Do you have this arrangement?

[Thingsbehindthesun]

Ours is termly but if the child forgets to bring in lunch they can still queue up and pay the next day.

[mystery]

Can you have a mix of school lunch and packed lunch in the same week?

[mad?]

Can you have a mix of school lunch and packed lunch in the same week?

not sure if you were asking me but yes, any combo you want, school lunch some days and home made the other but must have given 2 weeks notice of any changes. The reality was that people changed termly or half termly if at all. Deputy head woul always squeeze in those who had forgotten to bring anything in...not sure what happened to the regulars who did this...

[scarlett]

Haven't time to read the whole thread, Mystery but I'm pretty sure your external supplier is the same as our school and we're allowed to mix and match as much as we like. If dd is off and misses a school dinner day then I just ask if she can have it the next day (if that's a packed lunch day ) so wouldn't have thought the suppliers would be funny. Does your school seat the children in separate places according to meals or do you think the receptionist doesn't want to ring up every day to request meals?

[mystery]

They say it's not to do with planning seating, or daily calls (they will have to do this anyway for absent children as you rightly point out) but because there are children and parents who get confused about whether their child is eating packed lunch or school lunch that day so some days there isn't enough food to go round! Must be a particularly dippy lot at our place. We have been able to mix and match on a daily basis for years. It is nothing to do with the supplier. Just one of those things we have to put up with at our school Scarlett IYSWIM.

Hope it's all going well for you.

[scarlett]

Maybe they have had some parents complain..I do get annoyed when dd tells me she had half a sausage and a teaspoon of veg because there isn't enough. We are told to pay termly, which I do but I still see people tipping a pile of coins on the receptionists desk every morning. It's probably that old chestnut of a couple of people ruining it for everyone else. I'm fine...will drop you a line when I have a minute

[mystery]

Yes - but if this is indeed the problem I am not sure that the new system is going to solve it ... except of course of it ends up with everyone having packed lunch and kids whose parents forget packed lunch go hungry because they are not allowed to order a lunch on the day.

[ToadMum]

DS2's primary has a three-week menu, which changes at Easter and at the October half-term. We have to pay for the week's meals on Monday but are allowed to "mix and match" - thank goodness, because apparently some of the things on the menu which sound quite nice to me are, according to DS2, "revolting" , also one has to be wise to little tricks such as replacing Wednesday's (very popular, so lots of children will have booked a meal for that day) roast with the (always less popular and often DS2-designated "revolting") Tuesday meal displaced by the occasional "special"...

[talea51]

Our school moved to the parentpay system so no cash changes hands at the school for school dinners and we receive emails from parentpay when our account is empty. I pay termly in advance for school meals and we are allowed to say at the beginning of each week how many school dinners our children will be having.

The food is prepared on the premises, the school has a very well equipped kitchen so there shouldn't be any issues with either quality of food or the amount of food available. My children have informed me that on occasion certain things have run out, eg yorkshire puddings on roast day, but they've never had to do without food.

There have been instances (very few) where one of my children has left their lunch either at home or in the car and they have been given a school dinner with no issues at all.

Reading this thread has been very good for me as it's made me realise that this is one area where my children's school is actually doing quite well! They fail in some many other pastoral care areas that it's actually been very nice to find something where they are doing quite well!

[ToadMum]

Our school moved to the parentpay system so no cash changes hands at the school for school dinners and we receive emails from parentpay when our account is empty. I pay termly in advance for school meals and we are allowed to say at the beginning of each week how many school dinners our children will be having.

I've given up suggesting to DS2's school that Parentpay or something similar would be a good idea; reasons why they won't being that they had looked into it and it wasn't anything like as advantageous to the school financially as we / Parentpay would have them believe and anyway, hardly any parents had bank accounts and so the system would be no use to them

As a result, I delight in giving DS2 a cheque to hand in every week for the smallest of amounts (some weeks he only eats school dinners on two days), sometimes more than one cheque - due to their accounting systems in the office it is not possible to give in a composite amount for more than one "service", so it might be one for the week's breakfast club (£5), one for two school lunches (£4) and a third for his occasional one session of after-school club (£6).

However, there were rumours last year that the school was actually looking at introducing Parentpay after all. No doubt it will be presented to parents as if it was all the school's own idea (and at least a term after DS2 has left...).