My child missed lunch 2 times this week because the school cut lunchtime to 30 minutes, what can I do??
Posted by Begum65@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 656 comments
So the school my daughter attends has made a lot of changes since last year, one being lunchtimes are now 30 minutes long for the whole school. Being quite a big secondary I think this is ridiculous.
It's only been 4 days back and she's missed lunch on 2 days now because of this.
I'm sure other parents are complaining about this, but is there anything that I can do??
bduk92@reddit
If she's missed it because the school can't cater to all the kids in the half hour lunch, then you should ring the school to complain, and if it's not resolved then request to speak to the headteacher in person
happyplant3@reddit
If the school can't cater for all students in the given time then it becomes a safeguarding issue if students are missing lunch. Not all students get fed at home sadly so some rely on it being their only meal of the day. Ask to speak to a member of SLT or the safeguarding officer. I am a teacher in a school and have dealt with complaints from parents about 2 other high schools cutting lunch time to half an hour and their children not being able to eat.
Pink-glitter1@reddit
What was the result? Did they extend lunch again?
happyplant3@reddit
The complaints were to me about other schools - I believe they have had enough complaints to need it reviewing so they were looking at still having half an hour break for lunch but the cohort was split in 2 (one group for lunch 12:15-12:45, the other group 12:30-1).
dadoftriplets@reddit
This was how my daughters' secondary school used to do lunch breaks until a new head teacher came in in the midle of the year 18 months ago and screwed around with the schedule for the start of the last school year, taking the year groups off a split lunch break and putting all 1200 kids on one 45 minute lunch break. My 3 daughters were given a 5 minute pass to leave class a few minutes early to get lunch as the noise was/is causing sensory issues (all three are autistic).
Once again the strat of the school year was a few days ago and the moron in charge has dropped a new edict on the first day back stating that all issued 5 minute passes are now two minute passes because he thinks those who have them only need two minutes to get from the class on a potential third floor, put all their stuff away and get down 6 flights of stairs before everyone else gets out fro lunch. As such, all three daughters did not get their lunch (because of sensory issues) on two out of the three days they have been back - my wife and I are not happy about it in the slightest. We willl be contacting the school on Tuesday if we get reports from the girls about not getting their lunch again on Monday. But even complaints don't seem to work as we sent in a 3 page letter outlining all of these concerns when they originally decided to change the school day and they were brushed aside, like the decision to chage the school schedule had already been made, but had to ask parents to make the change legitimate (the change involved removing the split 30 minute lunch and increasing the school day by 15 minutes, but having the 15 minutes in pastoral (so with form tutor and not in class) - the first month of last year was hellish with the girls but it then eased off to a point (the 5 minute pass helped) but still had problems here and there (the nosie basically forced one of my daughters to sit in a room well away from the noise every day during lunch becuause it was and still is overwhelming).
Sad-Yoghurt5196@reddit
Ask to speak to the school SENCO, and try and get them on side, before broaching it with the management team. If the SENCO considers it a safeguarding issue, it's a safeguarding issue. If a parent considers it a safeguarding issue, they don't always listen. Sometimes you need an ally within the system to advocate for you and your child.
I haven't met every SENCO in a school setting, but the one's I have dealt with, tend to get into the occupation because they genuinely care about kids with needs being treated fairly, and not being further disadvantaged because of school rules or policies. They're generally pretty approachable for assistance with issues in my experience, and because they make written reports, the school management can't afford to conveniently ignore them, the way they can ignore a parents concerns.
dadoftriplets@reddit
We have a good relationship with the SENDCO team at the school, often getting in touch with them to discuss nerw/ongoing issues with the girls - at the time, we explained how the situation would affect our daughters and as mentioned above, put it down in a lengthy email/letter to the school. They (SENDCO team) agreed and said they were hearing similar things from other families under their care and had expressed their own misgivings with the change in schedule, but that the headteacher (and as far as I remember) the governors had overridden everyones concerns and oimposed the change in the schedule (because as they said at the time, the schools timetable was 1hr 30 minutes a week under the average hours the government expected a school to operate, despite offering five 1 hour lessons a day and included a 10-15 minute morning break and a 30-35 minute lunch break that was split into 2 groups - one containing Year 7 and Year 9 and the other years 8, 10 and 11)
The girlls fortunately got used to it, but every now and again in the last school year, they would come from sand tell us they missed lunch for some reason, but it was a rare event, what with the 5 mionute pass they'd been issued. But this school year, 2 out of 3 days they've missed the lunch because of different things, we definitely need to get in touch if the same things happen again on Monday.
Sad-Yoghurt5196@reddit
I'd be surprised if they couldn't get the five minute passes back. There's several safeguarding issues, in the short term, it affects their energy levels and performance if they're not eating. In the long term it could lead to eating disorders. It's also difficult for ND children to either deviate from a routine, or to form effective routines. Lack of consistency from one day to the next impacts both. So there should be plenty of ammunition for them to argue your case to whoever issues the passes or sets the policy.
I tend to be a bit mama bear (papa bear just doesn't seem to have the same connotations) when it comes to these things. I'm polite and courteous, but I will walk away satisfied that I have asked all the questions I can, got answers that I can live with, and most importantly advocated as hard for my child as I possibly can. In your shoes, I'd suggest someone from the SENDCO team evaluate the time it takes your daughter's to cover the distance, given all that they have to do in that period, over the course of one week. Then they can report to whoever set the policy that it's an insufficient amount of time, and more importantly they have seen it with their own eyes, and that two minutes is insufficient time. Make them work for the premium they get.
As long as you stay polite and courteous, they don't really have any grounds to refuse to carry out an impact assessment on how the shortened time period affects your daughters. I'm sure they're busy, but that's true of all staff in schools. It's still their job to advocate for your child in the school setting though.
I hope you manage to get the issue resolved quickly and without the need for ramming it down their necks in person every day, until you get heard and action is taken.
I tend to look at it as people will usually take the easier path. Rejection is usually the easy path, but when you're reluctant to answer the phone when it rings, because a parent has been ringing incessantly to speak to you every day, then at that point it's easier to do whatever it is that needs doing and not have to deal with said parent taking a five minute chunk of your time every day. Break a gatekeeper once, and you don't usually have issues on subsequent occasions, and they'll push all the harder for you, because they don't want to deal with you again. Being a polite nuisance is an odd skill, but I have to use it a fair bit in this day and age, as common sense seems to have taken a backseat in all institutions and businesses.
dadoftriplets@reddit
As a brief update to my posts, we made contact witht he school about a few matters and raised the issue of the 5 minute passes, and about how we weren't consulted about the change of something that was working and was given a 'we'll raise it up the flagpole' response, which wasn't good enough, but then we had two further phone calls from the SEND team about another matter and brought it up again on both calls. The following day, the girls came home with replacement passes so now all is well in the world of school for my daughters.
Sad-Yoghurt5196@reddit
I'm pleased you had success in reinstating their passes. It's unacceptable for schools to be so lassaiz faire about changes, without conducting some sort of impact assessment beforehand. It's much better for everyone when they look at who will be affected before making sweeping changes, and only then decide if changes need to be so widespread.
It's almost always a knee jerk reaction by senior management that drives these things, and they don't have the best grasp of how things function on the ground floor, as it were. Sadly corporate culture has made its way into our education system, and the only thing you can do is fight it, when and where possible. So give yourselves a pat on the back for a fight well fought, and more importantly, they might listen to you the first time, if there's a next time, rather than it going back and forth so much and wasting both your time, and theirs.
I hope your daughters have an otherwise enjoyable year at school. What happens in schools stays with us our entire lives, so the staff need to put some effort in sometimes to accommodate everybody, rather than just go with the flow!
happyplant3@reddit
I'm sorry this happened for your girls. We have a high percentage of students with ASD at our school and lunch times are a big thing for them. We have half an hour for lunch and on our school site about 40 students at a time. Getting our students with ASD into the dining room is a real challenge at first because they have such bad memories of their mainstream dining room atmosphere.
The commentator above is correct though. Speak to the SENCO about this as they should be supported additionally, not just given a pass to go a little early.
cherrybaby101x@reddit
Is it a local authority school or academy school? If the school aren’t taking your complaints seriously, you need to go above their head. Go to the media even. Kick up an absolute stink for them. Join up with other parents.
TangyZizz@reddit
My child’s school (massive inner city secondary, 1800 pupils) has made a second dining area so that the younger kids eat separately to the older kids and also made the morning break longer with sandwiches available so that not every kid needs a sit down meal in the middle of the day. They also have a free, non means tested breakfast club so that every child gets to eat at some point of the school day regardless of money or home circumstances.
Your head seems like a knob, sorry your kids have to go through this. If I were in your position I would look to form an alliance with other SEN parents to campaign for the ‘reasonable accommodations’ that children with disabilities are legally entitled to (including getting dinner time adaptations written into as many EHCPs as possible). I’d resort to ‘compo face’ (mine, not my child’s!) in the local paper if necessary.
Majestic_Fly88@reddit
Have you contacted the school governors? They do have some influence over the school. If all else fails contact your local councillor and Member of parliament
dadoftriplets@reddit
from my recollection, the govenrors of the multi academy trust the school is part of was in agreement with the headteracher, so no amount of concerns woudl've overturned the decision to change the schools daily schedule.
Majestic_Fly88@reddit
Still write a formal complaint to both head teacher and governors. This complaint should be logged and OFSTED get to view it. Then contact your local councillor and your local mp, that way you can evidence you’ve followed the process.
Pink-glitter1@reddit
Oh sorry I misinterpreted your comment. Glad they addressed the issue though!
happyplant3@reddit
Not a problem. It seems to be a "new headteacher changed lunch times" issue though.
Imperial_Squid@reddit
Unfortunately incredibly common instance of some new management coming in and making sweeping changes rather than spending some time observing, thinking about changes and consulting with people who already know of the existing issues...
StewartIsHere@reddit
Headteachers or to be honest, any kind of manager that do that are utter, utter scum. Its authoritarian CV feathering nonsense. Proper "look what I achieved" nonsense.
If things are going wrong, work collectively to find a solution. If things are fine, why fix it? Ego.
Ok-Flamingo2801@reddit
The head teacher who was at my high school for my last 2 years (and time at sixth form) ruined the school.
My sister started at that school 7 years before I did and it was amazing all the way until I was in year 9, so 10+ years. The head teacher was amazing, she'd always stop to see how you were doing when she saw you in the halls, she'd always be around during parent evenings for in case parents had issues, we always got outstandings at ofsted, and there was about 100 extra students wanting to attend in year 7 than there were places for. She was so good that she was asked to help another school where there were a lot of issues.
Because of that, we got a different head teacher from a third school, and she was awful. By the time I was in sixth form, the school was getting needs improvement from ofsted and at least half of the teachers who'd been there since my sister started had left. And the new head teacher definitely had some kind of grudge against my year group, the conspiracy side of me thinks she was sabotaging us to make her kids, who were at school that we had friction with, look better.
Legolution@reddit
But, but, but... the final project for my Leadership and Management MSc...
Steelhorse91@reddit
Split into two won’t be enough. Needs to be broken down further so there’s smaller groups arriving in 5 minute intervals. Then there’ll never be a queue.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Or anyone sat for more than a minute. Or are they going to just keep them perpetual motion. Wouldn't be bad if they could skip the looking for a seat part. Just serve in bags, some will be eating during next lesson. That would be understood. The last one third will never have enough time to eat
Steelhorse91@reddit
I don’t think you’ve understood what I meant. At my school, 1/6 of the school would have dinner say 1200-1200, another 1/6 would have it 1205-1235, another 1/6 would have it 1210-1240 and so on. (The canteen seating area was pretty large though, so avoiding huge wait times for the food itself was the main issue over people struggling for tables).
teamcoosmic@reddit
Not the same person but it happened to me as well when I was in school. We went from two 45 minute lunch periods (lower school and upper school) to one combined 30 minute period, recipe for disaster.
They realised it was an issue pretty quickly because of the extended queues left over at the end of lunch, and allowed people to be late to their next lesson while they fixed the issue.
The fix was opening more tills and multiple additional queues, as well as a new cold food hatch being set up and accessible from the playground. They basically doubled the number of service outlets to speed through queues faster.
(It would’ve been better if we could’ve gone back to the old timetable but academy trust said no.)
No_Fee_686@reddit
I also work in an Academy as the Catering Manager and we are going through this at the moment. We have 3 half hour dinners, year 10&11 on the 1st, year 7 on the 2nd and years 8&9 on the 3rd. We have 1 cold counter to queue at and 2 more till points at the hatch which is where the hot food is served. We have just over 1000 pupils in the school, dinner time over runs and it’s extra stressful for girls in the kitchen because we can’t get the kids through quick enough. Wish we could go back to our original 2 diner times at 40 minutes but it ain’t gonna happen.
Passionofawriter@reddit
What on earth is the reason for the shorter lunch break? More lesson time? Why? Most companies as standard give an hour lunch break, I believe 30 mins is the legal minimum so why on earth are schools suddenly shifting to that?
lianepl50@reddit
Simply put: behaviour. The vast amount of significant behaviour issues happen during unstructured social time. The less time students have to eat, the less time they have to get themselves into conflicts. There is a great deal of evidence to back a move to a shorter lunchtime.
Passionofawriter@reddit
But kids need to be socialised, and learn how to live with one another! If there are significant behavioural issues at lunchtime maybe it's because there's too many of them crammed into one space, or the school should just employ more specialists at handling troublesome kids. These kids become adults... Who then have 1 hour lunchtimes, and have to integrate into a wider society that might think and act differently to them. This doesn't seem like the way to teach kids self restraint and respect for others, if the answer to any conflict is to facilitate anything that might circumstantially avoid it.
DearCartographer@reddit
Schools should be places where children learn to socialise as well as learn maths and science. I totally agree with you. I just wanted to point out in all the schools I've ever worked in there has never been the option to increase the playground area so they are not so crammed in or employ a plethora of specialists to deal with troubled souls.
Without the funds to do either of those things schools are trying to find cheap solutions and the problem with cheap solutions is they don't often work!
For the record I think trying to feed 800 kids in one 30min block is madness. They need to upskill whoever is doing their timetable each year to have at least 2 sittings. There will be pushback from staff who now have their lunch at a different time to their friends but at least staff have the chance to have a lunch break and yard duty separately rather than doing both at once.
Really we just need dinner ladies back on the playground. Staff can have a proper lunch, kids can have a long yet supervised playtime, old people can top up their pensions/socialize. It's a win win win! And it would cost next to nothing.
But we can't even afford even that.
lianepl50@reddit
I agree that children need to learn how to live and interact with one another, but we are looking here at just one part of a school's overall approach. This 30 minute lunchtime is just one part of a school's response to an existing problem, rather than being a 'stand-alone' response. It's also not necessarily likely to be permanent. Alongside a clear set of measures aimed at improving behaviour (both punitive and supportive), consistently applied, a shorter lunchtime can be quite effective.
As the culture of the school changes, a good leadership team will make the necessary changes. A longer lunchtime, with plenty of opportunities for students to attend extra-curricular clubs would be great to aim for - but it has to be done at the right time.
Potential_Maybe_1890@reddit
Children need rest too and a child with an eating disorder will benefit from time to eat and a child with type 1 diabetes will be made ill. Not sensible
lianepl50@reddit
Measures such as this are just one part of a series designed to respond to poor behaviour during social times, for example. Alongside the shorter lunchtime and more punitive measures are provisions for students who may have additional needs, such as the examples you gave.
cari-strat@reddit
Problem being that neurodivergent kids and those with behavioural difficulties often need to have some down time to self regulate, be that through a good run round, or just to sit somewhere quiet outside and chill out.
If the entire break is spent queuing and eating in a crowded noisy hall and then it's straight back into lessons, it's not surprising kids are having problems and then it also disrupts learning for others.
No easy answers, I guess.
lianepl50@reddit
As I said in a couple of responses, this policy is just one of a number of measures. Adjustments for students who need them are part of that raft of measures.
ZolotoG0ld@reddit
This is silly.
The answer to poor behaviour isn't to keep kids so busy and rushed so they don't have an opportunity to mess about.
Its to teach them how to behave around other people, and enforce the rules.
lianepl50@reddit
Oh I agree with you. However, 30 minute lunchtimes are just one part of a school's response to an existing problem. They are not a single, 'stand-alone' response, nor are they necessarily permanent. Alongside a clear set of measures aimed at improving behaviour (both punitive and supportive), consistently applied, a shorter lunchtime can be quite effective.
JohnAppleseed85@reddit
Shorter lunchtime for individuals is fine - the issue is when the whole school shares that same slot. Much more sensible to have a longer lunch period with different years being allocated different times.
AffectionateLion9725@reddit
At my school, it was because the students had too much time to fight/vape/bully each other on social media.
Infinite-Slick@reddit
There was a government edict a year or so ago that extended the teaching hours. The school I worked at cut form time and made the start of the day earlier to scrabble about to make up the extra 45 minutes or whatever it was. My guess is that lunches are being cut to squeeze in more teaching time without extending the day.
IwantedBeatsteak@reddit
On a recent tour of a local secondary school, the deputy head said they cut lunch time to 30 mins to reduce fights. They also opened a second canteen and year groups are assigned to one or the other. I liked the honesty, not so much the school.
The-Mayor-of-Italy@reddit
I'm pretty sure we had an hour for lunch AND a 30 minute morning break when I was at school.
TangyZizz@reddit
My child’s school (massive inner city secondary, 1800 pupils) has made a second dining area so that the younger kids eat separately to the older kids and also made the morning break longer with sandwiches available so that not every kid needs a sit down meal in the middle of the day. They also have a free, non means tested breakfast club so that every child gets to eat at some point of the school day regardless of money or home circumstances.
Your head seems like a knob, sorry your kids have to go through this. If I were in your position I would look to form an alliance with other SEN parents to campaign for the ‘reasonable accommodations’ that children with disabilities are legally entitled to (including getting dinner time adaptations written into as many EHCPs as possible). I’d resort to ‘compo face’ (mine, not my child’s!) in the local paper if necessary.
doctorocelot@reddit
I was gonna say. Pupils being able to eat is a safeguarding issue. And raising the idea of safeguarding will always get you taken seriously.
Scottish_squirrel@reddit
Ask to speak to management in the school to discuss why it's happened. Please don't take it out on the office staff who may happen to answer the phone.
Tee_zee@reddit
Office staff in schools have a lot of power tbf lol. They make some whacky rules sometimes
-myeyeshaveseenyou-@reddit
I always feel like they are gp receptionists in training with the ones I’ve encountered with my children’s schools.
badgerkingtattoo@reddit
Dealing with parent nonsense 7 hours a day will harden you. I was not technically office staff but worked in the office and some of the stuff even I had to deal with made me think parents lose about 50 points of their IQ whenever they’re dealing with their child’s school.
