Universal Free School meals

It's great. An extra 10 minutes in bed for me, cheaper grocery bills, kids are stuffed coming in so they don't eat before dinner which is then fully eaten.

Winner winner, chicken dinner.

literally

To me its a symptom of a dysfunctional society if schools are providing free meals etc....its another case of treating the symptoms and not the causes of the problem.

If a large number of kids are showing up without adequate food in their stomachs then its hard to argue that schools shouldnt provide food if they are in a position to do so and funding and facilities and workers with adequate pay rates etc etc are put in place

But wtf is it necessary at all ?...Im thinking it shouldnt be if things were being managed properly.....its more running around chasing tails instead of working on the causes of the problem

It's to do with being comptant, the parents could both be highly education and have well paying careers yet not be able to run a home. The house is a mess they are not organised enough to shop correctly so the children loose out, it's not always parents with issues.

Schools have to apply for it, themselves. There was a bit of “uproar” in one of the online parent’s groups around here due to angry parents giving out about DEIS and Educate Together getting everything.

Turned out the principal of their school didn’t want to go for it as it might make them look like a DEIS school.

Show us the data then…

That’s not true. The scheme is being rolled out to all schools on a phased basis. It’s

Society can't be perfecte, individuals can be very competent and excellent in one area of there lives but disasters in other.

One of mine was in a relationship for a long time with some who worked in a senior IT role, yet often left the house without his wallet or coat his spectrum disorder affected his life in a lot of ways, yet he could do an extremely complex job and get well paid for it.

Our kids school is part of the trial run. It's only recently that it came in.

It's been a godsend for us, and the kids like it. So I'm happy with it for now.

That being said, it was brought in on the idea that kids should have at least one hot meal a day, and so that kids aren't hungry. Not a bad thing in fairness.

However, there's plenty of times my lads went to school hungry because they didn't want toast or cereal or eggs or whatever we asked them did they want for breakfast. Sometimes they just didn't want to eat. And sometimes, they just wanted a banana and an apple for lunch.

Just because a kid is hungry, or has a small lunch, doesn't mean they're not being looked after or neglected.

Now our lads are in a small country school. I can safely say not one kid in the school is neglected, and there's very few single parents of any of the kids. And the one child that did experience neglect is now living with foster parents who may the kindest people you'd ever meet and dote on the girl, who really dotes on them in return, and is well looked now.

The point is, it's probably not required at our kids school. I'm thankful it is, and it's certainly a help to us, but if this scheme is to be rolled out, then it should be rolled out in schools where there are concerns regarding childcare or where single parents are more common to help those schools first. It seem to a scheme that while having great intentions, probably should have waited until the new school year, gathered the relevant information form teachers regarding students circumstances, and then been rolled out in the schools that need it most rather than picking some arbitrary schools that filled out a form.

The person I mentions didn't have kids at the time, it's not as simple as that there are various levels of all this.

If someone went in to a home with children and saw 3 different pack of nappies opened clean clothes all over the sitting room floor and kitchen table clothes never ironed, toys and gadgets every where, the house not very clean but not dirty, yet the kids are loved and it's a warm loving home are those children beeing neglected?

Only on boards could a reasonable and well-meaning policy ensuring children are fed, turn into an (at times toxic) multi-page debate,

It's no wonder the site is slowly dying.

There are a few libitarians here who hate any taxes and goverment spending what's so ever.

The rest who are against it's a mix of hate of any sort of welfare, along with its not fair and or have never moved on from black and white thinking about everything.

I do think from a public policy point of view those who promote this initiative should produce evidence of its benefits

One obvious benefit for that I can see anyway.

We could increase social welfare payments. But there's no guarantee that will go on food in some households. At least this is a guarantee children will have at least one meal a day.

Until you try to get your kids into a school with no local connections and see the absolute shiteballs 'system' for allocating places.......but yeah some advances.

Children of primary school age aren't expected to observe a strick Ramadan fast; some of them will keep a half-day fast, but this doesn't exclude eating lunch.

Either way, there's no requirement for any special Ramadan meal; anyone strictly observing Ramadan won't eat lunch, so it doesn't matter to them what meal is served.

Fed properly is subjective that's the whole point it's nit black and white.

O

Don't unsuly get in to this but to some unless a child is fed nutritionaly correct organic food they are not being fed correctly, to others highley processed breakfast cereals and processes ham sandwiches on white bread is feeding a child correctly.

I dont oppose it I just think its a sad indictment of where we are at that its a necessity or reality etc

Maybe I'm naeive or backward but I just think parents at a minimum should be able to clothe/feed etc their children ....if they have enough income/welfare to do so then why arent they? If they dont live up to these basic requirements is a free hot meal (of probably declining quality as it becomes more widespread) going to solve any of the real problems for these kids longterm or is it just going to be another policy achievement/press release for dep/minister and a boon for pearl clutchers that think "everything is awesome" and cant see implications beyond the immediate effects) while they do sfa of any real substance to improve the situation longterm....and sure why would the former...thats nots what is rewarded its all short term wins incentivised while longterm things get worse..

On top of that, the thing a lot of people on this thread are ignoring is that the stay-at-home mum is for most couples a thing of the past. For a lot of people, kids are not going to school without a proper lunch because they're parents are spending the child benefit on booze and fags, its because both parents are working fulltime. I know more than one set of couples who have to be on the M50 by 7am at the latest.

It's a sad indictment of modern society but it is a fact for many families.

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And if intensive support shames the parents-tough. It's the kids I'm concerned about,not the parents egos.

Ah ok, we have to resort to shaming parents.
When was the last time we tried to shame people into altering their behaviour? We did it with women for decades.

Ill repeat, you would have loved the nuns and priests running the place.

Providing a hot meal to a child if the parents cannot give one is a good idea. There is a mountain of evidence to support this.

Ate you satisfied that parents are sending their children to school hungry? 16% , that is outrageous. That sounds like a huge volume of people who can't be trusted to be parents.

Trusted?

Unless you want to go down the road of sterilising a big proportion of the population, what can you do about it?

If 16% of children are going to school hungry id support a scheme where they are fed. We dont live in Nazi Germany, thankfully.

You're ignoring a huge problem, because you don't like an extreme solution that posted has suggested. That shouldn't cover up the fact that there are parents sending their kids to school hungry, what kind of parent does that?

Again, what can we do it fix it.

The simplest one is to provide a hot meal to them.

Some people are suggesting an utterly authoritarian approach.