Universal Free School meals

irelandrover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122163605#Comment_122163605

You think two hot meals a day causes obesity?

witchgirl26

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122163605#Comment_122163605

Ok firstly, kids need more energy/calorie intake than you might think. It doesn't lead to obseity. Also depends on how much they eat - my son technically has a hot meal in afterschool every day but he doesn't always eat it all so depending on that, he might get another one in the evening. Or if he's hungry.

And I get your point on the "give a man a fish" but I ask again, is dealing with a potential symptom (i.e. a hot meal in the middle of the day to ensure proper nutrition) at possibly the same time as dealing with the potential underlying issue, not a good thing? Otherwise you too are punishing the child in the scenario and not helping them.

Gary_dunne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122163605#Comment_122163605

So you think if a child has a hot meal in school at 12:30 (primary lunch time) all they need for the rest of the day roughly 7/8 hours is a light supper? Can you define what a "light supper" even would be? Those kids would be absolutely starving if you're not providing them with a dinner after school.

It's an Irish mentality to think a ham and cheese sandwich is enough and a good "healthy lunch" not realising that the bread is mostly sugar, the ham is plastic and with the cheese and butter or mayonnaise the calories are usually roughly equal to a proper nutritious hot meal with is far more satiant.

shesty

There is nothing wrong with hot meals in school. It's the socially mature thing for a society to do. One of the biggest obstacles in this country to any form of change that might move us on a few decades is the idea that somebody's sensibilities might be offended, or that "we were all fine", or that it's "notions". It's not. It's normal, basic practice in many countries, where nobody is quibbling about how much time parents spend at dinner tables, or whether 2 hot meals a day is the norm. There is no rule stating that everybody must eat a hot meal at school. You pay for it yourself, you don't have to get it and there is nothing stopping you serving (or not) a hot dinner in the evening or spending time at the table en famille.

Deis schools have had meals at schools for quite a while now. While parents everywhere all need support at some stage, the assumption is that parents in Deis schools may have a higher percentage of people needing more support. That ship has sailed. The kids in those schools have been fed at school for years now, sandwiches, scones, milk/water, fruit, and now hot meals.

I think this is a non-issue to be honest. Having recently spent time in a deis school myself, the bigger issue is the number of primary school kids wilting over the table every single day - absolutely exhausted, pale, rubbing their eyes, unable to concentrate and clearly struggling to engage. We'd be far better putting our energies into looking at screens, devices, bedtimes and debating issues like whether phones are really necessary for primary school kids, and whether they should be allowed past the gates of primary schools (they just shouldn't be, outright, in my opinion), than quibbling over hot meals.

Boggles

Certain individuals on this thread over dipping into the well of farce to try and justify not giving a kid food at school.

Are they just cranky members of the against everything brigade or is there something else at play here?

KaneToad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122164245#Comment_122164245

They are probably childless people. Or people with children who are too old to benefit from this.

"Waste of my taxes...etc…etc"

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122164271#Comment_122164271

The same kids who will be paying for their pensions and health service when they need free meals?

markodaly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122163605#Comment_122163605

In-depth family services will increase the adults capacity and willingness to parent their kids. That involves a lot more than just feeding them, and it improves the capacity of the kids to become functional adults who don't need the services. Just feeding the kids does none of that. (It's "give a man a fish vs give him a fishing rod".)

It's kinda scary the number of people who can't see that a parent who is not feeding their kid is almost certainly not doing other equally important things like adequate sleep, clothing and emotional support. Maybe it's some weird famine hangover in the psyche that sees being hungry as The Worst Possible Thing.

This is just another way of advocating a Puritan look on the family, like what the Nuns and Priests did in their time.

You would rather a child go hungry and starve but moralise and lecture parents to 'do better'.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122164400#Comment_122164400

No, I would rather teach parents to parent, and so act to break the intergenerational welfare cycle.

witchgirl26

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122164535#Comment_122164535

But not deal with the potentially hungry children in the meantime? Ok.

Like I said before in this thread, my dad was a principal in a school in a very disadvantaged area of Dublin. It wasn't from lack of wanting to do the best for the kids that some kids were hungry in school. It was lack of means to provide for them. A lot of the parents in those cases were going hungry themselves just to try to ensure the child would have something but at times it wasn't enough.

And this isn't always in classically deprived areas. With the massive hike in interest rates and cost of living crisis, there are more and more people who look well off from the outside who are struggling with the day-to-day. SVdeP even noted it last year how more people were accessing food banks than previously and how a lot were the working poor. I.e. they look like they have a good life with a house, car & job but the reality is that their wages are primarily going on paying the mortgage, moving is not necessarily an option because of the fact there are so few houses available let alone cheaper ones, and while they might appear rich, they are asset rich but cash poor & not able to provide fully for food and clothes.

So maybe this is less about the parents needing to be taught something and more about just feeding children. Break it down to that basic and do you really have a problem with children getting fed?

drury..

O'bumble is way overthinking this

Its just a hot meal for kids during their school day

We had it in the UK 50yrs ago in primary school . It was a great job

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122168897#Comment_122168897

And has society in the UK followed a good trajectory since.....I thought I heard recently enough the amount of food banks in the UK had exploded, its no longer just schools people have to be fed in...real third world type stuff.

I cant help thinking that it has to happen shows something isnt being managed correctly.

Maybe you are all correct and theres no argument or alternative view here that having large proportions of a population that need food provided by the state in a supposedly wealthy developed country means something aint right with the system.

drury..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122171377#Comment_122171377

Same applies as I said about obumble rambling about parenting

Youre talking about an unrelated matter the poor and hungry and homeless

School meals is the practical matter of providing a hot meal during the school day which otherwise they cannot have

noodler

More than 200m allocated to this ever expanding scheme this year with non -Deis schools now involved.

