School dinners … PLEASE
After a rocky start, HM (4) is settling in school. Thirty four-year-olds is a lot and our school is handling the larger credit crunched intake very, ahem, creatively. The first week HM went mornings (9 – 12). The following week afternoons (1 – 3). This week she goes mornings, and gets to stay for lunch.
Therein lies the next hurdle. She doesn’t want school dinners, she wants a packed lunch.
School dinners are healthy, good and affordable (thank you Jamie Oliver). I really don’t want to be buttering ham sarnies and washing grapes in between the brushhairgetdressedeatbreakfast out-the-door palava. More importantly, I most likely don’t have anything in the fridge suitable for a packed lunch (parmesean cheese and limp carrots?) I pleaded with her to try school dinners.
Her two older sisters (5 and 7) very kindly helped me on my campaign. They are school dinner converts (after rejecting mummy’s creative lunches).
“You get really good desserts with really, really good icing.”
“The cakes are better than mummies.”
“The dinners are hot. Not too hot though.”
“You don’t want one of mummy’s weird sandwiches, DO YOU?”
But is was the mention of fish and chips on Friday that piqued her interest.
Why did she hesitate?
“I’m too shy to talk to the dinner ladies.”
What do you do for lunch?
Photo credit: downing street
twoambitiousmamas | 22nd Aug 10
These day school dinners are a lot more nutritious and to be honest a lot easier then preparing packed lunches. I do think that there should be snack time aswell maybe the last break of the day.
Vivian
A Modern Mother | 29th Sep 09
Working Mum — LOL!
Hectic Mum — I’m with you there.
Hectic Mum | 29th Sep 09
Absolutely School Dinners it is!
I write for the Hectic Mum blog and did do a blog on good ideas for packed school lunches over a the Hectic Mum blog http://tinyurl.com/y9s9ye2. However, given the choice in the morning it would be school dinners all the way.
working mum | 23rd Sep 09
I have school dinners! Oh, did you mean my daughter? Well, she has the same school dinners as me. It’s compulsary at our school (no packed lunches allowed) and I’m sooooo glad. I have enough trouble trying to ensure there are healthy things in the house to give her for her morning snack, never mind lunch!
A Modern Mother | 22nd Sep 09
Victoria — a kindred spirit!
GetYourHandsBack — I don’t do crisps every day too
GetYourHandsBack | 22nd Sep 09
Packed lunches in our house, although for the first week they came home uneaten.
I tend to go with sandwich (or crusty bread and cheese or ham), fruit, yoghurt and a biscuit. SnugBoy is most put out because I won’t let him have crisps every day, and his friends do, but I am mean.
I don’t really find it a chore – I try to do it while I am in the kitchen maing our dinner anyway.
Victoria | 22nd Sep 09
We have a choice, but you have to give a week’s notice to swap from one to the other. I’ve always stuck with school dinners. They are given a good choice, it’s nutritious and cheapish. Occasionally my daughter mutters about wanting to swap but I don’t give her the option. My son has just started and seems to really like his lunches, which is great news. Life’s too short to be making packed lunches!
A Modern Mother | 22nd Sep 09
Angels — do our chidlren go to the same school?!
Kassia — no school dinners? bummer!
Kassia @ Working Mum | 22nd Sep 09
We don’t have a choice, or school doens’t do school dinners so it’s packed lunches all the way. We try to be organised and do them on the previous evening but we struggle to come up with ideas that Ami will actually eat!
angelsandurchinsblog | 22nd Sep 09
We are loving school dinners! Hurrah. And they are much better than the stuff I’d come up with. Boy#1 had mango ice cream yesterday, ‘he thinks’. So it might just be lurid yellow vanilla, but hey. Shame the two younger boys still need feeding at home – mummy’s fish pie apparently not nearly as nice as the one they’ve heard about at school.
Dawn/LittleGreenFingers | 22nd Sep 09
I love school dinners because it leaves me guilt-free to make sandwiches for their tea. The school offers the option of taking packed lunches but their mother doesn’t.
