Free school meals from Sept 2014

sulkisu

mrcow wrote: »

Even a child whose parents earn 5 times more that you do?

If they are earning that much, they will be paying a significant amount in tax, more than enough to cover the cost of a meal. I pay over £1k a month in tax alone and I am happy for it to help families who are not otherwise in receipt of benefits, as they are often the ones who struggle the most. It also means that for a few years (while my boys are young enough) I will also get something back.

stef1979

jellyhead wrote: »

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.

Ours didn't have a filling, but we got a new menu yesterday which looks a lot more appetising as the children weren't using the curries on offer so they altered them and they now have a choice of fillings from next term :-) so I won't begrudge paying it, if my youngest ask for one I do let him.

paulineb_2

daisiegg wrote: »

You did not appear to understand because your next post still made reference to 'leaving the school building'

Of course teachers take registers in lessons. That is not what I am talking about. It is not too difficult to understand! Say lunchtime is 1pm to 2pm. An emergency happens at 1.30pm that requires evacuation of the school. If no one signs out at lunchtime, how does anyone know whether Jack Smith in second form has gone to town for lunch or whether he is still trapped in the burning building? Or it is the first lesson after lunch and Jack is missing. If he didn't sign out or in at lunchtime how do they know where he is...did he go out for lunch? If so, did he come back? Or did he stay on the school site and is now skiving smoking behind the bike sheds? I just can't really understand how it can work not knowing where students are at all times during the school day while they are the school's responsibility. I am also surprised that in these health and safety crazed times they don't get them to sign in and out, that's all.

Yes that's correct. I did say building again when I should have said school site. As I said, not a phrase Im familiar with or would use.

Not lack of understanding, just lapsing back into using a word you are more familiar with. It happens. I'll go and slap myself senseless with the latest edition of the English Collins dictionary, something different to do on a Saturday afternoon.

As to the health and safety crazed people and pupils signing in and out every lunchtime. I have no idea, all I know is that they dont do it in all schools.

paulineb_2

GwylimT wrote: »

If they aren't leaving school then why would they been signing in and out?

On an occasion such as a school trip perhaps where a teacher might take the register for those 30 5 year old kids rather than expect the kids, some who might not be able to write their own name, to do it themselves.

Sorry that this thread has been derailed. Sincere apologies for my use of the word building in the wrong context.

Enjoy your Saturday.:)

Buzzybee90

daisiegg wrote: »

Nobody is talking about signing out every time they 'leave the building' but every time they leave the school site. I do believe those saying that in Scotland students can leave at lunchtime and don't sign out but that seems shocking to me. If there was some sort of emergency how would they know who is where?

I have never heard of pupils younger than sixth form being able to leave the school site at any schools I know of here in the south of England. Sixth formers can go out at lunchtime but must sign in and out, as must teachers.

Every school in my area allowed year 11 children out at lunch. It certainly isn't unusual. Sixth formers didnt have to sign in or out either, free to come and go as we pleased... This was true of my state secondary and my cousins prestigious private school so it isn't just certain 'types' of schools.

stardoman

My children go to a school in Durham which was one of the areas which trialed free school meals under the last government. There were some problems.

Firstly, we were given a copy of the menu (all colourful and on thick good quality paper). The menu sounded great. Choice of 2 hot items and 1 cold. Fruit, yogurts, puddings etc. However, I quickly discovered that the menu was a bit of a dressing exercise. For example, one of the hot meals on a Friday was a sausage plait which french fries. Turned out to be sausage roll and chips. Now I can understand fish and chips or maybe sausage roll and salad. But sausage roll and chips doesn't sound particularly healthy to me.

Another meal choice was chicken goujons and french fries. Goujons sound like it will be nice cuts of chicken lovingly wrapped in breadcrumbs. How come they look exactly like the chicken nuggets they gave the children before?

The second issue was the portion sizes. They were (and are) tiny. So much so that my reception child would come out of school and burst into tears because he was so hungry. My older son received the same portion sizes as my younger one. In fact, the year 6 children got the same portion size as the reception children. If my reception child was so hungry that imagine how hungry my middle son was? So much so I had to make a snack as soon as we got home to tide them over to the family tea.

The third issue was with the fruit and yogurts. At first they were put out everyday. But I'm guessing not many children ask for yogurts (other than the toffee flavoured one) or fruit because they quickly stopped getting these out. My boys always like some fruit with their lunch but as it was no longer there they could not get it. Also, they started only putting out the toffee yogurts. We did discovered that they could ask, but my 5 year old in particular did not like doing this.

So after a short time, I put my children back onto packed lunches. The school were not happy with this and so made a rule that the packed lunch children were not allowed to sit with their friends. But that's another story.

stardoman

jellyhead wrote: »

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.

It different at my son's school. The bread is very, very dry. So dry its almost inedible. I have no idea how anyone can make bread and for it to be that foul. It always reminds me of the old Bero advert with the duck that eats some bread and sinks.

Also, our cook believes that children only like bland food. So she doesn't use the herbs. Her spaghetti bolognese tastes of nothing (I've tried this). And her chilli con carne tastes like her spaghetti bolognese!!! She also believes that no children would voluntarily eat vegetables, so these are always pureed into the sauce.

What I really don't understand though is why my children are not allowed chocolate cake in their lunchbox, yet if they are on school dinners they can have chocolate pudding with custard.

The schools were the ones found out for dishing up rubbish food to our children and now they feel they can patronise parents. I hate the way the different meals are compared. Packed lunches are always bad made by uncaring parents and full of sweets whereas school dinners are always nutrionally perfect and great for the children. Rubbish.

daisiegg

Buzzybee90 wrote: »

Every school in my area allowed year 11 children out at lunch. It certainly isn't unusual. Sixth formers didnt have to sign in or out either, free to come and go as we pleased... This was true of my state secondary and my cousins prestigious private school so it isn't just certain 'types' of schools.

All I said is it is unusual (actually, unheard of) around here

Billie-S

Haven't read all of the thread, but I must say that I wish they had been free when my two were little. They are only just over a year apart, so school dinners used to cost us a packet!

We never qualified for free ones either, so as they got older, (like 7-8 plus,) they had lunchboxes. You can control what's in them too, unlike the crap that they often get given in school meals.

I am indifferent to this free school meals for every infant child though, as I think it's going to cost a LOT of money.

Billie-S

stardoman wrote: »

So after a short time, I put my children back onto packed lunches. The school were not happy with this and so made a rule that the packed lunch children were not allowed to sit with their friends. But that's another story.

Hey that's odd. Both schools my daughters went to (primary and secondary,) did this too; they wouldn't let the kids eating school dinners, sit with the people who had packed lunches. I was never sure why.