Same but worse for GP receptionists, my sister used to be one and tried really hard to be one of the “good ones” but she always said it was super hard because you essentially just get abused by old people all day every day for things you can’t change.
wombleh@reddit
I've never met such a bunch of petty, idiotic, bullying individuals as I did when we tried to help at the PTA for my kids school. Dealing with parent nonsense 7 hours a day would drive me utterly insane.
badgerkingtattoo@reddit
Yep, everyone’s little princess/prince can do no wrong and none of the rules should apply and everything is awful and you’re awful for not helping even though it’s way above your pay grade. The tiniest mistakes become the most heinous atrocities. Advocating for your child is one thing but some of these parents are unhinged.
dl064@reddit
Was hearing today that the majority of BBC complaints are that people turned audio description on by accident.
IndelibleIguana@reddit
Maybe if doctors surgeries weren't such a shitshow, people might complain less.
badgerkingtattoo@reddit
Things like calling up at 1pm and being abusive to the receptionist because she can’t give you an appointment that day for… checks notes a cold… are what I’m talking about here. Not the Tories’ chronic underfunding of the NHS
-myeyeshaveseenyou-@reddit
Oh to be fair I work on reception in a hotel some days and dumb questions are common. One of the women who answers the attendance phone in my daughters school is quite frankly beyond rude. Unfortunately I have a child with an autoimmune disease as well so I have to speak to her far more often than I would like to.
kapeman_@reddit
And their sense of entitlement is mind boggling!
badgerkingtattoo@reddit
Dealing with parent nonsense 7 hours a day will harden you. I was not technically office staff but worked in the office and some of the stuff even I had to deal with made me think parents lose about 50 points of their IQ whenever they’re dealing with their child’s school.
Same but worse for GP receptionists, my sister used to be one and tried really hard to be one of the “good ones” but she always said it was super hard because you essentially just get abused by old people all day every day for things you can’t change.
gadget_uk@reddit
Yeah. I agree with the general sentiment of not taking it out on them, but they will lay down in traffic to defend whatever crazy policy-du-jour the SLT has passed down. Your only hope is to swerve them at the earliest opportunity.
Scottish_squirrel@reddit
Must be part of the job description I didn't receive. Haven't received my power badge yet.
Tee_zee@reddit
The trick is to just make up little rules, and then if somebody senior comes along you just buckle. But if it’s a lowly teacher or a parent, stand your ground :)
Works for all professions , of course. Only stubborn and righteous people will argue with you and then of course you can make their life miserable by making sure you tell the bosses on them whenever they’re doing anything slightly outside the rules, or you can make sure not to do them any favours, or even go as far as to not do your job for them!
memcwho@reddit
It doesn't have to be a tirade of abuse to the first person who picks up, but it can still be a complaint.
"Hi, I'd like to speak with someone who can help me with a complaint regarding my child missing lunch due to the shortened lunch break. Are you able to help me, or can you able to transfer me to someone who is able?"
Best customer service voice. Remember, first one to shout looses.
Salopian_Singer@reddit
Having a disabled child in school who wasn't getting the support he needed I learned to scream without raising my voice.
ka6emusha@reddit
Yeah, people are happy to help someone who is nice to them.
deadblankspacehole@reddit
Depends if the underlying argument is sound or not
If you're right and angry and you shout first it doesn't matter, you might even win twice if the other person feels they got taught a lesson by it
coxy1@reddit
Yeah this isn't how they works. Has anyone ever gone off at one to you and at the end you think "wow that was a really valid point, I'm so glad they opened my eyes".
memcwho@reddit
Unfortunately not. If you start shouting you've lost control of both yourself and the discussion/argument. And it's painfully obvious to external observers.
Maintain the calm. Maintain composure. Maintain your points. They'll break eventually, and then you can continue to point out that 30 minutes is probably not enough time for lunch for 800 people, and all you're asking for is data to prove that it is, and that your child in particular is the issue. Oh, they aren't? and other people have complained too? Well, would we mind awfully allowing some extra time like the children (somebody please think of the children) to eat their required lunch in order to learn properly in the afternoon.
Boyo. 10 years of technical customer service ain't get wasted on me.
DossieOssie@reddit
Veronica will love you.
vain11_11@reddit
Unless you are in Bosnia.
Asterix_my_boy@reddit
This is fantastic advice!
SirGeorgeAgdgdgwngo@reddit
A serious lack of emotional intelligence is required to think berating people who are not responsible for the problem you're complaining about is the best course of action.
socairnone@reddit
If it was my kid. As I have the time. I would go to school at dinner time and if after the alloted time my kid had not eaten I would take it out of lessons but not school and sit with it until it had had its dinner and then return it to class. There is the school's dining room the assembly hall thr playground and playing fields which could be used for this. Not having taken my kid out of school for the pedants to start crying about and not giving them any ammunition in claiming it's atandence was being affected
Scottish_squirrel@reddit
I say this as someone who works in a school environment.
Secondary school may be different as often kids may be allowed off campus etc. But in a primary setting, a parent would not be granted access within the school. Can you imagine someone else pulled this and you found out an unknown adult was in your child school and had access to your kid. Be it permitted or not by the head. Pulling shit means your child loses out further. Best to take a mature approach to get a mature solution.
one_powerball@reddit
This is country specific. In Australia and many other countries, adults can walk into primary schools freely. In my state in Australia they wouldn't be able to take a child out of class without signing them out at the administration office though.
This doesn't counter the point you are making. I just thought it might be of interest to some.
Scottish_squirrel@reddit
I'm in Scotland. We learned that lesson once in the 90s and basically locked schools down. It's possible to get your child from the office for appointments etc. you aren't permitted beyond a boundary
RhinoRhys@reddit
It?
Trancer79@reddit
Exactly what I was thinking!
LitmusVest@reddit
or else it gets the hose again
seven-cents@reddit
It's a Gremlin. The birth was.. complicated
Jonny_Segment@reddit
/u/socairnone is talking about goat school.
MeowMeow6389@reddit
You just made me lol on a train 😡
rileysauntie@reddit
I was stuck on that as well.
Shock_The_Monkey_@reddit
Stay the fuck away from all children and schools.
Children are people not "it"
JFC
scalectrix@reddit
*them
scalectrix@reddit
What idiot is downvoting this? This is what you use for non gender specific pronouns dumbass.
Scottish_squirrel@reddit
I say this as someone who works in a school environment.
Secondary school may be different as often kids may be allowed off campus etc. But in a primary setting, a parent would not be granted access within the school. Can you imagine someone else pulled this and you found out an unknown adult was in your child school and had access to your kid. Be it permitted or not by the head. Pulling shit means your child loses out further. Best to take a mature approach to get a mature solution.
ThatLozzie@reddit
Do you not have a job like most normal people?
Valuable-Wallaby-167@reddit
Random adults aren't just allowed to walk into school buildings nowadays.
Also, that would be an amazing way to humiliate a secondary school kid. Their bullies would be able to use that one for YEARS
TookMeHours@reddit
And then everyone would stand up and clap!
Refflet@reddit
It's really annoying when people use initialisms without defining them first.
SLT probably means Senior Leadership Team.
Lurkerlg@reddit
Thanks for that, for me SLT refers to Speech and Language!
rusty_bucket_bay@reddit
Slug, lettuce & tomato the new meal deal at tesco
beeotchplease@reddit
Love them slugs
Geeky_Monkey@reddit
Same! I work in audiologist and was wondering why the Speech and Language Therapist had been lumped with sorting this!
baby-or-chihuahuas@reddit
It does for me too. I think it would also for most office staff in school though so would have led to a confusing call with the school admin.
Gazebo_Warrior@reddit
SLT is really common in schools, I have worked in a lot and they all used the term, so I doubt it would confuse office staff.
I found schools use SaLT to refer to speech and language, I suppose to distinguish it.
bduk92@reddit
Apologies, a lot of school communication does include those initialisms but obviously it's meaningless without context.
Winter_Syrup5283@reddit
By design.
Refflet@reddit
No worries, I was just having a moan lol. Thanks for the edit and confirmation.
Zr0w3n00@reddit
Agree on this occasion, however SLT pretty commonly refers to senior leadership team.
freyaelixabeth@reddit
I'm the Head of HR at my company and a member of the SLT and I still didn't think it would mean the same in this context and wondered what it stood for 🙃
FluffiestF0x@reddit
Honestly I think a letter written on parliamentary headed paper might get the school to sort itself out if a conversation doesn’t change anything.
That or a letter to ofsted
CommercialPug@reddit
Pretty sure that would be fraud??
Laarbruch@reddit
The government commit fraud all the time
FluffiestF0x@reddit
How would contacting your MP be fraud?
CommercialPug@reddit
I mean, you didn't say that. You said send them a letter on parliamentary paper
FluffiestF0x@reddit
No, I said ‘a letter written on parliamentary headed paper might get the school to sort itself out’
I’d appreciate it if you’d read my comment before accusing me of advising someone to commit a crime
CommercialPug@reddit
Jesus fucking Christ are you that dense that you can't see how your comment wasn't clear? Or are you purposely looking for an argument? A very simple, "sorry for the confusion that's not what I meant" would have sufficed.
FluffiestF0x@reddit
It was open ended, I doubt forklift licenses are that expensive either
pm-me-animal-facts@reddit
If you start with Ofsted you don’t get taken seriously. If Ofsted receive a complaint the first thing they will do is contact the school and find out what they have done about the complaint. If the school hasn’t received a complaint because the parent went straight to Ofsted then the school hasn’t done anything wrong.
Start with a complaint to the school reception asking to speak to somebody from senior leadership. If you don’t get a response, do the same again. If you don’t get a response, complain again and ask to speak to the head teacher. If you don’t get a response, complain to the local authority or Academy trust board if it’s an academy. If you still don’t get a response, then go to Ofsted.
FluffiestF0x@reddit
Hence why I said ‘if a conversation doesn’t change anything’
wilease@reddit
Also, say you want to speak with the school governors. The head of governors should be on the school website.
jenne653@reddit
Yeah that's truth
GayAttire@reddit
I highly doubt that's what has happened. No school is going to say any remaining pupils must go hungry. I imagine the pupil wants to socialise or something and is missing lunch because they don't have time for both. Half an hour is a short break, for sure, but working in a school myself I would assume more to this.
PantherEverSoPink@reddit
I would probably email the head of year and request a discussion with a member of SLT. Leave it a day and if no response then call and ask to speak to the head of year again. Phoning in the middle of the day is unlikely to get through to someone high enough in the school to make a difference.
je97@reddit
30 minutes? I got an hour and 10. We should aim for the French attitude to lunch breaks honestly, develop a love of good food in kids and give them some degree of free time in the middle of the school day. 30 minutes just sounds needlessly stressful for what's supposed to be a relaxing part of the day.
geekmoose@reddit
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/why-french-schoolchildren-used-to-drink-wine-between-lessons
inevitablelizard@reddit
Sounds like an attempt to treat kids like they're at a workplace where lunch breaks might be only half an hour. Just stupid ghoulishness, entirely in line with the more puritan weirdos that get put in charge of some schools and who seem to hate kids having time to be kids.
je97@reddit
The issue is...if you indoctrinate kids into thinking that this should be the norm in the workplace, you create a generation of people who'll accept it being so. I think it's wrong in work as well. That being said I do take a way longer lunch break than I'm supposed to.
inevitablelizard@reddit
That's what I'm getting at. Authoritarian attitudes and toxic attitudes to work being normalised for the next generation just makes me a bit sick. Completely the wrong direction to be going in.
Last_Television_8863@reddit
My school way back when had about 1500 students and 2 small canteens. We had 30 minutes for lunch and the line was always to the corridor outside the cafeteria. You'd spend 25 minutes-30 minutes waiting in line for a single slice of pizza that cost £1.60 and a tiny cup of orange juice the size of an airplane cup. Most teachers accommodated this by giving us an extra 5-10 minutes to settle down when arriving to lesson but sometimes you'd just have to go hungry or face detention as some weren't as lenient.
saviourz666@reddit
Does your child’s school only have 1 canteen ? That’s crazy if so . Our secondary school had 1200 kids and we had a canteen block for each year 7 to 11 . So five big dinner halls all that had around 4/5 separate ques so the wait was like 0 . If your kids school only has one dining hall , I’d potentially change school as your kids not gonna eat .
NortonBurns@reddit
Long time ago, but at grammar school we only ever had 35 minutes for lunch.
35 minutes was the length of one 'class'.
They split the school in half, so whilst one half was at lunch, the other half were still in lessons. The entire lunch period was 1:10, with each half of the school getting 35 minutes. It worked well, no-one went hungry.
Designer-Historian40@reddit
I imagine your school was much smaller than schools are today. My secondary school was 1600 pupils (two schools of 800 that had come together into one).
This isn't about how long you have to eat, so much as it is about how long the canteen has to get all the kids through (ideally with at least a few minutes for the final child to eat).
drummerftw@reddit
That seems mad to me... we had 1hr 10 minutes for lunch! We did finish school at 15:50 though, later than other schools I've seen.
audigex@reddit
Yeah most schools with shorter lunch have a shorter school day
Tbh I think most kids would prefer an hour with their friends and a longer school day makes life a LOT easier for parents, but it's presumably cheaper for the school or something
dl064@reddit
Falkirk high tried to make the school day end at 12.30 on Fridays and even the government stepped in to say pack that idea in immediately please.
Danze1984@reddit
We had half hour, and lessons were an hour. If your 3rd lesson was practical, you went to eat before it at 12, if you were in something like English or Maths, you did half the lesson, ate, then did the second half. Our school had nearly 1200 kids though.
MrBump01@reddit
This was my first thought, the school should only be letting a certain number of students out for lunch at a time.
Slight-Economist-673@reddit
As much as I do see your point lunch is also a social event and being unable to talk to friends if they were on the other half of lunch wouldn't be the greatest. It would probably be better to have a longer lunch but have school end later.
cordialconfidant@reddit
i think you're downvoted because students can or are generally let out by year group if it is split, and as they only tend to socialise within their year this shouldn't be a problem
MrBump01@reddit
I don't know why your comment is getting down votes, that is how it used to be in some schools. We had a lunch hour.
audigex@reddit
My school kinda did this, it was split by year and rotated so that you'd spend some time sharing your lunch hour with the other years too
(Kinda because we all had 1 hour for lunch, but the canteen was split into two 30 minute halves)
MrBump01@reddit
Schools usually stagger student lunchtimes by year groups. I agree that the shorter amount of time students have for lunch is harsh.
Chippiewall@reddit
At my school they did the split in year groups so it wasn't a massive deal
KatelynRose1021@reddit
Our grammar school had 50 minutes for lunch and a 20 minute morning break. We finished at 15:35 every day.
The secondary schools round here all seem to finish at 15:00, I bet they have a shorter lunch in order to finish early.
BeagleMadness@reddit
My son's grammar school has an hour for lunch and a 20 minute morning break too, they start at 08:50 and finish at 15:30.
About 900 boys use the main canteen. So despite having a full hour, it can still be impossible to grab just a sandwich and take it to your lunchtime clubs. My son usually takes a packed lunch if he is going to a club (most days). No idea how any school can feed everyone in 30 minutes!
They run a LOT of lunchtime clubs each day - chess, bee keeping, David Attenborough documentary club, history club, politics, classic movies, knitting, languages, programming clubs... I'd much rather my kids (eldest went to the same school too) got to take part in all that than they finished at 3pm. I suspect that the shorter school days comes down to money though.
DripDry_Panda_480@reddit
Cut down lunch times, cut down opportunities for behaviour issues. I know that some schools shorten breaks and lunchtimes for that reason.
Status_Common_9583@reddit
In my school days it was a 3pm finish too. Morning break was 15 minutes, lunch was 45. Many others are probably doing something similar
LegSpinner@reddit
Yeah, my school had different lunch timings for two halves so that the dining hall wouldn't get rammed with a thousand-odd kids at the same time!
Kirstemis@reddit
My secondary school was made out of two separate schools (girls' grammar and boys' secondary modern) joined into one comprehensive. 1500 kids. They had the sense to keep both gyms, both kitchens and both dining halls.
Southern-Orchid-1786@reddit
And occasionally you'd get a double lunch :)
ngjackson@reddit
I'm a teacher, this is what our school does. We have a KS3 lunch and a KS4 lunch, they're an hour apart and they last for 40 minutes. It's efficient. Everyone gets to eat, teachers included, the queues aren't long and it's not so crowded that you can't find a place to sit.
No-Snow9423@reddit
I work in EDU at the primary level, none of our schools run 30 minutes for lunch, with as little as less than 150 students.
I'd report to Slt first, then you have a list of people to escalate through, school business manager, the schools Trust if it is a member and the governors also If you really want scorched earth
LiamMS1989@reddit
Exaclty the same thing with my stepson - Either the same school which would be pretty coincidentle or this has been done as some odd ruling on multiple schools.
Whoever looked at this idea and thought it was a good one needs a head wobble. From older, school age family members the school could barely handle the original lunch times to feed everyone, yet they cut it down further. Even a few teachers i know on a personal level have also complained about it, same for them.
My stepson is a brand new starter year 7 in high school and went the entire day without food because of this, the following day he was ok but its just a constant risk of missing out when it shouldnt even be a problem.
Autumnforestwalker@reddit
My kids old school did this but staggered the lunch time by year so that all the kids could be fed.
Ok-Strawberry488@reddit
I would call / email the school and tell them that if they cant provide time for my child to eat on their break then they will be eating their food in the classroom after. dont ask them, tell them. this is the only option they have left your child so this is what will happen.
Potential_Maybe_1890@reddit
Write to governors
Disastrous-Bank4662@reddit
My youngest started high school this week. First day just yr 7 in, all went smoothly, the next day with the full school in the queue was so big she didn’t manage to get any food at all. There are a significant % of kids on free school meals at this school and they simply need to do better to ensure kids have access to food. It’s not good enough that some go without due to poor decisions from management.
LoonyLovegood31@reddit
Start speaking to other parents you need numbers on your side and then approach headteachers if that doesn’t work escalate to governors.
IllustriousCarrot537@reddit
Can't they bring lunch with them? 🙄
Begum65@reddit (OP)
it's not exactly the richest area, a lot of the kids are on free lunches.
Yea some could get packed lunches, what about the ones that families can't afford to make packed lunches, or what ever reasons at home they can't.
Hot meals are important to some students too.
IllustriousCarrot537@reddit
Ah sorry OP. I didn't realise.
It's completely different in Australia... Unless you have parents who are pretty well off you take lunch to school. Not many can afford to buy school lunch every day. The school canteens are geared to the max for making profits
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Over here the lunches are usually pretty cheap and if students are not from a well off family, their income is low they qualify for free lunches that are paid for by the government.
P2P-BSH@reddit
What caused her to miss lunch?
