Schools 'charge up to £1.80' for children to eat packed lunches

[gwendes]

Schools 'charge up to £1.80' for children to eat packed lunches - ITV News

 

Is this happening at anyone's school, or just an isolated incidence?

[DJ-1701]

Wouldn't that mean more students eating food in hallways or outside most likely causing more mess?

[sted]

not heard of it but I suspect its to try and get kids onto school dinners.

 

as a point do any kids go off site for dinner I know all the way through primary and secondary bar the odd day I ate at home/my grandmas

[andyturpie]

Never heard of this being applied to any schools I'm involved in?

[mikeprice]

Dept of Education say it is 'Totally Unacceptable' so it is difficult to see how a school could enforce it - unless they are independant or outside the rules like an academy

 

so that'll be all of us soon then

[gwendes]

Posted on my facebook - two friends have children at schools that do this. Apparently to prevent overcrowding in the dinner halls :/

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Dept of Education say it is 'Totally Unacceptable' so it is difficult to see how a school could enforce it - unless they are independant or outside the rules like an academy

 

so that'll be all of us soon then

 

Please, no. Please.

[Grey-gear]

So is this school(s) doing this as they are losing interest in there school food causing them to make a loss, so to make up for the losses they are charging for the ability to eat in the dinning hall?

 

Would be interesting to see the what the school(s) have to comment on this to see their reasoning.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Grey-gear

[elsiegee40]

I'll start by saying it's wrong, wrong, wrong in my opinion.

 

I have spent a while pondering how a school could be incurring additional cost by having children eat packed lunches.

 

The best I could come up with is in schools where the dining hall is not big enough to accommodate those eating school meals and those eating packed lunches. In this case, lunch time supervisors would be needed to cover the packed lunch room in addition to those needed for playground and lunch hall.

 

However, those children need to eat and if they all had school lunches then arguably an additional sitting would be needed requiring the supervisors to be paid for longer hours. Maybe this would be less than the split rooms situation, maybe not.

[Geoff]

This was a while ago, but at the school I worked at we had overcrowding issues in the two dining rooms. We put packed lunch pupils in the nearest classrooms to eat. We never charged pupils, although it was a 'first come first served' basis for the packed lunch students. There were other areas in the school with open plan seating they could eat though.

[Jamman960]

I suppose if the cost of school dinners includes cleanup, supervision etc etc then there is going to be a shortfall when it comes to packed lunches but £1.80/day is way into making a profit territory. I'd be interested to hear what the majority of schools these schools are charging rather than the extreme end of it.

 

Running state schools like businesses is wrong but I guess thats the road we're heading down

 

Must admit I remember taking my lunch with me to the fields to eat while playing football when I was at school, if free options are available then its a bit of a non issue.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Jamman960

[Davit2005]

Posted on my facebook - two friends have children at schools that do this. Apparently to prevent overcrowding in the dinner halls :/

 

 

Please, no. Please.

 

How ridiculous, I bet if the teachers had their kids going to the same school they would be moaning about it.

 

It's jus as bad as the Public Transport being twice as expensive in rush hour to stop over crowding, yeah like people like being jam packed into tube trains let alone pay more for the privilege . No it's most of the time because they have little choice.

[garethEds]

I'm sure I read (was told) of a local school around my area which started considering charging for packed lunches - something to do with waste and recycling. Or did I dream it? Not sure how I know about this - so it could have been a dream.

 

 

Yes - confirmed - but it wasn't a school but an authority.

 

GJE

Edited March 29, 2016 by garethedmondson

[Grey-gear]

https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/exclusive-schools-charging-parents-children-eat-their-own-packed

 

The above link is from TES. After a quick read it seems that there are some parents getting charged 10p to 60p a day from a survey that they did, the £1.80 is just what one person that was interview heard about a school charging "in the south--east", also it has parts on parents being told to pay for essential books and field trips for students course which could lead to some course not being picked up as options in the future.

 

Hopefully some more light can be shed on this as schools will be getting less money and be expected to do more with it we may see this becoming a all too common practice.

[nicholab]

This is all down to over crowd dining rooms where schools have expanded and are now are too big. No one extended the dinning room or the assembly hall. There should be a limit on school size of 1000.

[elsiegee40]

This is all down to over crowd dining rooms where schools have expanded and are now are too big. No one extended the dinning room or the assembly hall. There should be a limit on school size of 1000.

 

And mandatory meals for KS1... Half the school's didn't have kitchens let alone a big enough dining area