Are school dinners healthy and value for money?
It depends on the school – some are trying harder than others. What you describe does *not* seem value for money at all nor enough to feed a healthy appetite. I see nothing wring with offering the old style meat with vegetables and a piece of fruit too (or in the Winter a good apple or rhubarb crumble with custard wouldn’t go amiss!) and there are vegetarian options that could be dreamed up but offering too much variety just confuses the children in my opinion – keep it simple,nourishing and wholesome and adequate portions too (and give the children a longer breaktime in order for them to work up an appetite not cut it to allow for cramming for SATS tests!).
My daughter got pasta and a half a boiled potato. I gave up on school dinners – it’s the kids who get there last who have to eat the leftovers. And then the new headmistress had the cheek to inspect my child’s lunchbox in case she had a treat in it. Many children got their KitKats confiscated, although the school dinner children managed to get a biscui or pudding. It doens’t make sense. And yes, it is expensive. Most of the money goes into the labour. Little went into the meal (or it used to anyway. We haven’t had school dinners for a few years now.