Begum65@reddit (OP)
8-900 kids getting lunch at the same time in 30 minutes.
caniuserealname@reddit
I hope when you discuss this with the school that you're able to articulate a more specific answer. Because that's not really an answer that will get you anywhere.
Baynonymous@reddit
Ye they're actively avoiding specific questions around what the circumstances are, and what the school said when they were contacted.
YungMili@reddit
there’s nothing - literally nothing - that would mean a child should miss their lunch
Baynonymous@reddit
Except if the child is too busy messing about with friends and leaves it too late, or any variation of this. All OP had to do was to give a little context
YungMili@reddit
no - literally still no excuse - you have to feed the kids if they want to be fed
Baynonymous@reddit
So hypothetical situation - a kid in secondary school can spend lunch break off site, and return when classes have started. Then instead of going to class they can demand to be fed (after the kitchen has closed) and the school must comply? In doing so, they have to re-open the kitchen and cook something fresh while the kid misses class?
I'm absolutely baffled if that's the case.
YungMili@reddit
kids can’t go off site - going to stop replying because you clearly don’t know anything and are replying really arrogantly for someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about
Super_Department_127@reddit
Kids certainly can leave site once they're in high school. Not sure why you'd think otherwise.
When I was at school only about 10% used the canteen.
Baynonymous@reddit
Why not? Every secondary school where I'm from allows kids to go off site at lunch time
LitmusVest@reddit
Wtf made you pull this hypothetical weirdness out of your arse instead of just taking OPs point of 'too many kids, not enough catering bandwidth/time'?
Some obstinate kid-hating weirdness in this thread.
Baynonymous@reddit
What's weird about it? Secondary school kids can usually go off site for lunch, and I was replying to someone that said there's not a single circumstance where the school wouldn't have to feed them. It's really weird position to take
nouazecisinoua@reddit
I don't know of any British secondary schools which allow kids off site for lunch (or at least not the younger year groups). Is it really the norm?
Valuable-Wallaby-167@reddit
They have given the context. For some reason you've decided that their context isn't good enough.
Baynonymous@reddit
Their avoidance of simple follow up questions means this is made up as rage bait or they're hiding something. There's all sorts of legit circumstances why the kid didn't get lunch, ranging from being too busy talking to mates, or going off site and hiding it from their parents. OP is being weird by replying to everything as if this is one of those GCSE maths problems
Valuable-Wallaby-167@reddit
So you're annoyed at them because they haven't listed off every single reason why a child might list their lunch and categorically denied all of them individually? Even though they've given a very good reason why children will miss lunch, as there simply isn't enough time for the amount of children.
They're not the one being weird here. There's nothing remotely unbelievable about what they're saying
Baynonymous@reddit
I didn't ask for lists of reasons, where have I said that? I was asking about context and the school's reply when they spoke to them.
It's a little hard to believe a school suddenly doesn't cater for half its students. It's harder to believe when there's no real context or info about the reply from the school. This entire thing is just rage bait and you guys have been reeled in
Valuable-Wallaby-167@reddit
They've explicitly said the school hasn't replied. Which is hardly wildly unbelievable seeing it's the first week back.
Schools change things like this up all the time, it's not remotely unbelievable. My school did something similar 20 years ago. Though at least we had 500 pupils getting through in half an hour. How exactly do you think timetable changes happen? Gradually? They didn't claim half the students weren't eating.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Unless, for some reason they are not hungry
Begum65@reddit (OP)
You want a full Ofsted style report on the school??
Baynonymous@reddit
Inadequate reply
Begum65@reddit (OP)
What would you like answered? I didn't expect this to get so big with everyone asking stuff, I've answered quite a lot in other questions. I have never been to the school and looked around so my answers are quite limited to what I can find online on capacity of the canteens, school size, what my daughter has told me etc.
So what do you want answered?
caniuserealname@reddit
We just want to know why your kid can't get her lunch.
What, specifically, about the 30 minute lunch is inadequate.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
The school has around 800 students.
It's setup to cater for them all in 60 minutes. Average student takes around 10 minutes to eat, not including the time it takes them to get to the canteen, queue, select what they want, pay, find a seat.
So around 133 students would have to sit and eat every 10 minutes to get all the students lunches.
Cut that in half, with the same canteen capacity, kitchen, staff. 266 students would have to be seated every 10 minutes, eat and leave.
The school doesn't have a canteen that can accommodate 266 students. So many students will be waiting to get into the canteen to eat in those 30 minutes. But you'd need to get in there within 20 minutes of the lunch time in order to actually eat properly.
caniuserealname@reddit
Okay; see you're doing the same thing. You're still only describing the situation, you're not explaining why that caused her to miss her lunch.
We're asking for the specific examples of the two lunches she missed, and before you get upset, we're doing it because this is the information you actually need to provide to make any sort of actionable complaint.
All you're doing is describing a situation that the school has already decided is sufficient; and worse you're using terms like "will be", which makes it clear you don't actually know what the issue is, you're just guessing. For all we know from your description your daughter could have just not bothered going to even try to have lunch because she felt like doing something else with that 30 minute window.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
What more information do you want? Is it really that difficult to understand the situation?
I thought i was quite clearly explaining the situation is the school doesn't have the capacity to feed that many children in 30 minutes. So you'll have students who get in and can eat, be left waiting to get a lunch when dinner time ends and some that will get in there near the end and have to quickly eat.
caniuserealname@reddit
-
-
You keep going back to this. Describing the situation is, rather explicitely i might add, what i'm telling you not to do. We all very much understand the situation you're describing. Thats not what is important. It quite literally does not matter what the situation is as you understand it because that's the situation the school designed, and it's a situation they believe works. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
You're describing a thing that the school thinks works, and trying to present as an argument as to why it doesn't work. Why would you ever think that would work?
But fuck it. Why would I care if your kid starves because you can't present a basic argument.
OuiOuiBaguetteDu92@reddit
They're so dense. Ignore them. They know what they're doing and just play dumb pretending they don't understand what you're asking them. 😆 I understand 100% what you mean; you're not the issue here.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
'Believes works', do you work at a school that made such a ridiculous policy or something? Why you so insulting?
Believing and implementing are 2 completely different things.
Does that make it fact if some new head teacher comes in and says 'We cut lunch in half' mean it works? They never implemented such a policy before, it's always been 60 minutes at that school because they have 800 students and the school canteen can feed them all in 1 hour.
It's obviously not working if students are going without lunch.
Chance_Chef_6383@reddit
So by 'missed lunch' you mean she was still in the queue by the time she had to be back in class and got kicked out of the line?
Baynonymous@reddit
Exactly what's in the post. What the circumstances were of missing lunch (did she get there late, did lots of kids miss lunch etc) and what the school's reply to you was.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
The school has around 800 students.
It's setup to cater for them all in 60 minutes. Average student takes around 10 minutes to eat, not including the time it takes them to get to the canteen, queue, select what they want, pay, find a seat.
So around 133 students would have to sit and eat every 10 minutes to get all the students lunches.
Cut that in half, with the same canteen capacity, kitchen, staff. 266 students would have to be seated every 10 minutes, eat and leave.
The school doesn't have a canteen that can accommodate 266 students. So many students will be waiting to get into the canteen to eat in those 30 minutes. But you'd need to get in there within 20 minutes of the lunch time in order to actually eat properly.
Baynonymous@reddit
So you're still avoiding the question about the school's response. Gotcha
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I'll phone Doctor Emit Brown to bring the DeLorean, go a few days into the future, check my emails, then he can bring me back and I'll let you know.
Baynonymous@reddit
See, that wasn't hard to answer was it (evidently was)
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Sorry, Dr Browns busy, he said Tuesday, so guess you have to wait like me.
rewindrevival@reddit
You're a bit of a walk, aren't you?
Iforgotmypassword126@reddit
Your context makes perfect sense to me. It’s also not the first time something similar has been posted here.
It’s becoming more and more common for kids to not have enough time for their lunch, and it also happened 15 years ago when I was in school because I remember it happening then too.
I have friends who work in secondary schools in London and they said it’s an issue in their school as they don’t have the kitchen staff.
catchcatchhorrortaxi@reddit
Full on keyboard warrior vibes.
h00dman@reddit
Their reply literally answered the question. You're expecting them to give a detailed analysis on a situation they can't usually be fully informed about.
Manage your expectations, put your pitch fork down, and out your overactive imagination to better use.
ChangingMyLife849@reddit
I genuinely don’t understand how this happens though?
We had a school of 1300 and lunchtimes of 40 minutes. Not once during my 7 years there did I miss lunch?
Begum65@reddit (OP)
The school has the capacity to feed 800 students in 1 hour, you can't just half it with the same size canteens.
andreeeeeaaaaaaaaa@reddit
Why not make your kid a packed lunch? Then no need to faff about.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I could, but a whole year and probably the next few years of this, it's not really a long term solution. Especially for other kids who might not be able to have packed lunches every day. A lot of them are on free school dinners.
ViSaph@reddit
My mum wouldn't have been able to afford to make me a packed lunch every single day. You're right to kick up a fuss and thank you for thinking of them. I also worry about any disabled students. I was one myself and it was a school of only about 500 students, a hundred or so in each year with about ⅔ eating hot meals and a 40 minute break, even so if I couldn't get to the cafeteria in time I'd end up struggling to get my food in the crowd and even if I managed I'd struggle to finish eating in time because I had issues with swallowing. School should have accommodated me yes but they wouldn't even accommodate me wearing shoes other than the school shoes which caused me pain every second I wore them or move my art class into the other art classroom that I could access so I could do the art GCSE I wanted to let alone anything more complex.
It wasn't all that long ago either, I started senior school in 2011 and had to drop out of my A levels when I got a lot sicker and they "couldn't accommodate remote learning" in 2018. Though the college where I started the A levels was a lot better than the senior school. I couldn't have even done my A levels at the senior school, every A level classroom bar the sciences block was inaccessible.
If they've cut the lunch that short and are so unorganised that kids are going hungry I worry for any kids with mobility or any other issues surrounding disabilities and there definitely will be some there. There aren't enough schools catering specifically to disabled children and over the past 2 decades there has been a ginormous push towards getting any and every disabled child considered capable enough for "regular" schooling into mainstream education. No matter how difficult or detrimental it is to the student or how incapable the school and teachers of accommodating disabilities and the school itself gets some funding perks so administrators will tell parents all sorts of things about accommodations before the students actually start there.
releasethekaren@reddit
at my school we had different lunch times, good for this issue i suppose. junior school went 12-1 and gcses/A levels were 1-2
HerculesMulligang90@reddit
Problem is you get students roaming distracting the lessons, noise from outside etc.
klymers@reddit
I mean split lunches are pretty common, both my secondary school, and my sixth-form college did it. In secondary school, kids weren't allowed inside during lunch unless it was heavy rain anyway. Yeah, sure there was noise outside but it wasn't that bad and you got used to it.
Year 7-8 had lunch first, 9-11 second (total or around 1200 kids), however year 11 was on a separate campus so irrelevant. Sixth form (total about 1000 kids) was simply split into first and second years.
HerculesMulligang90@reddit
I know they're common, I also know schools avoid them if at all possible. Your specific school was lucky to have that space, many schools don't. The previous one I taught in had to use classrooms for packed lunches and my current one the cafeteria line is literally down a corridor of classrooms.
xCeeTee-@reddit
My school the year 7-9s went to lunch first and the year 10s and 11s would go to form for half an hour. We'd get an hour total, so lunch time on our schedule was 1 hour but overall it was 1.5 hours. Worst thing is if they had leftover food from the morning they'd just reheat it for lunch. Paninis and pizza when they've been cooked twice (they were shite even after being cooked once) were fucking horrible. The actual meals they made were usually sold out.
We all couldn't wait to have lunch times without annoying year 7s running around. Then we found out we got the worst of it when it came to food.
Unload_123@reddit
My school just staggered lunch half way, that way the young ones go first and the older ones go second. Lunch was far better that way actually.
xCeeTee-@reddit
Same but our canteen just reheated leftovers from break time. The meals were usually sold out when year 10s and 11s would get there. Luckily for the kids they revamped the canteen when I was in sixth form. They had much more fresh food, the pizza was actually banging. Never had a better pizza in my life before. And they also increased seating areas so the first lot would all be able to sit down and eat.
ChangingMyLife849@reddit
Your child needs to take a packed lunch then. Take responsibility
Highly-Sammable@reddit
It's literally not their responsibility, it's the school's, especially if the parents or council are paying for the canteen to provide lunches.
ChangingMyLife849@reddit
It’s a parents responsibility to feed their child.
Highly-Sammable@reddit
The school takes legal and common sense responsibility for the safety of the child while they're in the school. Even if this parent does technically have the time to make their child lunch ever day, the system needs to be set up so that all children get fed no matter what
just-a-junk-account@reddit
what are you even on dude? It’s a very reasonable expectation for a parent to believe the school they’re paying to feed their child will feed their child. Hell it’s even reasonable to think the first time it happened to assume it was a one time thing it’s insane you’re acting like this is somehow OP’s fault.
Also you do realise not everyone can afford to have pre paid for lunch and then go shift the kid into pack lunches (not to mention kids on free school meals)
Frightful_Fork_Hand@reddit
The guy is explicitly and passionately arguing that the school is wrong, and you’re asking what “he’s on”…?
just-a-junk-account@reddit
Did it really not occur to you that Reddit attached to the reply to the wrong comment given my reply was pretty clearly for the changemylife dude before you left this comment.
ChangingMyLife849@reddit
It’s crazy that parents would rather let their children starve than make them a packed lunch. Once they’re in secondary they can really do it themselves.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Usually free lunches are provided. Most parents apply for them but whether the kid, eats it is another matter. Kids don't starve if there is food available. They don't need as much as you think. Fussiness is an issue till your poor. Kids can be taught to do their own packed lunch from 10 onwards earlier for some. It gives them a sense of ownership. They may wish to bake their the previous day if you can supervise and cacope with the mess. I think that's theithing with packed lunches. The amount of mess created. Just another job you teach the to take care of.
rewindrevival@reddit
If a kid has been going to the canteen for their lunch and suddenly can't do so because the timetable has fucked it, that's not the parent or the child's fault.
There has been an expectation of getting fed by the school's services, either paid for by the family or through free meals. It is not reasonable to expect the parents to just predict this timetable upset will result in missed meals and make up a packed lunch in advance.
The school legally has a duty of care to ensure that all kids have access to food at lunchtime, regardless of whether they have the means to bring a packed lunch or not.
teamcoosmic@reddit
The point is the timetable was changed. They used to be able to buy the food because there was enough time to queue, now there is literally not enough time to queue.
Short term solution: bring lunch in. But the long term solution is evidently to fix the issues with the school kitchen? There’s nothing wrong with planning to make use of the school cafeteria, that’s not a failure to provide at all.
uchman365@reddit
What are you on about? There's another option where you pay for school meals and the school is supposed to provide. How you feel about it is totally immaterial.
cortexstack@reddit
Do you make your kids' packed lunches?
Highly-Sammable@reddit
Parents presumably are making lunches as a result of this problem. But they shouldn't have to, it's why we have school canteens in the first place
Whoopsy13@reddit
What is revolting is the storage of lunch boxes prior to lunchtime on hot days. Icepacks take up space where food can go. No one wants that tuna sandwich and milkshake or banana on that hot lunchtime... Any kid should learn to make their own safe lunchbox if necessary. I used to start work long before school started so lunch could be in existence since 6am. At least chocolate is a nono in that situation as are yogurts ect. Gross, also he was dairy free. So warm soya yogurt that has split wasn't ideal. One morning after I had been in work late and missed the shops, I looked cupboard and found a light bulb and VHS videotape. Plenty of iron. I must admit it made me laugh that out of being on autopilot that time of day. I didn't accidentally pick them up and sent him off with them. It was a running joke for years. But luckily I filled up a 600ml bottle orange juice an apple and packet of twiglets I reduced the other day and belvita. I managed to create emergency lunch. I know people have to manage on a lot less these days. But hungry kids will graze round the shops on their way home. It didn't cause too much shrink. It was the mess I hated. At least my son protected me from knowing about Martins and their unavailable staff...Until years later. I sometimes wondered why he had chocolate on him when he came to work to meet me. Sometimes twiglets don't cut it
catchcatchhorrortaxi@reddit
What the fuck are you on about?
Whoopsy13@reddit
It's the caregivers. So when they are at school it's down to them to enable access to whatever lunch is provided.
Of course if the council are paid to feed the poorer kids. It's down to the school.
Pink-glitter1@reddit
But if the parent is posting for school lunches, the onus is on the school to then provide an adequate school lunch and sufficient time to eat it
LegSpinner@reddit
If the school offers lunch and even takes money out of parents for it, they better fucking provide the service for it.
vicar-s_mistress@reddit
In loco parentis. When a child is at school then staff there must act in the best interest of the child as if they were the parents.
It's the schools responsibility to feed the child.
FranzFerdinand51@reddit
Why does any school serve food then?
Crackedcheesetoastie@reddit
Ain't no way you said that... use your brain maaaaybe?
wildOldcheesecake@reddit
And what if they rely on free school meals. Don’t be so silly.
Jonoabbo@reddit
Cost of living crisis is just lost on some of yous isn't it? Privileged fuckers.
Mysandwichok@reddit
We had a half-hour lunch with 900 students, but we had 2 canteens. One for the younger students and one for older. It was still chaos with massive queues.
Whoopsy13@reddit
You could but it would take more organisation. I guess they are figuring it out. Would the food be fresher on second sitting or near leftovers. My guess is that they would stagger the cooking. I would send her in with drink and fruit just incase. But im sure it will work out in time. She just may be a bit more peckish after school. Encourage her hurry into queue. Teachers will need to let the kids go at lunch and not give too much detention at lunch. Personally wouldn't show for lunch detention as smoking was more important to me. But hey I needed school meals like a hole in the head.
If it doesn't work fir your kid, she'll have take packed. If she knows that she may get her speed up.
catchcatchhorrortaxi@reddit
Yeah, cool. So while they get their shit together somebody's kids go without food? Have a word.
thpkht524@reddit
You know absolutely nothing about their school or how their canteen is structured lol.
ImaginationLocal8267@reddit
Happened at my school. It’s because we all had to queue up to enter the lunch hall, then queue up for food. Form group by form group and everyone had to be quiet for the next group to come in so we often didn’t have 10 minutes to eat. Additionally we only had 20 minutes lunch not 30 for a good few months as the school apparently didn’t give a damn about the law, when we got 30 minutes back they didn’t even admit it was illegal and threatened to bring it back if we were too noisy.
The reason is madness.
entitledtree@reddit
And?
BandicootOk5540@reddit
Maybe this school is in a completely different building with a different setup and staff?
Potential-Yam5313@reddit
Big if true.