I dunno. It seems to me it would cost about 30m to buy the food for the kids who need it.

Very few policy proposals are bad in isolation but hard not to think there are more deserving areas for that cash.

Pauliedragon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122164535#Comment_122164535

You can teach people to parent all you want it doesn't mean they will. There's plenty of bad parents out there who just couldn't be bothered all the training in the world wont help.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122171394#Comment_122171394

If you need a school to supply your food....need mind you, not would prefer, would find it convenient, think its a good idea etc.…are you not poor/hungry/homeless......

Im having trouble seeing how its unrelated tbh

drury..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122171645#Comment_122171645

What makes you think pupils need the school to supply school meals ?

A small percentage do I guess

At a food bank they all need the food

Big difference

rowantree18

This is a good idea. Many parents are not capable of providing proper meals to their children, so this will go some way to addressing that.

 Quote 9Thanks

Wow. A much bigger issue than the provisional or not of school meals. We've a massive parenting problem. Even those on social welfare get plenty to buy food. Whinging about poverty but all have huge tvs, x boxes and phones. Loads of fillers, fake tan and botox. I know this from my work where I'm in homes as part of my job. The "poorest " have the best stuff but whinge to the CWO and SVP they've no money. Communions have to be seen to be believed. But they can't, apparently, buy food. Check out how many fake-tanned, fake nailed communion and confirmation makers show up next day for the "breakfast club".…

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122171668#Comment_122171668

I was under the impression a significant cohort of pupils did need the school to supply meals?

Im not the only one under that impression.

If the scheme is not catering for a need, what is it catering for?

drury..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122172017#Comment_122172017

Some do but it's not comparable to food banks where they all do

They should all have a hot meal imo during school time , doesn't mean they all need feeding

ArthurDayne

My two cents here, having come through the northern education system where we had the 'dinner ladies' and school dinners at primary and secondary, was that it was mainly a positive thing from my perspective. You sat with your mates over a bit of hot food and socialised, and lots of kids brought their own lunches in anyway. I will say the food in the primary school years was mainly cheap crap — so there's that. The secondary food was better. In fact, for 6th and 7th years (or lower 6th and upper 6th as it was known), there was even tea / breads served in the mornings — and this was Newry, not Holywood(!). I think that was nice, fond memories of the craic every morning and it made you feel a bit more mature and adult as you got to the end stage of school life.

I suppose nowadays though a lot of young ones are constantly "socialising" through WhatsApp groups so the catch ups might not be what they once were.

Anyway, I'm sure there are all kinds of studies on the benefits or drawbacks of school meals so I'm not sure what my view is — I just know I liked them!

drury..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122172877#Comment_122172877

Agree that's my experience too

mariaalice

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122171714#Comment_122171714

How come those who are making their living from supporting people do not seem to connect the dots and realise that they only have their jobs because of a family needing support?

It's not about having enough money, welfare support is enough for an appropriate diet, it's about the competencies of the individual or family and anyone who wants children to go without so incompetent parents can be punished is an idiot.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122183289#Comment_122183289

But children who are going without food ARE ALSO going without sleep, clothing and emotional support.

How is so hard to understand: a parent who is not feeding their kids is not doing lots of other stuff too. Family support is not punishing the parents, it's supporting the kids to break the cycle.

Feeding kids at school is a band-aid. And a loose fitting one at that, 'cos schools are only open for about half the year.

irelandrover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122183904#Comment_122183904

There are neglectful parents who's children are not sleeping or eating or well dressed. Giving them a hot meal at school will help the children hunger but not help the other things. But those other things will still be very obvious to everyone. But at least the kids are fed.

There are also good parents who simply can't afford to feed their children for reasons. A hot meal will help those kids.

Basically in every situation you are helping children.

fits

one of my kids (7) gets a sandwich with ham or turkey and cheese, a banana, another piece of fruit ( blueberries currently) and a small container of full fat flavoured Greek style yogurt ( with the least amount of sugar I can find). He currently eats the sandwich at eleven and the yoghurt at lunchtime and is starving after school. He’d eat a bowl of porridge every morning.
so I’m hopeful of two things

1. He will get more protein in his diet with the hot meal
2. He won’t be starving in the afternoon.
   

We will see how it goes

In general I think this will benefit a lot of children. people should give it a chance

shesty

The thing about the idea that you should not feed the kids and teach parents to be parents is....those parents whose kids are genuinely in need of a hot meal are often stuck in an inter-generational cycle.Schools know that those are the kids who need the most help, and that one of the best ways to break that cycle is education.In order to educate them, they need to be in school, engaged and present.And part of a many-pronged approach to achieve that is offer a hot meal.Give them a reason to turn up, to view school as a place that is welcoming, warm, that has something for them.Getting those kids in the door is 60% of the battle, often through no fault of the child, when they are younger.It can also take pressure off parents who are genuinely struggling for money or struggling with alcohol or drugs...and the child is suffering as a result because the money is feeding a habit rather than feeding them.

I've spent time in schools in the likes of Ballymun and Finglas over the years and the stories would break your heart.It's fair to point the finger at the parents and there is a genuine need to help those parents and push them, but it is not the school's job to do that.The school's job is to make sure those kids are educated and supported in an effort to help them go further in life and break that cycle, and if hot meals are a part of that, it's a small price to pay, both for the school, and for society at large.