A Modern Mother | 21st Sep 09
Mwa — I know what you mean about the vitamin uptake … I really am not very creative …
Mwa | 21st Sep 09
I WISH we had school dinners. I just give my son boring sandwiches each day, with the odd cheese or fruit surprise, because I have no imagination when it comes to lunches.
My daughter gets lunches the two days she goes to the creche, which makes me a lot less worried about her vitamin uptake for that day.
I hope you convince her.
A Modern Mother | 21st Sep 09
Tara– impressed your local supermarket is open at 10! Ours closes at about 6!
SPD– what’s exactly why I insist on school dinners…life is too short. Good luck!
SingleParentDad | 21st Sep 09
School diners are becoming the bane of my life. They are allowed a mixture, so one day you could have a school dinner, the next a packed lunch. Max seems to have perfected the art of changing his mind, at the exact I shut our front door after leaving. He cried virtually the whole way there one day last week, as he had changed his mind on dinner.
The dinners themselves seem good, we were invited to try them last term. I had Cottage Pie, which while not my favourite, I found quite tasty, not bland at all.
Hopefully we shall crack a consistent formula soon.
Tara@Sticky Fingers | 21st Sep 09
I (and my son) are big fans of school dinners. He does have a packed lunch on a Monday just because he wants a jazzy lunchbox to use (!) but every other day he has school dinners which I have to say are really good. He has everything from a roast dinner, to lasagne and fish and chips.
The nursery school my daughtersed to go to didn’t do hot dinners so I had to make a packed lunch every day for her which was a nightmare – how many times did I have to make a 10pm dash to the supermarket because I was out of bread/pitta/wraps!
A Modern Mother | 21st Sep 09
Liz — ryvita and tomato, great idea
TooMany — school lunches are subsidized — they cost less than a big cap at Starbucks
Expat — four more slices of bread?
Expat Mum | 21st Sep 09
I don’t hve a choice with the Little Guy. He’s not allowed school dinners till 3rd grade (Year 4) because the school recognised how much food was being wasted. So now I make lunches for all three almost every day. I mean, once you’ve got the loaf out, what’s the difference between 1 and 3 lunches.
TooManyHats | 21st Sep 09
The two high schoolers pack their own lunches or if they want to buy a hot lunch, they pay for it. I’m so mean.
Liz | 21st Sep 09
We tried school dinners for a while but had to admit defeat when it emerged that we were paying a fortune for something which simply wasn’t being eaten – apart from the puddings. (I can remember the dinner ladies standing over us demanding we finish everything on our plates when I was at school, but it seems that’s no longer acceptable.) So it’s been a packed lunch ever since. Mind you, if you’re determined to persuade her to have school dinners you could always try giving her the same lunch my mum once gave to me: two ryvita sandwiched together with sliced tomato. Put me off packed lunch for life. If their friends are having school dinners that can make a difference, of course, as they want to spend as much time together as possible before the bell goes.
A Modern Mother | 21st Sep 09
Laura — impressed you make lunch in the eveing!
Sally — the manky lunchbox at the end of the day is a bit off putting
Sally, Who's the Mummy | 21st Sep 09
School dinners are compulsory at Flea’s school, thank goodness.
They seem to be reasonable meals – certainly they’re freshly prepared on site, and the school believes everyone sitting down together is important in helping children learn table manners and social skills and that sort of thing. I totally agree and my support is nothing to do with the fact that I can’t bear the idea of washing out manky lunchboxes at the end of the day…
Laura Driver | 21st Sep 09
I’m a definite advocate for school dinners.
My main reason being that my daughter (5) is fairly adventurous and will try most things. In order to keep this going I felt that school dinners could offer far more variety than I could with a packed lunch.
I can remember school dinners being a big daunting when I started school. When she started reception she had a buddy from Yr 6 who took her to lunch for a fortnight and showed her the ropes which I’m sure helped the process.
My son (3) isn’t as adventurous with food and he will have school dinners. At the moment he goes to nursery and then has lunch at his childminders and I have to send a pack up. I’ll be happy when I don’t have to make that anymore, one less thing to do every evening.
The cost is £8 per week, which I’m sure will be harder once the 3 year old starts too.