The_Deadly_Tikka@reddit
Yeah I agree, I am guessing there is more at play here
Realistic-River-1941@reddit
In my day it was accepted that people on last sitting that week wouldn't make it into the canteen in time to eat and make it to lessons on time. Fortunately the teachers took the view that you had a right to dinner, and it wasn't your fault the canteen couldn't cope.
nouazecisinoua@reddit
My school accepted that you could stay in the canteen to finish your main. But if you only had pudding left, you'd be told to bin it and hurry to class.
So of course we all started eating our pudding first.
ChangingMyLife849@reddit
Packed lunches are a thing
SPECTRAL_MAGISTRATE@reddit
That isn't a solution for the kids who - for whatever reason outside of their control - can't get one.
ChangingMyLife849@reddit
No reason why they can’t.
misspixal4688@reddit
Many children come from poor or abusive homes they are not feed at home some there only meal that day is school that's tye reason why many can't have packed lunch.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Then they'll be more hungry and push to the front if the queue! Perhaps they should be fed in order of hunger. A blood sugar test may be necessary!
wildOldcheesecake@reddit
Don’t be so stupid.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Abusive homes often feed the kids well or too much.
misspixal4688@reddit
Ok well my shitty mother starved me for days at a time to punish me when I worked with abused kids they also often got starved as punishment feeding a child is done out of love and wanting to keep them alive abusive parents don't love and sometimes don't care if the child gets sick from lack of food it's part of the abuse.
JonnyredsFalcons@reddit
Maybe they are on free school meals because the parents can't afford the packed lunch?
ChangingMyLife849@reddit
Bullshit
JonnyredsFalcons@reddit
Care to explain?
ChangingMyLife849@reddit
If they’re really struggling food banks exist.
Iforgotmypassword126@reddit
Have you ever been to a food bank?
JonnyredsFalcons@reddit
Might not be accessible to them, or no local ones
Whoopsy13@reddit
Or the stuff from the local food bank do boot provide suitable lunchbox fare.
randomdude2029@reddit
So, struggling, free meals at school, but you want them to waste the free hot meal and take in a sandwich from the food bank for those days there isn't time to eat? And how will they guess which days those are?
Please, don't procreate. The world needs more decent humans and fewer of whatever you are.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Fair play. The free school meal kids should be prioritised. After all the council have already paid the school.
Iforgotmypassword126@reddit
Money is a pretty valid reason
TotallyTapping@reddit
If they qualify for free school meals there is no option but to wait for the hot school provided lunch.
ant1greeny@reddit
This is such a privileged/naive take to not be able to wrap your head around why a child might not be able to get a meal from home.
memcwho@reddit
Disadvantaged home. Parents who are abusive, parents who don't care.
BandicootOk5540@reddit
Major imagination failure there
AutomaticInitiative@reddit
Tell that to their parents eh
Whoopsy13@reddit
They could try making their own if parents in hurry.
Featherymorons@reddit
For some kids, that school dinner is the only decent(ish) meal they will get in a day.
ChangingMyLife849@reddit
Oh such bullshit. If the parent is on Reddit then they can afford a packed lunch
shark-with-a-horn@reddit
...... you think all the parents are on Reddit?
Featherymorons@reddit
Having spent my entire working career in secondary schools, I can assure you it’s not bullshit. For some kids, school is their safe space and they only get one decent meal a day, which is the one they get in school. I suggest you do some research before calling these facts bullshit.
Realistic-River-1941@reddit
We used that trick in years 7-9, but for some reason no one did for years 10-13 (which were on another site).
tazdoestheinternet@reddit
We used to have lunch spaced out over an hour and a half in my 600 pupil school so that it could be spaced out between year groups and avoid anyone missing lunch.
Beeblebrox2nd@reddit
Staff cuts everywhere!
ChangingMyLife849@reddit
Sounds like she either needs to get to the lunch hall faster or get a packed lunch
Material_Smoke_3305@reddit
We had a student like this. Always said they needed extra time due to being diabetic, but if everyone else can get things done right I never saw why she deserved special treatment instead of just hurrying up or dealing with it between classes instead of causing disruption.
Whoopsy13@reddit
She may have needed to inject afterwards. So that would be unfair to expect her to consume what she needs. Do blood sugars then inject. She could always do that in the dining hall right
BandicootOk5540@reddit
Wow, please tell me you don't still work in a school? Kids with type 1 diabetes need to check their blood glucose before they eat and then calculate the amount of insulin they need to take at their next dose based on what they eat. Depending on their treatment regime they may need to inject insulin at some point in their lunch break too.
Material_Smoke_3305@reddit
I've never worked in a school, I was just trying to goad the previous commenter, considering their own medical history on their profile.
Surprisingly they doubled down 🤷🏿♂️
BandicootOk5540@reddit
Ok, bit weird
Material_Smoke_3305@reddit
Have been all my life
LegSpinner@reddit
Your comment does not read as sarcastic or facetious, sorry to tell you that.
Featherymorons@reddit
Are you trying to be funny/sarcastic?
Material_Smoke_3305@reddit
Yes. I'm quite surprised the original commenter doubled down tbh.
Just goes to show the sort of people working in our schools
skilledbiscuit1@reddit
Because before a diabetic can eat they must do a blood check first then figure out how many carbs are in the food then the weight also figure out if anything else has sugar in it to calculate how much insulin to take also taking in account things like how hot it is how much activity you might do so to not go hypo or hyper glycemic. it sucks and I really doubt many teenagers do all or any of these steps but this is what you have to do to not feel like shite.
ChangingMyLife849@reddit
Yup. At some point kids need to take responsibility for themselves
Whoopsy13@reddit
She'll learn. So will the school. It sounds like an opportunity to stop dithering on some level. Or is it she didn't like the smell of it or didn't fancy giving herself indigestion. I'm all for a shorter lunch. Less opportunity for over eating. Whatever happened to the water fountain? At least some fluid should be consumed
rezonansmagnetyczny@reddit
Tbf we had about 2000 students and 50 minutes for lunch.
They used to rotate the years by week who ate first and who ate last. The last lot used to get in with about 10 minutes to spare.
But you can guarantee after the first 3 year groups there was no food left.
HomeworkInevitable99@reddit
Other factors:
Size of dining rooms
Size of serving areas
Number of staff
Queuing system
nouazecisinoua@reddit
It depends on the number of tills / how fast the queue can move. Your school must have been well set up.
At my school, different year groups were split across 3 different lunch breaks. Then they changed it to 2 and people started missing lunch, because the dining hall set up to serve 600 in 30 mins couldn't cope with 900 in 30 mins.
Personal-Listen-4941@reddit
And if your school is set up to handle Y number of people in X amount of time it’s fine.
In OPs case it sounds like they have reduced the time, whilst they have the same facilities.
Dull-Addition-2436@reddit
Do you not think that they stagger lunch times?
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Nope, I asked her and my nieces who go to the same school, it's all at the same time.
mh1ultramarine@reddit
I could feed 8 children in 5 mins. Why can't the school.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
that would take just over 8 hours to feed them all.
Safe-Midnight-3960@reddit
And all 800-900 are eating school meals? At my school of 600 you’d get maybe 1-200 eating school meals.
the-TARDIS-ran-away@reddit
I'm confused, my school had 1500 pupils and we had two 20 minute breaks for lunch and managed to eat. What are they doing wrong?
Radiant_Fondant_4097@reddit
What do you mean “Missed” though? That could mean anything without any details.
karmacarmelon@reddit
Could it? It means they didn't get to eat any food. I'm not sure what else it would mean in this context.
Weirfish@reddit
Yeah, but the root cause, or at least the cause one step deeper, is critical here.
Did she not bother queueing up because she knew she wouldn't get served? That was the case for me many days.
Did she try to queue up and get told to leave? 800 kids in 30 minutes is 2.25 seconds per kid, assuming the last kid is able to eat their food in 0 seconds. Even if you parallelised it such that 10 members of staff could interact with the kids at a time, 22.5s to verify entitlement and/or pay is not going to happen.
Did she have to choose between going to the bathroom and queueing long enough to be served? The daughter's in secondary, so presumably may have to deal with period issues in their lunch time, but even invoking that more sensitive matter shouldn't be important; they should be able to both shit and eat during that break, if they need to
Did she have to walk from a distant part of the school and thus not have time? My secondary school had two separate sets of buildings separated by a long walkway alongside some PE-related areas, and it could take 10 minutes to get from the furthest end to the main building.
Did they run out of food, even if only temporarily? That 2.25 seconds gets eaten up pretty quickly if they have to bring out a new platter of sandwiches to be served, or a new tureen of beans, or whatever the fuck. Suddenly that inefficiency eats into the 30 minutes even further.
karmacarmelon@reddit
I don't think it needs that much analysis. 30 minutes for hundreds of kids to all get from class to get their lunch from the same place at the same time and then eat it and get to their next class is clearly never going to work.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Practise. They only started it last week. Give it a chance
ginger_dick1000@reddit
Well meanwhile kids are going hungry?
n0p_sled@reddit
But it does provide some more context.
There's a difference between someone looking at a large queue and shrugging it off with a 'oh, I can't be bothered with this' and walking away, a number of children not getting any food because the school simply can't cater to them in that time.
h00dman@reddit
You have massively over thought this.
"800+ kids queuing up at the same time is too many to serve within 30 minutes" is a perfectly fine answer that explains why kids are going hungry.
Weirfish@reddit
It is, but we also don't actually know if they're queuing up. Maybe there's a 400 capacity dining hall (which sounds big, but is only 20 x 20 seats, so not completely unreasonable), the meals are placed by seating plan, and 2 cohorts have 15 minutes each to eat.
In which case, if OP's kid is 5-10 minutes away from the dining hall and on first shift, they likely don't have enough time to get there and eat, and may simply not bother trying in favor of hanging out.
Point is, if we don't know whether OP's kid is symptomatic or an isolated incident, no one here can really give good advice other than "find out more about what's going on".
MactionSnack@reddit
I love this analysis but can't help but think if this really was the case, the catering staff will have lost their minds at this policy change. Could it be that they've split different years into different time slots and it's been miscommunicated?
Weirfish@reddit
It could be, but if we don't at least entertain the idea that what OP's saying is accurate and truthful, we can't actually have any meaningful discussion about this.
DanielReddit26@reddit
I think they mean that it originally didn't explain how they missed lunch...
Although the OP had since explained (in the thread this poster is responding to) that it was down to the volume of kids all trying to obtain their food at the same time.
SeveralFishannotaGuy@reddit
She’ll need to take a packed lunch then.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
We already pay for the lunches with Parent Pay though, what's the point of paying for double lunches, doesn't help the other kids though that are going to miss lunch because of this.
Dutch_Slim@reddit
Yeah but they are only taking £ from your PP account when she goes through the till in the canteen surely? They can’t be charging you if she’s not had anything.
MaryHadALikkleLambda@reddit
If it is like the way my sons schools parent pay is set up, you pay for it in advance.
The_Sown_Rose@reddit
Presumably that’s optional? So if you’re giving her lunch to take in, you don’t also pay for the school to provide lunch. I agree it’s not the best long term solution but in the short term it ensures your child gets food whilst a long term solution is found.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
We can stop the payments, but what kid want's packed lunches all the time. I used to quite enjoy the hot meals in school and I'm sure a lot of kids benefit from having a school meal too.
The_Sown_Rose@reddit
Have you talked to your daughter about it? Plenty of kids would be fine with a packed lunch every day. I think I only ate a school hot meal maybe twice in the entire time I was in school - you never knew what was going to be available, whether you’d like it, whether you’d find you ate something at school that turns out to be what you have for dinner too…
pun-a-tron4000@reddit
I despised any time I had to eat the lunch from the canteen. It was always awful if you went for anything other than boring/unfuckupable stuff like the salad (which as a teenager didn't appeal). Very glad we had the option of walking in to town a bit to get something from the local shops.
JBEqualizer@reddit
Plenty of kids take packed lunches. Both of my kids have taken packed lunches almost every day for their entire time at school, except for the first couple of years.
You'd be far better off giving your child a packed lunch until the school sorts lunchtime out because not only does the school have a duty of care, as a parent you do too!
Experiment62693@reddit
Also depending on school set up, packed lunch isn't always an option, I had packed lunches, although by year 8 I had stopped with lunch all together as my secondary school you could only eat in the cafeteria or the field in winter the field wasn't open so you could spend your full hour in a queue for the cafeteria and not get chance to eat, as it would get full and then it was a one in one out situation.
Sad-Garage-2642@reddit
What kind of dogshit answer is this?
SeveralFishannotaGuy@reddit
It’s a perfectly reasonable option on top of complaining, which OP is already doing.
Bearx2020@reddit
No, the school should be providing adequate time for students to have an adequate lunch.
misspixal4688@reddit
Doesn't help those kids on free school meal's unfortunately so many don't even get breakfast 30 minutes is ridiculous in my opinion.
No-Jicama-6523@reddit
Presumably they weren’t the only one affected, so complain to the school and maybe hit up social media to connect with other parents of effected children so if they don’t get a fix in place you can work together.
CherryLeafy101@reddit
When my old school cut lunchtime down, they had to stagger the lunch timings; they sent some years down earlier so that the queues wouldn't become so long kids missed lunch.
Practical_Scar4374@reddit
Yeah ours did this back in the 90' You had a split period or a whole period around lunch
If you had the whole period you were first to eat, if you had a split, you'd be second.
Some year 7's were probably starved after a few year 11's gave them a kicking.
Swordfish1929@reddit
If it is anything like my old schools she was probably queuing in the cafeteria so long that she missed the opportunity to eat.
GiraffePlastic2394@reddit
Many schools need to be reminded that they are not the parents!!!
extapolapoketl@reddit
Agree this is frustrating. They should plan this carefully to ensure it’s possible in the time allotted. I would also suggest the first week is prob a lot slower as new y7s getting used to systems, new kitchen staff, new ways of working for short lunch etc. when I have done this as staff in schools, we have monitored this closely and anyone not served in time stays behind and has their lunch but then goes a little late to the next lesson. No one to go hungry! Not a perfect plan but best when there are temporary delays. I would imagine that’s the situation they are currently in. Is your child in the queue at the end of lunch? If she has not queued then they might not offer her the chance to stick around, not realising she’s missed it?
The general principle of short lunches is it stops a lot of bullying and antisocial behaviour. A shocking percentage of which happens in the past 10 min of lunchtime (and the longer lunch is, the more of this behaviour occurs). So moving lunch from day 40 min to 30 min will curtail a surprising amount of unpleasantness. However if that is the plan, it needs to be workable: ie all kids need to be able to have lunch!
I would;
Talk to your daughter and confirm she is in the queue until the end Ask her to talk to the staff member on duty when the bell goes if she hasn’t had lunch and tell them, asking to have lunch and have a late slip for her lesson Call/email the school and explain what has been happening Ask them how they can ensure students are being fed If you want, ask them for the rationale about why the lunch has been shortened.
Hope this helps!
New-account-01@reddit
My son's school trial ran something similar, but to get from previous lesson, queues, finding tables and allowing for toilet use (not allowed to leave lessons for toilet) the whole thing was scrapped. There are now two 40 minutes lunches, half school on each.
Emotional_Menu_6837@reddit
It's like we want to make life as miserable for children as possible from the very first moment we can. School is more than just packing in as many lessons as humanly possible. If this is to reduce bullying it feels a baby and bath water solution, let's reduce bullying by giving kids no free time.
Managerialism and the constant pressure to optimise a few easily measure metrics needs to die.
itsnothing456@reddit
So true. I hated secondary school back in the early 2000s because they seemed to want to make us as miserable and uncomfortable as possible. Sad to see nothing had changed.
Up until last year I worked in a special needs school and we would do anything possible to make sure the children there thrived. Whatever each child needed. Sad that mainstream secondary just doesn't care about the individual.
HettySwollocks@reddit
Are you really teaching your kids at 2am? You're full of shit OP
Begum65@reddit (OP)
What? Why would I be teaching my kid at 2am, what you talking about?
HettySwollocks@reddit
You posted at about 2am I believe, and you just responded to this message at 4am BST.
You're not in the UK thus your post is total bullshit.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
So you were up at 2 or 4 am too, so you can't be in England either??
I didn't know we had a national bed time we all have to go to sleep at, what time we all supposed to go to bed at?
Guess there is no such thing as people working nights in the UK.
HettySwollocks@reddit
Erm... sounds like you need OPs education rather than mine.
Colo~~u~~r me this. What schools accept children at 2am? Deduction alone tells me that OP is full of shit.
But by all means if you want to walk nights with a whiteboard in tow go for it. I'll stick with my original assessment
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Where did you get I send my kid to school at 2am??
I posted, comment, how does that mean I'm educating my kid or sending them to school at 2am?
Children go to school at normal times, it's Friday, Saturday Sunday, there is no school. What does commenting or posting at 2 or 4am mean I'm teaching my kids at that time?
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Are you high? Where did you get I send my kid to school at 2am??
I posted, comment, how does that mean I'm educating my kid or sending them to school at 2am?
We have mobile phones, you know, things with internet on mobile. Children go to school at normal times, it's Friday, Saturday Sunday, there is no school.
Working nights, children at home.
I don't know why I have to explain this to you, your obviously very confused somehow.
bumbleb33-@reddit
If it's hot dinner queue related I'd send a packed lunch so she can sit down and eat without waiting for food. I'd also suggest that school looks at a way to prioritise different year groups at ellast one day a week so there's a chance she can be first at one point
Dismal_Fox_22@reddit
Ah yes, it’s the parents responsibility to cater for the schools poor planning.
Serious-Big-3595@reddit
As a parent, I'd much see my children eat something rather than nothing. I have always packed a lunch for my kids.
EstatePinguino@reddit
It’s the parents responsibility to make sure their children are fed, yes.
Ambitious_Ranger_748@reddit
I’m confused here. Yes it is the parents responsibility to step in when the school is doing something poorly. Who the fuck else is going to stand up for the child
deep8787@reddit
Well when I went to school 20 years ago, I would roughly guess that 60% would have packed lunches. Some went to the canteen and some others went outside of school to the local chippy or shops. Kids who lived close to school would even go home for lunch as well.
I just find it highly strange that it seems most kids suddenly get canteen dinners. I think I had it maybe 10 over my 4 years at secondary school in England.
Also, I grew up a bit in Germany before hand too, we had 25 mins for our "big break" at school. But that wasnt a canteen over there either and we finished school mostly by like 12-1pm since we started at like 7:45.
bumbleb33-@reddit
No more leaving campus now for the majority of schools. More menu choices make it a more attractive option. One less thing to have to carry round is also appealing.
