalent) must have different rules.

Its more of a recent thing having to sign in and out due to child protection/fire safety issues - as in the last 6 or so years.
When i was at secondary school (10 years ago) we didnt have to sign in and out either.

floralaura

http://welshlibdems.org.uk/en/page/welsh-lib-dems-demand-free-school-meals-for-infants-in-wales


Seems my welsh gov don't want to follow suite!

Buzzybee90

laurahester wrote: »

Its more of a recent thing having to sign in and out due to child protection/fire safety issues - as in the last 6 or so years.
When i was at secondary school (10 years ago) we didnt have to sign in and out either.

It must vary, as at was at secondary school the same time as you and year 11s had to sign out.

jellyhead

stef1979 wrote: »

I don't disagree with this I do think it's great they are guaranteed a meal, what I don't understand is why is it only 4-7 year olds?. We pay £2.40 per meal for our youngest (on top of £7 a day for a 13 and 15 year old to eat at secondary extortionate!) fortunately only once a week as my son loves the fish in school, but many of the meals are tasteless and small, we regularly have taster days and I'm appalled. I don't agree with paying £2.40 for picnic day which consists of a sandwich, yoghurt fruit and drink or for a baked potato with butter.

I'd happily pay £2.40 for that sort of lunch including a drink for myself if I was out of the house. Our school has tuna mayo, cheese, beans etc. for jacket potato fillings. We have taster days next week and mine falls on roast pork day with roast potatoes. Yummy

Our school meals are £2.10. Of course I could do a picnic lunch cheaper than that, but nobody forces kids to have school meals. Most days mine takes sandwiches from home. As far as I know the school's only had one picnic day, and that was so that the whole school could go and have an actual picnic which is a lovely idea. The kitchen provided a picnic box for those who chose to buy school lunch or get FSM instead of bringing their own from home.

The school's pudding was biscuit or muffin though, and those would have been freshly baked from scratch that day using real ingredients rather than the preservatives that many of the children (mine included) would have had in their shop-bought cake. The kitchen's sandwiches would have been on bread baked that day on the premises from scratch, unlike the shop-bought bread that my child would have had.

The summer menu, irrc, does have a picnic box option but the children don't have to have yoghurt, they can have the cake, biscuit, flapjack, etc. with custard if they choose, because they are eating it in the dinner hall with everyone else.

My child is in key stage 2 so he won't get free school dinners. To be honest I wouldn't want him to have them 5 days a week anyhow, even if they were free. The portions are too large and he makes bad choices. He chooses beans instead of salad or veg, unless it's roast day when he has cabbage, and he chooses cakes and biscuits rather than fruit for his pudding. His school meal doesn't contain much of his 5 a day, but that's because he makes unhealthy choices, not because the school don't provide healthy options. And he always takes a wedge of bread because he loves fresh, real, bread and I don't make it at home.

School meals are a treat for my child rather than an everyday thing.

zaxdog

At my Scottish high school the menu for school dinners was great and as a vegetarian I was well catered for :j

Free school meals are something that I don't agree with to be honest. Why should I pay to feed someone else's kid? Up there with other wastes of tax payer's money like gastric bands in my opinion.

*Sits back waiting to be flamed and cares not a jot*

paulineb_2

I qualified for free school meals during part of my childhood, but my mum paid for them. In those days a free dinner was made a big song and dance of, you got called out separately and had to line up before the paying pupils got their dinner, things are different these days I believe.

My view on free school meals is, there have always been people who qualified for free school dinners, taxes pay for many things and yes, there will be families who earn a lot whose kids get free school meals but until very recently very wealthy people could claim child benefit without getting taxed on it

I'm not sure that this is being rolled out across the uk, will need to look it up.