Free school meals or packed lunch?

This year the press has been talking non-stop about school meals. First “Let’s save the humble school dinner”, then “Let’s ban the packed lunch”, as less than 1% are considered to be healthy according to recent research highlighted in the School Food Plan findings, and now Nick Clegg just last week has announced “Let’s give all 4-7 year olds free school meals by September 2014”.  Now that is a tall order: nationwide.

Co-founders of Leon Fast Food chain were commissioned by Michael Gove to conduct and publish the School Food Plan, in attempt to save school dinners. The School Food Plan has since been published and can be read here.

How does the School Food Plan Impact School Meals?

In a nutshell the aim of the School Food’s Plan is to get children much more food aware. Starting with primary school children, give them compulsory cookery classes in school so they develop an understanding of healthy eating, food preparation and basic cooking skills. Get them eating well by offering healthy school meals that are balanced, so low in sugar, low in fat. This in turn will benefit children by increasing their concentration levels, improving their behaviour and therefore the school results through the positive influence of good nutrition.

Now I am all for educating children about food, encouraging them to try new tastes, textures, dishes, but whether lunch boxes should be banned is another issue. You see, in order for schools to achieve economies of scale, the argument is to ban packed lunches, so everyone has to eat the healthy school lunch. So the more lunches produced, the cheaper they are to make, as ingredients will be bought in bulk. But now with the offering of FREE school meals for 4-7 year olds, perhaps this changes things somewhat?

I am however, a little cynical as to whether this will actually happen in just 11 months’ time? This is an ambitious goal: to have every 4-7 year old in the country having free school meals.

Our local primary school does not even have a kitchen, nor does the infant school up the road, so how will they provide free school meals? Will they have to be brought in from neighbouring schools in the area that do have the cooking facilities? But then where will all the children sit for lunch, or will they be encouraged to eat on the hoof? Surely this is going against the idea of healthy eating? Doesn’t healthy eating go hand in hand with sitting down properly, with a table and chair?

Perhaps you are wondering if the government has thought this through. All I know is that my kids will be exempt, as the youngest is already 11.  So I will have no choice but to keep packing those healthy packed lunches. And yes, I have seen what’s on offer at secondary school and I’m not that impressed.

As the saying goes: you can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

I would love to be a fly on the wall come next September and see exactly what Primary school children are given for their school lunch!

So back to you, would you go for free school meals or carry on with packed lunches?

And before I forget, in the run up to Halloween, we’re planning a round-up of Halloween themed lunch boxes, so if you want to be included do please email me your links!

— Caroline, The Lunchbox Lady x

About Caroline Job

Caroline, The Lunchbox Lady founded lunchboxworld.co.uk back in 2009, following an online search for a washable lunch bag for her 3 school aged kids. Forever searching for fun lunch box ideas to help put the fun back into packed lunches, she can be found tweeting @lunchboxworld and has a growing community Let's Pack Lunch on Facebook too.

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