Safe-Midnight-3960@reddit
That’s just called feeding your children and is the responsible thing to do when a school fucks up. School needs to change, but you also can’t let your kid go hungry on principle!
bumbleb33-@reddit
That's not what I said. Right now kid needs to eat. So packed lunch and still go to the school with some suggestions for making it less of an issue. But first thing to address is I'd want my child fed while I was busy doing the behind the scenes hassling.
musicfan1814@reddit
It’s a short term solution while they raise the issue with the school, which the person you replied to also suggested.
You may not see it as their responsibility but at the end of the day I’m sure OP wants their child to be fed so it’s sound advice.
NoVermicelli3192@reddit
Turn up at the school asking to see the head or deputy. Tell them they have a duty of care to make sure kid has opportunity to eat. My son actually did this himself and got them to stagger the lunches, it worked.
miowiamagrapegod@reddit
Don't do this. Phone ahead and make an appointment like a grown up.
AE_Phoenix@reddit
The first step to getting somebody to agree with you is to work with them, rather than against them. Being inconvenient makes them far more likely to disregard everything you say.
HMSthistle@reddit
Not sure that's true. As they say squeaky wheel gets the oil. Be annoyingly insistent and most people fold. (It's usually just easier to fold) but they will hate you for it
Cuznatch@reddit
Sqyeaky wheel may get the oil, but the rotten one gets the bin. That idiom is about being persistent, not annoying from day 1.
Anyone that's ever worked any customer service type role knows that if the person complaining/challenging something is polite and courteous about it, you're more likely to do everything you can to help them, rather than the most horrible/annoying ones, where you'll do what you can to fob them off.
dpoodle@reddit
That's just what you say to get people to shut up
oliviaxlow@reddit
No, it’s better to give them the chance to fix the issue before you get to that. Going into a problem with the aim of trying to understand their perspective first is the most effective way of getting results.
NoVermicelli3192@reddit
My son suggested the staggering bit
NoVermicelli3192@reddit
Realised only 30 mins might need extending too
knittedjam@reddit
How ridiculous. Be an adult and follow the communication protocol
Bulky_Cap6587@reddit
Definitely don’t do this.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Their lunches are ready staggered. But then whole time cut in half. It will take practise
Whoopsy13@reddit
Turn up ar the school to completely humiliate your kid. Everyone needs to chill. It's only been a few days and everyone turns into helicopters.
It's only a concern if the kids not have getting fed are the special needs or those in free school meals. The other an take a packed lunch. Or join a breakfast scheme. Kid can then keep a snack and drink for lunch.
But I'm sure things will settle down in time. No helicopters please!
minimalisticgem@reddit
How do you know they aren’t on free school meals?
Whoopsy13@reddit
I don't, but don't know they are on free meals. In any case it looks like speed is of the essence
charityshoplamp@reddit
No ones going to see a parent heading to the office? How would it humiliate the kids
It's a concern if any child is not getting the lunch their parents or the government pay for. Full stop.
geyeetet@reddit
All kids deserve to eat not just the special needs ones. They're children. And there are plenty of kids who can't take a packed lunch for whatever reason that need school lunch. Some parents are scumbags for example. And some kids just want a hot meal.
Can't believe there are people on this app trying to argue that kids don't deserve lunch because of a changeable school policy. We are never beating the "most miserable nation" allegations.
r0224@reddit
It's not "helicoptering" to ensure a child has food.
Acceptable_Candle580@reddit
Fuck of maaattteee
Stcasxx@reddit
Cheers sons crying
LitmusVest@reddit
Your son demanded to see the head or deputy, bollocked them about their duty of care, and made them stagger lunches?
And presumably then everybody clapped?
catchcatchhorrortaxi@reddit
Fucking hell, the number of terminally online people in this thread is staggering.
ginger_dick1000@reddit
Perhaps they were just less cynical than you?
Boner_Intensifies@reddit
What is so unbelievable about a kid complaining they don't have enough time to eat food?
gundog48@reddit
Sometimes it takes one person to initiate things, I can totally see a kid speaking to the deputy and saying that there's a consistent problem of kids not being able to have their lunch and pointing out that it isn't optional if they try to deflect. I can imagine them not necessarily being fully aware of the extent or consistency of the problem, and a kid complaining would bring it into focus, while also giving an opportunity to fix it before hearing it from someone with more teeth.
Primary-Technician90@reddit
30 minutes lunch is all too common in secondary schools now, but every single gle one I worked at have staggered lunches. It. Lows my mind that is not the case
bluemountain62@reddit
So my school was about 1000 and I vaguely remember lunch being 40-50 mins maybe? All let out at the same time. 3 canteens and the school rotated which school year got priority queuing at each canteen. If your year wasn’t a priority at the canteen (one hot canteen, one sandwich bar and another mixed), even 40 mins was tight to get served and to eat. 30 mins is a bit unrealistic if all the school is let out at the same time.
The_Deadly_Tikka@reddit
I'm confused, my school had nearly 1500 people, 30 minute lunch with a singular averagly sized canteen and this was never a problem.
Are you not allowed to take your lunch outside the canteen?
Begum65@reddit (OP)
They can take packed lunch but not canteen food.
The_Deadly_Tikka@reddit
Damn that sucks. Never seen that before
Think-Committee-4394@reddit
This may assist
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/standards-for-school-food-in-england/school-food-in-england
It’s illegal for a school to fail to provide an appropriate lunch break
So if they give you platitudes and fob offs
Start there😈
andreeeeeaaaaaaaaa@reddit
Simple way to solve this - make packed lunches for her, butties /apple/carrots/drink etc . That's how we did it back in our day.... Also with a packed lunch you can eat it anywhere.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I could, but a whole year and probably the next few years of this, it's not really a long term solution. Especially for other kids who might not be able to have packed lunches every day. A lot of them are on free school dinners.
andreeeeeaaaaaaaaa@reddit
Yeah, but if a large number of kids started doing packed lunches, this would free up queuing time for less fortunate kids.
We literally did this for the whole of my primary school years, and my brother's as there wasn't even a kitchen in our old ass primary school. Takes 10 mins to slap a butty together and some bits and throw it in a butty box.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
But it's the schools responsibility to feed the kids whilst they are there.
Eddyphish@reddit
30 mins for lunch is crazy. Whoever put that rule in needs to get a life
Dunkmaxxing@reddit
And it's allowed because children aren't treated as people and society feels entirely justified in denying basic rights.
Gold-Cartographer-66@reddit
I'd skip the school and contact your local school/education board and tell them that unless they change the school timetable immediately you shall be going public to the press, consulting a lawyer to take them to court of child endangerment from not allowing children to have a lunch break and also demand the head of the school and all those involved in the new timetable of a 30 minute break is sacked. Then regardless make them away that those involved in the timetable and head of the school being sacked is the minimum consequences.
Also in the meantime contact all other parents of kids at the school as you most likely aren't alone, then arrange for lunch to be delivered to the school for your kids and that they can take an hour to eat it if need be. If the school complain add it to the law suit, and remember the amount in damages you want is enough to bankrupt the country, as no money can make up for them putting your child's health at risk.
Winter_Bar_5653@reddit
drop a nuke for sure
Dunkmaxxing@reddit
Proportionate response honestly.
Dunkmaxxing@reddit
Holy fuck people have no regard or empathy for children apparently. Lunch should be as long as necessary to ensure everyone is fed and has a bit of time to talk/hang around otherwise. Around 6 hours of learning a day and some homework is plenty. An adult would never be treated this way. It's awful how society still sees children as lesser than adults when it comes to basic rights.
VenueTV@reddit
Tell your kid to miss 30 mins of their next class and eat their lunch. Reassure them that you are happy they do not attend any detentions for their tardiness following lunch. And then follow all the proper logical stuff others have mentioned.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Well you can't if the canteen closes before you step foot in there.
Extra-Version-9489@reddit
we had an all together school lunch but typically got an hour, our canteen had two line options so people not wanting hot food could move along in their own line, never a problem and i think we had about 1000 students?
8:40-9, then two lessons, break 30 mins, two lessons, lunch 1 hour, then one lesson, finished the day at 3:30, it shouldn't be so hard to allot a longer lunch
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I think the school is trying to make up the hours they miss on Tuesdays, being half day. So they're making them up by cutting lunch and making start time for school earlier. Oddly they made end time earlier too every day. So might have been how the schedule worked better to incorporate the 30 minute lunch times and make up the hours in school lessons per week.
JohnCasey3306@reddit
Well that's your first step; you need to confirm that this is a wider issue or just your daughter before a solution can be found.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I got 3 nieces that go to the same school, they missed 1 lunch each because of the queue's being so long.
dahid@reddit
Is that normal? 30 mins for lunch in school?
Iirc it was 1 hour when I was at school... But this was a while ago now
Begum65@reddit (OP)
They got a new head teacher who want's to make changes and put in new policies. 30 minute lunches being one of them.
twovectors@reddit
Tell the headmaster that if any child does not get lunch he does not get lunch.
He has to join the queue last and get what he is given.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I feel the same, the staff who implemented this should actually live it, get their lunch with all the other kids and see how chaotic it is.
Would probably change the next day.
cateml@reddit
Tbf in schools with short lunches like this, often the teachers just don’t even bother trying to eat lunch.
OreoSpamBurger@reddit
Yeah, we had an hour in the 90s (Scotland).
Getting from class to the canteen, queueing, eating, (toilet?), back to class, all within 30 minutes sounds like a real rush.
BeagleMadness@reddit
My son gets an hour for lunch and his school is on a big site with many buildings. On days he has Games after lunch, he takes a packed lunch. Otherwise there's no way he could even get to the upper site changing rooms in time! Can't imagine how bad it would be with only half an hour to get there, queue, eat, then run to next lesson.
BeagleMadness@reddit
My son gets an hour for lunch and his school is on a big site with many buildings. On days he has Games after lunch, he takes a packed lunch. Otherwise there's no way he could even get to the upper site changing rooms in time! Can't imagine how bad it would be with only half an hour to get there, queue, eat, then run to next lesson.
ConfusedViolins91@reddit
I've never worked in a secondary school that has more than 35 mins lunch. The last one I worked in had 1000 pupils (obviously not all of these had school dinner), 30 mins for lunch, 2 hot lunch 'tills' and a separate sandwich bar. It was a very regimented queuing system, but was somewhere I avoided as much as I possibly could as it was so busy.
BeagleMadness@reddit
I hadn't realised how lucky my kids were, having a full hour for lunch plus a 20 minute morning break earlier! Their (grammar) school runs loads of different lunchtime clubs each day - both academic and stuff like board games, knitting, bee keeping, minecraft, documentary watching, debating, etc.
None of that would be possible with a 30 minute lunch break. I accept that there are fewer behavioural issues at their school than many though.
Dismal_Fox_22@reddit
Sounds like a prison to me
ConfusedViolins91@reddit
I honestly never understood why break and lunch were both 30 mins. It would have made so much more sense to take 10/15 mins off break and add it to lunch. But it is a rough school in a rough area, and they didn't want lots of problems at lunch time. When I was a pupil there, lunch was 50 minutes but we used to finish at 3.20, and they restructured the day to make it 3.00 instead, so lunchtime was shortened.
Dismal_Fox_22@reddit
Lunch should be social and enjoyable. Not regimented and purely based on feeding and back to class. Where is time to digest? And time to play, or socialise. So what if socialisation causes behavioural issues. Children aren’t just at school to pass exams. They are there to learn and grow as people. This includes buildings and maintaining social group and relationships. It includes having fun, and eating and talking together. I really detest the school system here.
ConfusedViolins91@reddit
I mean this in the nicest way...you have clearly never worked in a school! I totally agree with you that lunch should be enjoyable, but there's a massive problem with so many of the current cohort having zero social skills, and have absolutely no respect for each other at all. Loads of them spend all of their free time on their phones and if you try to get them talking to each other you just get a load of attitude back. It's really sad, but the behaviour in schools at the moment is appalling.
The behaviour issues they're trying to avoid is the bullying and the fights.
With the regimented queuing, all I meant was there is a system in place that is monitored very closely to get as many kids through to the counter as quickly as possible. They can sit in the canteen or outside for as long as they want to after they've picked their food up. Most schools will have 2 queues - one for half of the year groups, and the other for the other half.
Dismal_Fox_22@reddit
Again I say. Sounds a lot more like a prison than a school.
CarefulScience1329@reddit
I was at school, ahem, a while back.
In Yr7 the day started at 0845, with a 20 min break and an hour lunch later in the day, before finishing at 1525.
By Yr 13 the constant extension to lessons and removal of breaks meant the day started at 0830, mid break reduced to 10 mins and lunch to 40 mins, with school ending at 1540.
It felt depressing at the time. Hope things aren’t following this trend now.
avacado_smasher@reddit
I was at secondary school the first year they implemented a year 7 / the 11+ before then was year 8 only...1996/7 ...seems so long ago.
MintPea@reddit
It’s not uncommon. 30 minutes is maybe a bit short for lunch, but my previous school was 35, my current is 40. I have found when lunch is a whole hour this can cause issues with behaviour. Students can’t entertain themselves for a fully hour, they get bored, they make poor choices.
At the beginning of the year it’s not unheard of for lunch to overrun. What normally happens though is that students are just late to lessons. SLT will normally send an email just saying ‘year x are still eating, they will be late for lessons’. The best thing to do in the first instance is speak to the school. No teacher wants a child to miss their lunch, they will find a solution.
Trifusi0n@reddit
I have to say the majority of my memories of high school are me making poor choices, often during lunch. Aren’t these also an important way children learn?
chadders404@reddit
My school had a 30min lunch and they genuinely didn't care about kids learning, they cared about getting maximum stats and grades with minimal resources. These schools look great on paper but do a shocking job of preparing kids for the real world where social skills and conflict resolution are required.
Nufkin@reddit
That’s interesting as the majority of my memories of high school are of other kids making poor choices about their behaviour towards me, often during lunch.
Trifusi0n@reddit
I have to say the majority of my memories of high school are me making poor choices, often during lunch. Aren’t these also an important way children learn?
McGeezy88@reddit
This is it, it sounds as though the school has issues with behaviour. Long lunches = longer periods of unstructured time which generally leads to a decline in behaviour.
UrMomDotCom666@reddit
my school gets an hour and a half for lunch but we do stay in school for a little longer. i also thought at least an hour was normal
tem1985@reddit
Same here, 20 mins to eat, 20 mins football, 20 minutes slipping lit ciggies into each others blazer pockets = 1 hr
itsjustmefortoday@reddit
Ours was 12:35 to 13:15. Not that I used to go to lunch. Back then we had vending machines in school. So I ate chocolate 😂
YetAnotherMia@reddit
Lunch in my school is 50 minutes but it's staggered over 1 hour 20 minutes for upper and lower. I've never had time problems getting school lunch.
ravenouscartoon@reddit
Yep. Very normal.
The real question is did the child not want to queue for their whole lunch break? Was it that there wasn’t a food option they liked (both things that the school isn’t really liable for) or was the child not able to be served? The latter is a problem.
teamcoosmic@reddit
I had 45 minutes when I started secondary school, and after we joined an academy trust, it was cropped to 30 minutes. :)))
SomeHSomeE@reddit
I have no idea why people are getting so arsy at you and claiming that it's your fault or that you're somehow twisting the story and missing something. I think you've been quote clear that they've shortened lunch and for whatever reason the facilities cannot cope with providing food for everyone within the time set.
I would first reach out to other parents and see if their kids have had the same issue. And then a group of you can write to the school (head teacher probably best) setting out your concerns and asking for a meeting to discuss.
If the head teacher doesn't take it seriously or otherwise you're not happy with how they handle it then I would write to the school governors as well as considering getting your local councillors involves as they can provide pressure.
You could also consider getting local media (if you have a local newspaper) involved. They love this sort of stuff (picture of a sad kid holding an empty plate) with the headline X SCHOOL'S BUNGLED LUNCH HOUR LEAVES KIDS HUNGRY or whatever.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
My brother sends his 3 kids to the same school, they missed lunch 1 time each too because the canteen can't cope with the amount of kids in the short time. So it's not limited to my daughter and probably has affected other students there.
It's only been 4 days, maybe it will get better in the year, more efficient, but currently I can't see how that will work the way their school is setup unless they reschedule year groups lunches or something.
cateml@reddit
Is there a chance they’re just hoping that the number of kids bringing their own lunch increases, because they get sick of not getting to eat, and therefore the pressure on the canteen balances out?
Because I worked for a school that… well they never explicitly aimed for that, but we all knew that was what they were shooting for.
Ethelredthebold@reddit
It's exactly the same at my grandson's school. He says the queue is so long that by the time he gets to the front lunch finishes and has to go to class.
Tim_B@reddit
What the above person said in terms of contacting people. If the school/governors don't help then speak to political types. Both councillors and it's worth writing to the local MP if it gets to that point.
Media is probably a last gasp solution, and may really piss the school off
McGeezy88@reddit
It’s four days in, I am sure it will improve. However you are absolutely right to complain, put your complaint in writing to the schools generic email address. The chair of governors email should also be on the schools website and it wouldn’t hurt to copy them in. I personally would not mention ofsted etc in my first email, I would give the school a chance to sort it out. Source I work in a secondary school.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Even though that would be entertaining in a tabloid way. It's too early to start setting your kid up to get picked on. Find out if she's, able to leave the last class on time. As that's the most common cause of delays. That and dithering. It may be an idea if she's in a group of 3 or 4 thay the 1st gets served gets all the rest then they take turns. It's probably how the 1st kids do it. If stragglers turn up at the end, there's probably little left edible. I remember I was late into lunch a fair bit at 1 stage pe or science that was difficult, impossible to get away from on time. Once the only thing left was jelly and custard mix. So I awkwardly consumed 3 plates of it. I say consumed loosely as it was liquid, being on a plate wasn't great. I had a spoon and slurped it down. I was more thirsty than anything. Ruined my makeup, but totally worth it! Normally deserts were never given as second helpings. Enough time for a fag too.
withnailstail123@reddit
This is one of the reasons I took my Daughter out of school to be tutored..
Schools don’t give a shit about our kids.. they care about numbers and numbers alone .
Begum65@reddit (OP)
They seem to just be totally focused on stats and what grades their school will get in reports. They fail to understand break times and lunch times are important for kids to develop social skills, play with friends, talk, use the toilets etc.
withnailstail123@reddit
It’s truly awful ! We took my eldest stepson out of school at 13 as well, he did all his GCSE’s in college and is now a well paid 35 year old with more experience under his belt than most of us !
My Daughter will be taking her GCSE’s via her tutor, it’s not cheap, but the one on one education is priceless!
My other 3 step kids sailed through school with no problems .. but it’s certainly not one size fits all!
audigex@reddit
Is the entire school on the same lunchtime? Usually when this happens there are 2x or even 3x half-hour periods so only 1/2 or 1/3 of the school is using the canteen at a time
My school used to have 1 hour lunches but the canteen was split into two 30 minute times. With a similar 800 students it worked absolutely fine (especially when you consider a chunk of students brought their own lunch)
The entire school eating in the same 30 minute period sounds ridiculous though
Begum65@reddit (OP)
It's the entire school.
