How long is your child's lunch break?

laidback

the school dinner break at my daughters school has been recently reduced by 15 minutes and the canteen just can't physically cope with the number of pupils it needs to serve,i and other parents have complained as my daughter now has to take a packed lunch and eat outside in all weather.Unfortunately the goverment has given schools the option to set their own school hours as they hoped it would mean schools would extend the school day but hey ho shock and horror 80% of schools who have taken the option have reduced their working week, can't believe thet didn't see that one coming and even the NUT have said they are disappointed with these schools.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

zagfles wrote: »

Yes same here - lunch break starts at about 1.10pm and they often don't get in the canteen till 1.40pm!! It's a ridiculous setup.

Parents including us have complained, but the answer we get is that "studies have shows that children learn better in the morning" - so they try to extend the "morning" till after 1pm and only have one lesson in the afternoon! Genius!

So kids are starving by lunchtime - so they tend to have junk food like chocolate bars or crisps in the morning break to keep them going. Our solution was to give them decent healthy packed lunches and they eat them in morning break at 11.00.

Once they notice that GCSE afternoon exams have to start in the middle of lunchtime, with the inherent noise, they'll just as likely change that again.

GwylimT

My daughter gets twenty minutes, somedays that includes queuing for her lunch, getting her cutlery and going to sit down. On packup days her lunch box is always empty apart from banana peel etc.

Haylescom

There are some children in my yr2 class who still wouldn't eat their entire lunch if they were given 3 hours because they're too busy chatting!

Tigsteroonie

Wow, mealtimes have got much shorter! When I was in secondary school, we had 1 hr 15 minutes during which the entire school (about 1000 kids) had their lunch, with 'intake' for a year group at 1205, 1215, 1225, 1235 & 1245. Each day a different year would go first, so that the first years would eat earliest on Monday but then last on Tuesday etc. You fitted "play time" around the sitting. Packed lunch eaters would have to line up and go in at the same time as their year, but then obviously skipped the canteen queue.

miss_independent

That's almost identical to the school I went to Tigsteroonie. Lunch was 12.40 - 2pm and we had a staggered, rotating entry into the dining hall. Although 6th Formers could go into the dining hall at anytime.

This also meant that there was time for lunchtime clubs and sports practices. Our school day finished at 4pm.

The boarding school I worked in until recently had one hour for lunch.

It certainly sounds like your children aren't getting enough time to eat OP.

AnnieO1234

I recall this was an issue at my school if you were on 4th sitting (junior school). IIRC lunch started at 12:30 and went in fifteen minute increments. But if you were packed lunch you didn't have a sitting at all.

It certainly sounds unsuitable to be expecting younger children to eat fast and I would be addressing this, possibly through the PTA. xxx

Gloomendoom

Money_maker wrote: »

Cos they dont have a dog or chicken to eat it?

Apparently, you shouldn't feed chickens leftovers. It's illegal.

Gloomendoom

There was no queuing for food when I went to school. There were ten boys to a table and a strict hierarchy as to who sat where. The most senior sat at one end and the youngest at the other. The three most senior boys served the food out to everyone else. The youngest did all the clearing up and cleaning of the table. The amount of food you actually received increased as you moved up the table.

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