Even if you factor in children who bring lunches from home, it still going to be a similar amount that use the canteen as the previous year when they had longer lunch times, so the demand on the canteen will be about the same but in a shorter time.
When I was in secondary, we had 2 canteens and 1 hour lunch time, it was chaos then and they didn't have as much students.
Kayanne1990@reddit
I want to support our school system but it's stuff like thisbthat makes me question whether of not they even learned basic maths tbh.
Lonely_Theme_1131@reddit
You sure the entire school is on linch at the same time when my high school went from an hour to 30mins back in like 2002 it was sectioned by years i.e year 7&8 was 12 year 9&10 12:30
EstatePinguino@reddit
Pack her some butties?
AthenaRedites@reddit
A pupil going unfed is a safeguarding issue. Use that word when talking to SLT and they will shit themselves and take you seriously.
WhateverItTakes123@reddit
My school had around 2000 students but one lunch was a bit longer and there were 4-5 serving lines open everyday.
Independent_Egg_5401@reddit
Handout candy every day to all the kids until they arrange staggered lunch times and go back to 1 hour lunch breaks.
Modern problems require modern solutions.
rjisont@reddit
My partner’s school has done the same, it’s ridiculous. The government have made the change and her school shaved time off lunch instead to avoid making the day much longer.
markeymark1971@reddit
Contact the school or post on reddit? I know what i would do.......
Whoopsy13@reddit
It's really not an either or is it? Far too early to start ranting at the school. They only brand you as a weirdo and pick on your kid.
markeymark1971@reddit
Never said rant at the school, they need to get the facts on what happened and why it happened......then come on to reddit and moan
Whoopsy13@reddit
Yea that would work. So many getting very worked up and I can almost hear the screaming and entitled teacher baiting. There seems tobe something primeval about this. But parents ranting never ends well. 1st put a polite email down. Later follow up by phone. No need to storm offices. Though some parenst love that idea...
markeymark1971@reddit
Pretty sure there will be more to this or an explanation of why it happened
bitchy-bi@reddit
my highschool did something like this we got parents to ring up & we’d complain in class and to the teachers until they ended up changing it a few weeks into term. it was really bad at the time cause EDs are rampant in schools at the moment & it really just fuelled that in the end 🙄
misslgracie@reddit
As others have said, start a formal complaint. Maybe reach out to other parents and get as many people on board to do the same as possible, the more voices the louder you will be. In the interim, start sending her a packed lunch. Currently the school is not accommodating for your daughter, so you have to.
Relative_Dimensions@reddit
Speak to the school; tell them it’s a safeguarding issue and you’re prepared to escalate it if necessary. In the meantime, your daughter will eat her lunch regardless of the timetable and you will not comply with any punishment if she misses part of her next class as a result.
If they don’t sort it out, contact the Department for Education, your local MP, children’s social services and the local paper.
Children absolutely should not be going hungry because their school can’t organise itself properly.
knittedjam@reddit
It is not a safeguarding issue.
Relative_Dimensions@reddit
It is.
Forcing children to miss meals is a failure to provide safe and effective care.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Give it a couple more weeks to see how it goes. Missing the odd meal here and there won't hurt so long as it it isn't to regular. It's still an experiment currently. So shove an apple, drink and peparami in her schoolbag just incase. The only problem could be the if she avoids the school dinner. Alsas I said before. Teachers need to let the kids go at the bell. Not keep one group back for their weird teacher ego respect trip. The kids will need to be more competitive. Race to the front. Which can be problematic for kids on autistic spectrum or adhd. My son was dyspraxia and was often reprimanded for dancing in dinner queue. As his way of tolerating standing there without falling over. He ended up with sandwiches it wasn't worth the grief.
Relative_Dimensions@reddit
“The kids will need to be more competitive. Race to the front.” Seriously?
Children should not have to compete for food. It’s a school, not the fucking Hunger Games.
ginger_dick1000@reddit
What a stupid fucking suggestion. For some kids, school lunch might be the only real meal they get all day. Let alone get given a fulsome packed lunch in lieu. The ignorance and entitlement of you...
Majestic_Fly88@reddit
Any communication you have with the school regarding this make sure to include the school governors. They should in theory help you hold the school to account. Also communication with the school governors is supposedly looked at by OFSTED whereas communication with the school isn’t necessarily looked at by OFSTED.
Left-Foundation-3289@reddit
If the leadership team isn't helpful, write to the school governors. They can make the school change the arrangements
Delicious-Cut-7911@reddit
My lunch break was 1 hour 40 mins. It's all rush rush rush these days.
bofh000@reddit
Take it to whatever you call the parents’ group in your school. File a written complaint. And keep complaining to high-heaven. Alert the local news media, the Daily Mail and the Sun if you have to. (I’m not joking, local news end up helping a lot because the school won’t like the negative publicity). 30 minutes is ridiculous, and the average kids only finish lunch in 10 minutes because they gulp it down at light speed so they can go out and play for the rest of recess (that’s what happened in our school when they decided to let kids go play after they finished). There goes all the BS they later try to sell us about healthy lunch and good eating habits.
Mazza_mistake@reddit
A half hour lunch break is ridiculous, it should always be an hour, you need to take to the school
melanie110@reddit
Can you not make them a packed lunch. If it’s only 30 minutes they’re not going to change the timetable so maybe pack them up!
LizzieJune17@reddit
Put your concerns in writing and ask for a meeting with the head/other appropriate member of the senior leadership team to discuss. In the meantime, send a packed lunch to make sure your child has something to eat. If you pay for school meals, make it clear in your email/letter that you will not be paying until the issue is resolved because you are providing a packed lunch.
MonkFun1258@reddit
Our 1100+ pupil school does 30 mins lunch but it is staggered so they’re not trying to get everyone at once as that would be ridiculous, pupils go to lunch during a lesson (obviously the lesson they have lunch in is extended, they don’t miss 30 mins from a lesson each day, they always hope it’s maths to break it up!) I’d email the head of year initially, see what response you get, and maybe the governors too. It’s a high performing school so it works well but yes needs to be managed!
FootballFanInUK@reddit
I've seen new arrangements for lunch be bought in a few times working in schools. The first week can be chaotic. However, I have not seen children in the queue be turned away at the end of lunch. They have got something to eat, and gone to the next lesson a little late. I'm not saying that what your daughter has told you is wrong. I'm just a little sceptical.
SufficientRead1@reddit
I am a school dinner lady and this seems insane. We feed 1400 over two hours in 3 sittings, in 3 locations around the school. You definitely need to complain to the school management and if possible find other parents whose children are missing out on lunch and ask them to complain too. It is never ok for children to miss out on their lunch. Keep on at them, it is in their power to change these things if they don’t work.
daz1987@reddit
In the first instance I'd raise it with your child's form tutor. If nothing comes of that, or you feel unhappy with the level of reply, escalate it to the head teacher. Again, if required, escalate higher and higher each time.
Equivalent-Roof-5136@reddit
You can make noises about safeguarding. Kids not being able to eat is a safeguarding concern, and schools and counties are supposed to be obsessive about safeguarding. Turn down your "outraged parent" channel and amp up the "very concerned citizen" output. Find out who the safeguarding lead is, report it to the LADO, be Very Worried.
ComputerSoup@reddit
30 minutes for lunch is insane. most adults get an hour a day at work, plus whatever coffee / smoke breaks they may have, so children should absolutely not be getting less than 45 minutes for lunch and 15 at break
ProfessionalLab9068@reddit
Ridiculous and inhumane, school lunch should be a full hour, at minimum.
andyone1000@reddit
Most large secondary schools have staggered lunch breaks-essentially two sittings for different year groups for different days. So although the kids only get a 30 minute lunch break before they’re back for their next lesson, the school has a whole hour to turn round the whole school. For a school of 800 pupils, this is probably what the school should be doing.
Sorry_Error3797@reddit
My high school would presumably have around 1200 students using some basic maths and had 1 whole hour as well as options to eat in the cafeteria, take your food out, bring a packed luch or go home for dinner.
Your school is stupid and honestly worrying for what is supposed to be an institute of education.
Alongaide talking to the school, because frankly a couple of complainong parents won't make a difference:
In essence. You need numbers. The more guardians/supporters you get the more power you have iver the school.
grangefarmishaunted@reddit
School days should be longer. Back in the 70s for me secondary school was 8.45 am till 4.15pm. Seems it's getting shorter and shorter.
PigHillJimster@reddit
Maybe a coincidence but I saw a post from a parent of my old school in Devon on Facebook last night outlining exactly the same issue with a host of parents replying "Ours Too".
From what they were saying their period for lunch had been reduced as well.
A letter to the school and insist that your child stays in the queue until they get their food, regardless on if the bell has rung for afteroon lessons or not, I would suggest. Also find out who the parent governors are and write to them.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
But that's not really a solution, what about toilet breaks, girls also have periods they need to take care of too during this time rather than in the middle of class.
It's making students also worry and rush when eating and not a solution for kids who might miss out on their lunch.
PigHillJimster@reddit
It wouldn't be possible to provide a real solution without examining the exact circumstances and having all the relevant information at hand.
This is just to start the ball rolling.
I note that more information has now been provided on the original post.
I would imagine the canteen is subcontracted out as the majority appear to be these days. It would be interesting to know how prepared the catering staff were for the new arrangements.
You say the school has 800 pupils to feed in that time. Is the school size 800, and are you assuming that all the 800 pupils are having canteen lunches? Perhaps the mix of pupils having canteen lunches and those bringing pack lunches may have changed?
How are parents paying for the school lunches? Are they using ParentPay? I'd be pretty miffed if I was paying in advance via paypal and my child was not getting the meal we'd paid for.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Well I have no access to the schools stats to provide any information beyond what I can find online.
Size of the school is 800 students, has around 780 students there currently.
I would assume they should be able to provide lunches for all students that attend, not presume a lot won't be eating or having packed lunches.
The school uses ParentPay, but the school isn't in the greatest area so a lot of pupils are on free lunches.
ConfusionPresent6025@reddit
ljstrevens@hotmail.com
Begum65@reddit (OP)
? why you posting an email address
IAreAEngineer@reddit
When I was in high school in the 70's, we had an issue where the school was expanded greatly, but the cafeteria was not. We had 22 minutes to eat lunch. It was due to the number of students.
For OP's case, I wonder if the school is trying to pack more instructional minutes in the day.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I think they are trying to make up for the half day they have, Tuesdays they come home at 12, it's weird, her primary school used to do the same thing, having a half day, secondary did it too and still are, I think they are making up for that half day by cutting the lunch to 30 minutes.
IAreAEngineer@reddit
Kids still need to eat. Is this UK-wide or just some schools? I'm in the US, so I don't know how that works. I have relatives in Scotland with school-age kids.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
From the replies it seems to be spreading to a lot of other schools.
Ok-Letterhead4110@reddit
We had lunch for an hour back to when I was in school. I can’t even fathom a 30 minute lunch
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Everyone enjoyed the lunchtimes because they were an hour long. Got to play with friends and make so many memories.
Kitsune_Kyuubi44@reddit
I almost thought this was my school until i saw some of you replies (the half day on tuesday and it being a girls school) its sad that its not just my school that cut down the lunch (although theyve extended break to make it even and then called lunch "break 2" which is just odd) also lunch doesnt start till 1:55 so i feel starved by the time it happens......
Theyve made a lot a bad choices where i go and this is just one of many (im sixth form and the newish headteacher just decided to knock down the area where we go during study, break and lunch. So now we just have a few tables,chairs, small sofa and non lockable lockers sitting in the middle of the block so everyone else can stare at us while they line up for lesson.
[It was this little dome area in the middle of one of the teaching blocks. It had an upstairs where we used to go, a downstairs where an occasional 6th form lesson was held and disabled + gender neutral toilets which were great bc there are 2 trans students in my small year rn and also for any other students in other years. Im one of them and im closeted so i just suck it up and use the girls room but the transgirl there prefers gender neutral toilets and shes out so she has to walk to the other side of the school as its the only gender neutral toilet now. We were told earlier today that there will be more toilets/better toilets so we have to just hope]
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I was looking up my old sixth form, they got a new head there too, thankfully it wasn't anything like it is now. We could wear anything we wanted. Now boys have to wear a Matching two or three piece business suit and girls two piece business suit. Some new head teachers implement some weird policies and don't really look at the area/school/collage as a whole, they just want to make an impact.
I wouldn't have gone there if they had these policies.
Far-Insurance-7044@reddit
We had 3000 students and 30 mins for lunch… worked out fine
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Yea because your school had a canteen and enough staff to feed 3000 students in 30 minutes.
Far-Insurance-7044@reddit
Yes, it would.
Whoopsy13@reddit
I cannot see this working. And there isn't a good enough reason to even think about it. But I don't know what will be the alternative. Maybe suggest the school starts 30 mins earlier or stays open later the other days. I can imagine answer! Just seems pointless.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
This year, amongst the changes, they did do that, school starts 30 minutes earlier, ends 10 minutes earlier.
They do a half day on Tuesdays as well.
I think the lunch time 30 minutes was to increase the hours in the week the students are there because of that half day.
Sparko_Marco@reddit
Are you sure it was the schools fault. I know when I was at school I often missed lunch because I first went for a smoke and then played football while keeping my dinner money for cigarettes and booze.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
She's missed, 2, my brother sends his 3 kids to the same school, they each missed 1.
It's the size of the line and amount of students getting lunch that is causing it.
peppersunlightbutter@reddit
my school only had 30 minute lunch breaks, they made it work! it’s definitely annoying to have the time shortened when you’re accustomed to the old time, but i’m sure with some emails from parents and student complaints they’ll be able to think of a better strategy to get the kids fed on time
SojournerInThisVale@reddit
Pack sandwiches. I’ve no idea why anyone would want to eat the rubbish served up in refectories. It’s usually rubbish
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I used to quite enjoy getting the chocolate concrete cake and tuna/sweetcorn pasta my school used to do. All the schools aren't the same with lunches and some students might not even get a decent meal when they are at home. At least 1 hot meal a day, even if it isn't that great can make a difference to them.
No-Possibility-817@reddit
Our high school is 30 mins too and it’s a big high school, everyone going at the same time. So they get let out of class, head to lunch the other side of the school, finally join a queue, no food left, eat what you can get hold of then bell goes and you’re late for next lesson which is back over the other side of school. Stupid.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
The teachers and admin need to do what they have implemented, and join the lunch queue along with all the other students to eat.
I'm sure it would soon change.
BrawDev@reddit
Crazy, our school gave us an hour for lunch because you could be waiting up to 30 minutes to get lunch and be seated. And that's assuming the teacher didn't keep you behind after class to talk to you about something.
Ugh. Sorry you're going through this OP.
thefrustratedpoet@reddit
Really bad practice. Rushing dinner can cause and exacerbate all kinds of health issues! Not to mention the indigestion’
Begum65@reddit (OP)
School also seems to have forgotten basic human functions like using the toilet and socialising with friends.
Since it's also a girls school, they need to change sanitary products sometimes.
bluepushkin@reddit
Where is the other half an hour going during the day? Does school start later or finish earlier?
Begum65@reddit (OP)
They added some lessons because they cut 1 of the days to a half day. Which seems to be a common thing for schools to do these days.
lianepl50@reddit
I don't understand how they did this without a consultation period. Were you not given the opportunity to voice your concerns at all?
Whoopsy13@reddit
It sounds like it's going to try being more continental Where kids start earlier, have 30 mins for lunch and leave 2.30pm. Possibly as an idea a by an academy. They'll save money on food intentionally! That way theme kids can wander around the town starving, helping themselves to unhealthy foods and opening biscuits, chocolate of course, crisps everywhere and fizzy drinks dropped explosively when they realise they gave been clocked. I doubt if they worry about that these days as they know they can help themselves. But if they finish early, their more time for fun til the parents finish work it's not like flexible work is a reality in most people families. You could get less hours if you can afford it! It never worked for me.
JamesL25@reddit
That’s ridiculous. My school had an hour long lunch break to cater for 600 odd students, and it was a struggle to get everyone fed and seated in that time. Can’t imagine what it would have been like in 30
lianepl50@reddit
It depends on the facilities. Many schools successfully cater to over 1000 students during a 30-35 minute lunch break - they just need the right facilities to do so. If a school has a central canteen and several food 'hubs' around the school site, it is perfectly possible to feed all students in short order.
Whoopsy13@reddit
It will save the school some money though. If only half get any, I bet portion sizes are smaller now!
Wonderful-Army-6308@reddit
Just call ofsted
SouthFromGranada@reddit
Nevermind lunch how are you meant to get a decent kick about going in half an hour. This is bullshit.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
It's also a girls school, so a lot will be on their monthly cycle and need to change sanitary products, it's a stupid decision they have made.
I think a lot of schools forget they are a school, with children, not a prison or have a bunch of robots.
Socialising and playing with friends is also an important part of the school day.
SouthFromGranada@reddit
Exactly, if you don't give kids enough time to do this in the free periods, they're just gonna do it in class, making lessons more disruptive. Stupid idea from lots of angles.
Alternative_Baby@reddit
It’s unfortunately a common problem now. My daughter’s school has a 30 minute lunch break, they split the school so there’s lunch A and lunch B and it still doesn’t work - it can take that long to get through the queue and pay for food that there’s no time to actually eat the food (let alone do anything else like go to the toilet which also has a queue). She’s ended up taking a packed lunch most days.
Clackers2020@reddit
Whatever you do the school will take ages to fix. In the short term you could just make a packed lunch for your kid.
WarmTransportation35@reddit
Complain to the school how this is unacceptable and bring in packed lunch so she can eat on the playground the moment lunch starts.
cptsunset@reddit
Flabbergasted, what a strange thing to change!
I would calmly tell them that they better start rescheduling classes in that case and to get a hurry on with it. I think whoever came up with this deemed for failure plan, may have missed school themselves. Certainly not someone bright.
Delldax@reddit
My secondary school ended up with 35 minute lunch breaks and had around 1000 students but they were split into three separate groups that went after each other. If the school is sticking to a short lunch then they should be staggered
TurqoiseJade@reddit
Does she miss it by choice? When I was a teen I didn’t eat lunch on purpose x not wise or healthy but could be other stuff going on
Whoopsy13@reddit
No, I agree. There may have been a bully. Not enough time tger showered and changed from pe or games. It could be all sorts. I didn't necessarily feel hungry then. So forcing the issue won't help. Kids esp girls may not always need it.
PumpkinJambo@reddit
Are you deliberately trolling?
GrahamGreed@reddit
My first thought was this sounds like a teenage girl coming up with a pretty poor excuse as to why she's missing meals - hopefully not.
Elastichedgehog@reddit
Why/ how would OP know if her daughter was purposefully trying to hide this?
stevedagrunt@reddit
Give her a packed lunch, that's what me and all my mates had, sandwich, crisps and a penguin. Sorted
Next-Training1243@reddit
While it's hopefully being fixed. If possible could they have a packed lunch?
Arrowflightinchat@reddit
It's doesn't take that long to seat and serve 800 kids. I'm saying this as someone that worked in school kitchens. Now if the kids are messing around that's another story.
EvulRabbit@reddit
When my kids were in elementary school. The bus kept running behind because their were too many pickups. My kid kept getting in trouble for being late to class because he had breakfast at school. I got a warning letter about being late.
He was on school grounds and was late because of the school. But it was still the kids' fault because he didn't want to go hungry.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Don't worry too much, they'll get used to it. After all if you give them packed they will learn to eat it quickly. If they are on free school meals. Get your child to make sure they are at the front of the queue if they are that you hungry. It's evolutionary, kids are usually good at responding to competition. So if there is limited time then the fastest get the food. Good news is, that the school day is probably a bit shorter as a result. Its a shame in a way as kids could do with time after eating a to run about or socialise. That's the main part of school for a lot of kids. If it was only 2x last week. That means they got it together to eat in that time 3x. Kids don't starve, they'll just be a bit more hungry later. Start off with breakfast if you have time. So missing lunch and isn't a problem if they have a drink they shouldn't flag. Unless they are diabetic of have other additional needs, which you could think about if they are not getting any food.
But you could use this opportunity to try them with new food as they may be less discriminating. Just don't give in with alternatives till after all their homework. Then it shouldn't be a prize food. Something bland and simple. Kids are don't starve, they are excellent parasites!
ginger_dick1000@reddit
Please tell me you don't have kids
Whoopsy13@reddit
I tied to have more but they kept falling out🧐
Whoopsy13@reddit
And not a kid anymore
Whoopsy13@reddit
Only 1 and he's a genius.
LegSpinner@reddit
Amongst all the daft things in your post, this is tops. Well done.
Appropriate_Face9750@reddit
I remember I couldn't get food till the end of lunch, had to scran a whole jacket potato in 3 minutes
Substantial_Dust4258@reddit
Sorry for the profanity, but...
these fucking idiots are supposed to be educating your children?
Jesus fucking christ.
Turbulent_Fondant603@reddit
I retired from a high school with over 2000 students. We had 4 lunches each 30 minutes. Luckily for us only about half the students wanted to buy lunch!
nuclearazure@reddit
Agreed that the lunch should be longer.
Lunch time is what made school so fun for me, that I would look forward to school in the anticipation of lunch, and refreshed for the second half of the day afterwards. It's the main social time you look forward to each day and that has so much more importance than some might realise.
I'm sure there are studies around you could find if you searched for a bit that would say kids learn better when given adequate time to play freely in whatever way they choose in the middle of the school day.
But the lunch argument falls a bit flat for me. It takes 10 mins to eat a sandwich if you make her a packed lunch.
Original_Bad_3416@reddit
Pull her out and homeschool? Or a school with better management.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Maybe after 3 months. But youre not going to disrupt studies on the basis of food mismanagement which is just a cynical way to save money on food and staff
Original_Bad_3416@reddit
Exactly
_Caconym@reddit
When I was at school we got 75 minutes at lunchtime which was long enough to eat lunch, go and play football or something and then go back into the lunch hall and try and get a second lunch!
StewartIsHere@reddit
Correct steps are to phone the school and go absolutely bananas - their decison has prevented your child from eating, which almost certainly took away from their ability to concentrate the rest of that afternoon and in all likelihood caused stress the other days prior to lunch in case they weren't able to eat anything in time.
I'm sick of headteachers thinking their changes which are inherently negative for students are worth it and built around this "tough love" nonsense - you cannot reinvent the wheel, and the arrogance to think so is ridiculous. Kids need a lunch break which allows them to socialise and be kids. Whoever institued that lunch plan is a fucking idiot and shouldn't be working with children.
As you've highligted, they've given themselves 10 mins to feet 266 kids which just isn't practical. It means they'll have to police the kids eating to the enth degree to keep things moving which will just create a wholly toxic environment. What a vile decision from the SLT, legitimately sounds like a decision with no care for the students wellbeing or the catering staffs stress levels.
Would investigate if you can move your kids schools. What a wholly awful decision, and it sounds like its been made with zero care for the kids or parental input. Failing that, make a point of attending the next PTA meeting and go for the jugular. Its clearly a top down decision, so be as brutal as possible in your assessment of it to them. I'd query if you can make a complaint to the local authority and let the head teacher know you're doing this with the above point around the ridiculousness of trying to feed 266 students every 10 minutes. Its a school, not a victorian workhouse!
Heartskittens@reddit
Adults often only get 30 minutes for lunch too. But why is she missing it? Is it because classes are running into lunch? Is it because the lunch queues are too long for the children to get food? Those are definitely big issues that the school needs to address. If it's just because she eats slowly and gets distracted on the other hand, then that's something you need to work through with her. 30 minute lunch breaks in school are actually really common in many countries outside the UK as well. But obviously there needs to be an actual 30 minute break that they can enjoy their food, not 25 minutes of queueing because the school is overburdened followed by being told you can't eat anything.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Adults can go anywhere, take lunches, they're not restricted to staying in school and in competition with the whole workplace of 8-900 workers going to the 1 canteen.
SquishiestSquish@reddit
So others have mentioned, you need to properly describe what part of the new lunchtime is causing her to miss lunch
If you just say "she missed lunch" the school doesn't really have a way to address that other than increasing the 30 mins which you've rightly pointed out probably won't happen this year
If you are able to define in what way she missed lunch and why, they may be able to put in other measures. Eg rotate which year groups get served first so there isn't always the same people picking last, opening up certain other spaces or classrooms to eat lunch in so the canteen isn't too busy, better allowing kids to go to the bathroom during lessons, hiring more canteen staff to move kids through quicker, or prereadying certain bits of meals so it moves quicker
Fwiw I think 30 minutes is insane and I'm sure lots of people are upset. But you're right it's likely locked in for at least a term but more likely a year, so by being specific you might get changes that help a little until then
Begum65@reddit (OP)
The school has around 800 students, average student takes about 10 minutes to eat, not counting the time taken to get to the canteen queue, get lunch, pay, find a seat etc.
So in 30 minutes, the canteen would have to serve 266 students, seat them too.
This is the problem. The school can't feed 266 students in 10 minutes for the 30 minute lunch times.
Whoopsy13@reddit
OK well, this sounds like this system wont last long. Fingers x. What are they trying to achieve by giving the lucky few who get to the front severe indigestion. Is the idea that the kids eat their food before they pay and sit down. They will be saving a lot of money on food doing this if most cannot access it. Do you know any lunch staff at school who you can talk to unofficially? For the time being, be prepared with the lunchbox. If your daughter wants. You won't be the only parent to show their concern. I think as this is a ridiculous system, even though it's early, I would express my concern in writing backed up with friendly call, without getting irate. If you get no joy in a couple of weeks and can imagine there will be a lot of complaints so, speak the head. Your daughters head of year and the lunch crew if poss. Keep it friendly. If they keep up and your daughter is still in this situation, complaining officially despite friendly concern. But that's for the future. I'd speak to other parents about it, what's their experiences Suggest to the school that they need to do a week of dry runs. To ensure this issue is smoothed out. Its my opinion the school is making extreme economies and they are going Darwin. Survival of the fittest. They want to save on school meals, if most cannot get fed on time they will bring sandwiches. I guess they will wish to only feed those on free meals as the have already been paid by council. If your daughter is on free meals or has any health condition. Then notifying them regarding this emphasising they need to prioritise those things children
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I think they're just trying to make up the hour missed by having one of the days a half day.
It's also a girls school so 800 girls also have other needs during break times, like changing pads/sanitary products.
It's ridiculous. Hopefully it does change or they make it more efficiently run. Can't see how they can expect children to put up with this for the whole school year.
Whoopsy13@reddit
This isn't the best way recoup a half day. Who wanted a half day except for the head and golfing friends. It's not a price worth paying
SquishiestSquish@reddit
Ok again but why, what is the bottle neck?
I know and you know that just 30 minutes is silly
But is it the space? Is it the time taking to serve? Is it both?
Did your daughter get food but have no where to sit or was she still in the queue when the 30 minutes was up?
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Canteen that can cater for 800 children in 1 hour, halving that time is the bottleneck.
SquishiestSquish@reddit
Yes I know, you know, it's very obvious and very simple
But you also understand that it's unlikely they will just add the extra half hour back on
So just saying "it doesn't work" isn't going to get anywhere now, it might mean they undo the policy next year, but it doesn't get your daughter lunch next week
So what is the issue? Did your daughter queue for food or did she decide it was pointless? Were there children who had food but no where to sit? Were there children who queued at the right time but didn't get food?
Again we know the actual solution is to go back on the policy - but what solutions can mitigate damage until that's done? Is space a priority or does serving need to be quicker? Or both?
Again an answer of "the canteen can't accommodate 800 people in half hour" doesn't help right now - they can't expand the canteen and the policy is probably locked in for a bit. But they might be able to open classrooms for lunch if you say space is an issue. And they might be able to change how they serve food if the queueing is an issue. That's why you have to pin it down.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Adults can at the discretion of their workplace. I have often had to go through the day with no such official break. Any excuse to get out is never long enough. I didn't count smoking as I could do admin as long as I had wifi. But I couldn't go on a conference call with a steak bake wedged in my face! Depending on staffing. It's great if not working if you can still afford, anything nutritious. If you consume enough fluid energy shouldn't be affected.
n0p_sled@reddit
I think people are asking what do you mean by 'missing'? Is it so busy that she can't even enter the dining area? So busy that by the time she has queued up and got her lunch she only has 2 minutes to find a place to sit down and eat?
7ootles@reddit
Adults can eat at their desk or go to one of a number of cafeterias/refectories/common rooms/benches to eat - and workplaces aren't as densely populated as schools.
Whoopsy13@reddit
Imagine a workplace with as many staff as pupils a school...
Bearx2020@reddit
Adults don't have to fight against 800 colleagues to get their food from a singular source. Adults can go elsewhere.
charley_warlzz@reddit
Adults dont usually have to queue up for lunch and have a lot more control over where and what they eat
Whoopsy13@reddit
Im jus saying not to panic and novelty is easier on an empty stomach..
Gazcobain@reddit
Worth pointing out that if it's anything like most UK secondary schools, having 800 pupils doesn't mean they're feeding 800 pupils.
My school has just under 1,200 pupils. There are about 400 seats in the lunch hall and a good chunk of those remain empty, because most of the school go out for lunch.
laughingthalia@reddit
The school must be stupid to think that they could ever feed all the students in half an hour, not to mention kids need a longer break then that, even at a good work place you want an hour lunch. Complain to the principal and if they don't say anything take it even higher.
lianepl50@reddit
Changes like this take a little time to settle. As long as the school has adequate facilities there is no reason at all why 8-900 children should not be able to have lunch in the time stated.
OP, a change to the school day should have undergone a period of consultation which you should have been notified of. Did this not take place?
Why is your daughter not getting lunch? Do different year groups have different times to go to the canteen? Is the canteen the only place where food is served? When she has missed her lunch has she told the teacher of the lesson after lunch? Has she spoken to her tutor?
Initially I would contact your child's Head of Year and ask for them to check in on your daughter next week. I would contact them by email initially, so that they can check on her on Monday lunchtime. I'd also ask for the Head of Year to get back to you so that a) you can be reassured that your daughter is eating and b) so that you can discuss the matter as a whole and express your concerns.
I've noticed at least one suggestion that you go 'nuclear'. Please avoid that. Nobody at that school said "I know, let's cut lunchtime to 30 minutes and see how many kids go hungry". Most likely the reduced lunchtime will be linked to social time behaviour and will have been done in the interests of keeping children safe.
Hopefully, after Year 7 have settled in (this may also be a factor in the current lunch issues) and after students have adjusted to a shorter lunchtime, things will be fine and your daughter (and others) won't have the same issue. However, if this is not the case, then escalate your concerns in an email to the Head Teacher.
If, after this, you are unhappy with the response you received, write to the Chair of the Governing Board. (Ringing Ofsted will not have the desired response!)
In the meantime, you may consider packing your child a snack so that she can at least have something. I agree that you shouldn't have to, but I'm sure you'd rather make sure she has access to something.
I hope this is resolved soon.
Jeester@reddit
Send her in with a packed lunch? She can eat it in the yard.
mobuline@reddit
Send her with a lunch?
thedummyman@reddit
Report the school and the headteacher by name to your local councils “child protection and safeguarding” team, CC your letter to the Secretary of State for Education (Bridget Phillipson) and your own MP. Not feeding children, abusive behaviour leading to stress and confusion, etc. See how long it (does not) take them to replan that stupid schedule.
Get your complaint in over the weekend and my money is on a resolution by Tuesday lunchtime.
12-7_Apocalypse@reddit
I was going to say ring the school, but I see it's already the top comment. I think it's probably a school incentive for you to start sending your kid to school with her own packed lunch; as the school has had it's food budget cut, or something to that effect.
chadders404@reddit
I haven't got a solution for you, but my school did this in 2007. It's to cut down bullying statistics as most bullying takes place at lunch time... but if the kids only have enough time to eat, they don't have time to fight! This cut down bullying stats nicely, but a side effect was that a whole generation of kids (including myself) didn't learn to socialise at school or conflict resolution. Snatches of conversation in lesson and 10-15mins at lunch time is not enough for social development. I often skipped lunch so I could have an extra few minutes with my friends. When I left school for uni and suddenly had a whole lunch hour I really struggled to have a casual un-rushed conversation over lunch for an hour and I still eat my lunch at my desk because I just never picked up the underrated art of casual conversation.
Steelhorse91@reddit
My school had half hour lunches, but they staggered them so each form group arrived at the canteen in 5 minute intervals and went back to lesson at 5 minute intervals. Meant the food queue kept flowing. Maybe suggest this to the school. Expecting everyone to get served within half an hour when they all arrive at once is madness.
Acs971@reddit
It sounds like a frustrating situation! You're definitely not alone in feeling like 30 minutes is too short, especially with so many students trying to eat at once.
A few things you could consider:
Organize a Parent Group:If you haven’t already, try to connect with other parents who share your concerns. Schools tend to take issues more seriously when a group of parents raises them rather than just individuals. A group effort can often bring more weight to the issue.
Contact the School Governors or PTA: Since you've already emailed the school, the next step might be to bring it to the school governors or Parent-Teacher Association (PTA). They often have more influence and can push the administration to reconsider the schedule or make changes.
Consider Packed Lunches: I know it’s not ideal, but in the meantime, packing a lunch might help your daughter get through the line quicker and have more time to eat. This could just be a temporary solution while you push for a longer lunch period.
Highlight Health and Well-being Concerns: When communicating with the school, emphasize how the short lunch breaks could affect students’ health and focus in the classroom. Most schools care about student well-being and may reconsider if it’s framed as an issue that impacts learning and concentration.
Social Media & Local News: If things don’t change and you feel strongly about it, sometimes a bit of public pressure helps. Posting about it on social media or reaching out to a local news outlet could shine a light on the issue. Schools don’t usually like bad publicity.
Good luck! It’s really disappointing that schools sometimes overlook how important a proper break is for students. Hopefully, the school reconsiders and extends the lunchtime to something more reasonable. Keep pushing!
alittlepieceofslice@reddit
Going back about 13 years here but we had 30 mins lunches however, they were staggered across 1hr 30 mins iirc. Our school did not have 800+ kids, it was more like 300.
Bcrueltyfree@reddit
When my son was at primary school they had a compulsory sitting down time to eat your lunch and the rest of the time you could play. As a counsellor he got to meet with the principal once a week at the beginning of lunchtime. By the time it was over the "playtime" had started so he never ate his lunch. I did say to him that playing wasn't compulsory and he could have stopped to eat his sandwich. But he looked at me like I was crazy 🤣
Practical_Scar4374@reddit
You are! He can play WHILST eating his butty.
Bcrueltyfree@reddit
No I was crazy because why would you eat when your friends aren't? And it's rugby time. "Don't be stupid mum, get your priorities right. "
Firstpoet@reddit
Ex teacher. Do not expect any common sense from the school over this.
Probably some hare brained idea from some genius on the senior management team to lessen bad behaviour.
Can't tell you how glad my grandkids are growing up in Finland where they'd find this ludicrous. Such a logical country.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I think it's to cover the 2 hours missed on Tuesdays, since they have a half day on Tuesdays. Her old school used to have half days too and this secondary done it last year, but guess they want to make up those 2 hours missed on Tuesdays by cutting lunchtimes for the other days.
Jonnehhh@reddit
We had 30 minute lunches when I was at school, we did have three canteens though and even then the lunches were staggered - Years 7-9 first then 10/11. School had approximately 2500 students.
Font_Factor_1984@reddit
Does the school not stagger the student's lunchtimes?! When I was in comprehensive there were about 1000 students, but each year group would go at slightly different times to stop the canteen getting overwhelmed and busy.
You're right to raise this as an issue with the school as it doesn;'t seem like they've actually thought it through at all. Doesn't fill you with confidence that they are responsible for teaching the next generations 😳
seabass_@reddit
Ridiculous. Why are children expected to eat so quickly? It's not healthy!
MissMariposa1992@reddit
Secondary teaching piping in here...most secondary schools are 45 minutes but I've heard of a few local ones changing to 30 minutes. This is because they were finding that too much time at lunch was causing pastoral issues - arguments between friends (year 7 and 8) and sometimes fights. Also a lot of kids in secondary choose to get their food at break and use lunch to play football, be in the yard so for some 45 mins is too long and does cause issues. Personally I don't like the idea of a 30min lunch for pupils but it's not totally unheard of.
I'm sure there certainly will be other parents complaining about this if this is the case. Do you know how many canteens they have and if there are staggered release of year groups? As an example we have about 1000 pupils on roll but have two small canteens (one for KS3, one for KS4). Y7 go to lunch 5 mins early to avoid everyone rushing. If not that could be a good point to bring up with the head. I would say your numbers are a bit off though honestly the kids in our school wolf down their lunch in about five minutes tops haha. You'd really be surprised. As I said earlier a lot eat at break, a lot bring their own and quite a surprising number will choose not to eat at all. We probably only truly feed less than half of our kids at lunch as they don't want canteen food. Do any year groups go off site for lunch eg Y11 go to the shops? That will reduce the numbers too.
It could be a short term with some teething issues. I don't know what year group your daughter is in and don't want to make assumptions, but the only thing I will say is some pupils in our school struggle to get fed some days because of their own disorganisation eg not going straight from lesson to the canteen but instead waiting for their friends who are in detention (that can be a big one!), playing around with friends in the yard then realising they've only got ten minutes left and haven't eaten. I'm sure it's probs not the case with her, but something I imagine the Head could come back and say.
Another personal thing is...I used to tell my mum I couldn't get lunch in school when I was trying to diet in my teens. But I can see you've said in your comments you know of other kids who have had issues this week.
Keep pestering the Head, Head of Year, Pastoral support. As others have mentioned, if you're not happy in a week I would contact Governors with a letter and even better if you can get multiple parents to sign it.
h00dman@reddit
Email your MP and let them know. I don't feel like that's an over escalation, it's pretty much what they're for - intervening on their constituents behalf and representing them in parliament.
There's clearly a problem here that the school thinks they're addressing by reducing lunchtimes, and if you bring your problem to the attention of your MP it might give the school an opportunity to raise their problem as well.
Whoopsy13@reddit
What, after 1 week! I know what I'd say if I were the MP. Come back in a month if things don't improve. It's probably easier if, in a couple of weeks, you have an informal chat with one of the lunch staff. There's usually someone's mum or dad working in there and ask for tips,if they know your kid, don't let her get away!
TheCarnivorishCook@reddit
Did she miss lunch, or did she not have enough time after she did the things she wanted to do
If she was queueing for 30 minutes and still didn't get fed, thats a "walk out and come home for food" matter, if she larked around for 25 minutes and then went to the cafeteria, well, sucks to be her.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
There's 800 kids to feed there, it's a girls school too. So they also need toilet breaks and certain times need to change sanitary products.
What they going to do when they need to do that?
They can stand in line the whole 30 minutes, but your not going to get through 800 students eating in that time.
Els236@reddit
When I was briefly in year 7 before moving abroad in 2006, I'm fairly sure we only had 30-40 minutes to eat and my secondary school had just over 1000 students.
Our canteen was massive, but it certainly couldn't seat all 1000 students at once. A lot of us who took packed lunch ate outside on school grounds, while those paying for school dinners got priority of sitting in the canteen.
I don't remember many (if any) going without lunch.
If your daughter is missing her lunch, the school either cannot cope, or have the worst planning in place (or lack thereof) for this scenario. I'd see if you can talk to other parents who are experiencing the same issue with their kids (your daughter's friend's parents are a good start) and raising a good stink about it.
Formal-Cucumber-1138@reddit
Before you came on Reddit, have you actually been to the achoo to discuss this and inspect what is really going on or did you just go on the word of your daughter (I’m sure she’s lovely)?
I just can’t imagine an employee seeing children still queuing for lunch and tell them “sorry not today hun, maybe tomorrow” whilst tapping them on their head (this is what I imagine when the thought comes to my head).
That’s called neglect and it’s illegal and I’m sure no school in 2024 is going to do anything that gives them such a title.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Why would a parent go to the school and inspect what's going on?
Like am I supposed to go marching into the school on the 4th day the school is open demanding to look around and inspect the canteen and how children are being fed?
If my kid says the lunch is 30 minutes, the lines are huge, the whole school has to eat in that 30 minutes and she didn't make it into the canteen because of the line, I believe her. What's the point of going there myself to find out?
Formal-Cucumber-1138@reddit
Maybe I’m different then because if my child came home and told me they hadn’t eaten in TWO days. The first thing I would do is call up, second thing is, I would be at the front door in the morning having a word with the headteacher and then the 3rd thing I would do is threaten all kind of legal action. Not (no offence) come on Reddit.
What you have claimed is very serious, I would have to investigate before spreading such information?
*I meant investigate not inspect
MrPloppyHead@reddit
You can:
A) ask people on Reddit
Or
B) contact the school
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I have contacted the school, It's Friday so they not going to reply to any messages.
I'm looking ahead on the situation, since they are unlikely to reschedule the whole year to bring back a longer lunch time.
I can also make packed lunches, but that doesn't really fix the situation for other students and having a cold packed lunch all the time isn't for everyone.
Medium_Lab_200@reddit
Have we stopped saying ‘twice’?
Begum65@reddit (OP)
We did twice, but thrice is the charm.
JeffSergeant@reddit
What did the school say when you raised the concern with them?
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Nothing yet since it's Friday and the schools only been going 4 days so far.
timothy_scuba@reddit
I think there's some important details missing here. Does your child eat pre-packed food that you have provided or are they getting their food from a canteen/ buying from a shop on site?
Does your child have to go to a designated area eg canteen, assembly hall etc or is it a case of finding a spot where ever / in the playground?
Perhaps the post can be edited to give them.
If the child has to go to a canteen, get food, find a seat etc then you might have a point to raise.
If it's a case of "You have a 30 min break before your next class find a spot and inhale your pre-packed food" then what are they doing for those 30 mins?
Begum65@reddit (OP)
They could eat a packed lunch anywhere. She get's lunch in the canteen. My kid would have to be a complete dumb ass to miss a packed lunch lunch. lol
They eat in the canteen, there is no other area designated for lunchtime meals.
SneakInTheSideDoor@reddit
Well the school can change it back.
They should be able to work it out, but that would mean the embarrassment of having to say they made a mistake.
I guess those who can't do, teach.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
But they would have to then reschedule the whole years timetable around a longer lunch time, I'm sure they have added an extra class per day or something by making lunch shorter.
I'm sure most students wouldn't be happy if they extended the end of the day by 30 minutes either.
Plus the new head has made a lot of other changes that seem to have made school a little less appealing.
daekle@reddit
When you contact the school , if they arent receptive to your request to feed your child, start using words like "child negligence" "contact the newspapers" and "offsted". It might push things along a little.
TravisInLondon@reddit
👴
BodgeJob@reddit
The acronym is OFSTED, and bandying random phrases to seem intimidating isn't gonna achieve shit. That's what boomer/gen x parents did all the time, and schools learnt to just ignore it like 20 years ago.
Upper_Apricot9968@reddit
Lunch is 22 minutes at my school?
buttersandmargarine@reddit
If this is in the North East I think I know which school your talking about I've heard loads of complaints about this and it's all over the town social network so I think a lot of people are putting complaints in
twowheeledfun@reddit
When I was in school there was a 90 minute lunch period, where 1/6 of the school went for lunch at a time, in 15 minute intervals. That meant there was always capacity and a reasonable queue in the dinner hall, but the lessons in that period would often be split 15/45, 30/30, or 45/15.
commanderdiana@reddit
This is a fair few years ago now, but my school swapped from a 15 min break at 10:30 and a 45 min break at 12:00 to two 30 min breaks at 11:30 and 13:00 and that worked out as no kids went hungry (I certainly never did)
I assume they are trying something similar to that as it meant kids could pick which time they wanted to eat (earlier or later) and it split up the cohort. But if she’s only getting one 30 min break all day in which they can eat then that’s really wrong and they’ve messed up somewhere. I’d complain, I can guarantee you’re not the only one with a child going hungry, and hopefully they’ll be able to do something about it.
In the meantime, maybe send her to school with a small packed lunch/some snacks to eat just in case? Things that if she doesn’t eat them as she manages to get lunch that day won’t have to go in the bin?
chimera4n@reddit
Send her with sandwiches.
trenchgun91@reddit
this does not actually solve the larger problem here.
chimera4n@reddit
OP's asking about her daughter's problem, not the larger problem.
Odds are that the school isn't going to change the lunchtime back to an hour. It would mean reworking the timetable for the whole school.
My grandkids have a 30 min lunch break, but the years are staggered so the whole school doesn't have lunch at the same time. I suspect that the same thing is happening in OPs school, it's not at all feasible for a 1000 plus kids to all eat lunch at the same time.
The best thing that OP can do for her daughter would be to pack her sandwiches.
FluffyMarshmallow90@reddit
Why would they not? If they get enough complaints they might and OPs daughter won't be the only one going without.
alrighttreacle11@reddit
Send her packed lunch?
musesmuses@reddit
The lunches need to be staggered so students can have lunch and some outdoor time. I'm sure some of the teachers, at least, will have noticed this.
I teach older students who would be very vocal about not having time for lunch and I'd be straight onto management to complain if this happened to any of my students. Teachers will have noticed... Their complaints might be ignored but yours won't. Complain! Take it to the top because this is totally unacceptable.
misicaly@reddit
Some of the replies in this thread are ridiculous. For years our local secondary school had issues with some kids not getting lunch due to the capacity of the canteen. There were too many kids to get served before the end of lunch time. They did open up a second smaller "kiosk" type canteen which helped.
I'm not sure if there are still issues as my youngest has support to get his lunch so he's always gotten it.
ZestyBeer@reddit
I work in education. This new headteacher seems like an absolute wanker. Most likely they've come from a middle management business background given this is the idea they've come up with...
I'm sorry your child had to go hungry twice in a week. 30 mins to get through around a 1000 kids is impossible unless they have employed dozens of canteen staff working like clockwork. I suspect since your child has gone hungry, this isn't the case.
What you want to do is pressure the schools big decision makers (board, governors, trustees) instead of the headteacher and their 'management' team, and cause strife between them. The board etc don't want to look bad as many of them are usually local people of some reknown and status in the community and take school board/trustee positions to up their reputation. The headteacher doesn't want them breathing down their neck over the decision making.
Use social media to find other parents who've experienced the same and start writing letters and emails to the school collectively and as individuals. Hammer the phones to complain but be polite to the admin staff. I'd also write to the local authority who most likely are in charge of your schools funding if it's a state school. For a flourish, also write to local journalists and national papers, and if the school has a Google page, leave a very bad review because they stain and rarely wash out. Nothing like bad press to put the wind up someone to back down on their poor decision.
Again, don't be nasty yourselves as that's only going to galvanise the head and the board instead of cause lots of uncomfortable meetings which is really your end goal. Just keep expressing profound disappointment and a lack of confidence in their leadership and that your child having to go hungry twice is beyond unforgivable.
Be loud, stay determined and keep the pressure on the school's actual management until this ludicrous policy is lifted.
In the meantime, it might be worth sending your child in with a packed lunch just in case they can't get served by the canteen within half an hour.
PCO244EVER@reddit
You need to inform the school governors it’s clearly not enough time for a large school
_manicpixiedreamgirl@reddit
We have 30 minute lunches however they’re staggered so only 200 kids at any one time are having lunch. Go to the governors and headteacher and complain
geyeetet@reddit
Can't believe how many people in this thread trying to argue that kids don't deserve lunch because of a changeable school policy. We are never beating the "most miserable nation" allegations.
This also explains a lot of the MPs voting records on the free school lunches
cardiffman100@reddit
They missed lunch because they were faffing around, not because they had 30 minutes to eat lunch.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
Faffing about? Please explain how a school setup to feed 800 children in 60 minutes, halves that time to 30 minutes, with the average time a child takes to eat lunch being 10 minutes, means they have to serve 266 students every 10 minutes?
You know how big a canteen has to be and kitchen and staff it takes to feed 266 students at the same time?
NoAssociation8694@reddit
Did your child go to get lunch at the start of lunch, queue for 30 mins then get turned away? If so that's not acceptable. However, often kids will not tell the whole story, ie they were doing something else for half of lunch. However, for what you say to make sense, I'm assuming there must have been the whole tail end of the queue still there and all turned away at the end of the half hour, which sounds unlikely/unacceptable on the part of the school. (Source - SMT in a secondary school of over 1000, duty on dinner queue multiple times per week. Never any queue after about 20mins)
SingerFirm1090@reddit
Surely individual classes / years could have a 30 minute lunch, but the times need to be staggered to accomodate the whole school?
Tomokin@reddit
Child not being fed = safeguarding issue.
If they don't fix it, they sure will when you bring up contacting local safeguarding team.
Emergency-Aardvark-6@reddit
They need to stagger the lunchtimes over the years groups. Bunch in 2 at a certain time and 3 at another. My stepkids school has the same problem until parents complained.
Rumhampolicy@reddit
I'd email the school, and then you will have it in writing. Put it for the attention of the head. If you don't get a satisfactory response, then add the governors into the email.
You should be able to get the email addresses from the school website.
Also, contact the PTA of the school.
what_the_actual_fc@reddit
Back in the 80s we had staggered 30 min lunches at my school. One 30 minute slot for the whole school is backward to say the least.
YungMili@reddit
email - don’t call - email the head of year, SLT and head teacher. someone will have to get back to you. email every time it happens. then go to the governors if there’s no reply.
presterjohn7171@reddit
My boys school is like this. Tiny canteen, long queues etc. About 19% of kids don't get to eat every day.
Jamesifer@reddit
Contact the head teacher about it. If it isn’t sorted, reach out to local news and put something up on social media. That’ll get it done.
Lunaspoona@reddit
It's happened in my old school, a lot of parents are concerned this will happen. The local councillors have got involved and contacted the school, I think they will escalate to local MP if it doesn't change anything.
h00dman@reddit
I'd contact my local MP from the start to be honest.
Perhaps I've been spoiled by having an MP who was actually really good at getting involved, but this sort of thing is what they're there for.
PinkLibraryStamp@reddit
I remember my high school (25 years ago…) did this. Lasted one year before they changed back. You basically had the choice of go to the toilet or queue for food before the bell went. Parents complained like mad and it worked.
Jolly-Bandicoot7162@reddit
Worked very successfully in the last school I worked in, but was very well thought out. Also 30 minute break when some chose to eat their main meal as lunch was really late, 2 entrances/exits to the canteen plus a third queue for certain things, Y7 given early lunch for the first week or so until they were used to it and so on.
Electronic-Shoe341@reddit
In my GCSE year, they moved us to 30 minute lunches but they staggered it depending on which part of the school you were in: E.g.) English - 12:00, Maths - 12:30, Science - 1:00
It reduced our ability to socialise with people outside of our population but did cut down queues. My school was quite large (~1500 people but not everyone had got dinners), we'd got everyone fed in 50 minutes but it wouldn't have been possible in half an hour. It took a bit of getting used to but it worked.
If your daughter's school can't be fed in the space of half an hour, it needs looking at.
misterhumpf@reddit
Talk to the school?
zephyrmox@reddit
definitely don't speak to the school, that would be utterly insane.
Ronaldo_McDonaldo81@reddit
Yes, run to some second rate tabloid newspaper with your best compoface on.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
That would be an absolute last resort. Step 1 asking the school, I'm just asking what can be done if the school doesn't do anything.
Because lets face it, schools started and the whole year has already been scheduled around these 30 minute lunches, I don't really see any way they are going to change this, because it would mean rescheduling the whole school's timetables and classes.
New head teachers and things can be stubborn with their new policies.
Jolly-Bandicoot7162@reddit
I worked at a large secondary with 30 minutes for lunch. We also had a 30 minute break so students buying cold food could get it then and save it, or students could choose to eat hot food at break rather than at lunch as lunch was pretty late. There were two entrances/exits to the canteen and mostly the food at each end was the same, but one end had something that had yet another queue for it. Cashless catering to get them through quicker. For the first week or so, Y7 were released from lessons 10 minutes early because having that level of autonomy or choice was overwhelming for them and they took twice as long (at least!) as students in other years.
If your daughter's school doesn't have all of that in place, then there's definitely room for improvement. If they do, then I don't know what's going wrong.
GoldFreezer@reddit
Teacher speaking here and I don't think so. I would suggest contacting the board of governors, who will then have to raise the issue with the Head. There's usually a local Councillor on the board of governors, so if you can contact them, all the better. (don't know if it's required everywhere like it is in my area, but usually there will be at least one on there). You should be able to find details of the governors on the school website.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I already have but haven't got anywhere yet, they only been back 4 days. Doubt they will reschedule the whole school year again.
Justan0therthrow4way@reddit
Exactly it’s only been a week meaning they can fix it now rather than 2 months into the year. I’d be urgently trying to get it sorted out! Have the school admitted there is a problem?
No-Conference-6242@reddit
Ex teacher here I can almost guarantee they shortened the lunch break from a combination of wanting to give kids less time to misbehave and not really having staff who actively cover the lunch duty. As a teacher you arent paid. Lunch is the only part of the day that isn't directed time.
Additionally The school will have worked out the directed time and possibly shorter Iunches has made it possible to squeak another inset day or shorter school day or something like 1 lesson not 2 after lunch.
trenchgun91@reddit
My school did this in the last few years of my attendance there, suffice to say I think it was a fairly large step backwards in terms of actual time to eat and socialise tbh.
AdministrativeLaugh2@reddit
They’re probably more likely to fix it now than later. It’s easier to sort it out now when kids have only just gone back than in a few months when they’re prepping for exams and stuff.
ieya404@reddit
I'd get in touch with your local councillor and raise concerns, with a possibility of local press if you get no joy there either - this is a ridiculous situation and they need to fix it, by being shamed publicly into it if needs be.
Breakwaterbot@reddit
Yes, talk to the school and other parents rather than moaning on Reddit about it.
HarB_Games@reddit
They're evidently asking for advice you bellend. Get over yourself.
Breakwaterbot@reddit
Now now, no need to get aggressive.
I was giving advice.
HarB_Games@reddit
"Rather than moaning on Reddit about it" when they absolutely wasn't and even if they were, they'd have every right to.
Breakwaterbot@reddit
*weren't
HarB_Games@reddit
Well done pal, you got me there!
Breakwaterbot@reddit
Well you know what they say every day is a school day.
Begum65@reddit (OP)
I already have asked the school, I'm just asking what can be done if the school doesn't do anything.
Because lets face it, schools started and the whole year has already been scheduled around these 30 minute lunches, I don't really see any way they are going to change this, because it would mean rescheduling the whole school's timetables and classes.
New head teachers and things can be stubborn with their new policies.
So guess looking out for my daughter and other kids that might not be in a good situation and need those lunches and miss out is 'moaning to reddit about it'.
Hope you have someone that looks out for you with out you knowing some day and has your best interest at heart. You might actually realise they are trying to help and not 'moaning'.
Breakwaterbot@reddit
They'll have to change it. They can't have kids going hungry.
So I'll go back to my point, just keep talking to them about it and talk to other parents for support until something gets done. That's quite literally all you can do.
atlan7291@reddit
Exactly get in touch with the office/headteacher and point this out. They have a duty of care, they take the responsibility of being a parent while in school. As suggested split lunch time if they are struggling, and don't forget the good old threaten to sue/Ofsted reporting/MP involvement.
thesaltwatersolution@reddit
Find out who the parent governor is as well.
Awesomevindicator@reddit
get a group of several parents who have had the same issue and speak to the school directly.
if its a common issue with many kids, it will be fixed quickly.
CoffeeNoSugar6@reddit
Survival of the Fattest
AutoModerator@reddit
Please help keep AskUK welcoming!
Top-level comments to the OP must contain genuine efforts to answer the question. No jokes, judgements, etc.
Don't be a dick to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on.
This is a strictly no-politics subreddit!
Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.