:fist:

got more to do with the parent I think. A lot of parents have to change their day if their kid doesn't have school, and they hope parents will make sure their kid behaves so it does not happen again

Sounds like the boy's parents think this is a total joke, no wonder, because it is. I'll bet he's having a great time off school, my dad would totally have done the same thing if that was one of us being suspended for having crisps in our packed lunch - I mean how ridiculous.

If he was going in with a box packed with, say, a can of coke, 2 chocolate muffins and 3 packs of crisps I could understand a bit more. But the rest of his lunch sounds fine and to me this is just the school throwing their weight around for no reason.

I think schools are under a lot of pressure to adhere to all these different guidelines and perhaps get a little bit too into these things. That said, no doubt this has been taken out of context by the parents, the school obviously isn't going to go to the media to say "we've suspended one of our students for this reason, what do you think about that" - I'm sure there's more to the story than this and they'll likely back down and apologise and not take it any further even if they had more concrete reasons than "he had crisps" for suspending him.

Aristas on the sexist train! Choo choo!

In fairness to Arista the percentage of single mothers is much greater than fathers, and it is more likely the mother will pack the lunchbox as men can't get ready for work and pack a lunchbox at the same time. :whistle:

What gets me about stories like this is once they hit Year 7 the worlds their oyster (at least at lunchtime) with regard to what they eat.

My dad used to make my packed lunches the night before :idc:

He is one in a million. :idc:

Possibly :laugh: my parents tended to go fifty/fifty on that sorta thing, my mum would do stuff during the day that my dad obviously couldn't do if he was at work and my dad would do stuff in the evening so that my mum wasn't just doing everything for everyone else.

Just kidding most couples I know share that kind of stuff, my husband is pretty good tbf.

what a lil car'ynn wannabe

..I'm always a bit dubious about stories like this..it does all seem a bit of an extreme reaction by the school but they could have talked to the parents about it several times before and the parents refused to compromise..?..it's difficult to say but I know that lots of school participate in Health Eating awards..(our does..)..and what the children eat for packed lunch is a big part of the award so can mean that their award is taken away from them if parents won't support it, which is a shame and annoying for all the other families if it's just one or two people who refuse to do it....

It would be interesting to see a nutritional breakdown of everything that is available for lunch in the school kitchen. I doubt that all their produce is sugar, salt and fat free.

..ours is Kizzy..but I have to say, I've tried some and it is a bit tasteless sometimes/with some things..the school cook is often not happy about not being able to use these things...

..I think there's probably always improvements that could be made of course and especially with the free school meals happening in September...

[2]

What a ridiculous story.

Of all my friends I know with kids, it's the Mum that does the lunch boxes because mostly it's the mums who are at home, or working part-time. Even my sister-in-law, who has a really stressful full-time job in the City, still does my nieces' lunch boxes.

Poor kid,

I still remember school dinners for 2 years, I had same thing every day!, I didn't need ask dinner lady, she knew what was going and gave me lol , Pizza and Chips , very lunch time.

I love to wake up and have those pizza again!

I think jamie oliver did a lot to highlight the drop in standards of school meals. It was an eye opener for a lot of parents who thought like ammis school food was prepared onsite.
In the majority of schools it isn't and the catering companies used were reducing the quality substantialy to maximise profits.
So I for one am glad this was publicised.
I worry that when meals are free standards will slip again. The issue with packed lunches is one I remember well, I can see how a school would ban crisps and chocolate but where do you draw the line, all packaged/ processed foods?
The punishment of the child was excessive, why exclude the child? It would make them feel at fault, totally unfair and heavy handed.

If both parents work full time there is usually a fairly even division of the childcare it is the only way it can work, if one parent always does the lunchboxes it usually means the other parent does the school run or the pick up or the ballet, there usually is a trade off.

I remember when I started upper school the first 2 years was cans of pop, massive slices of pizza and all sorts like that. Then it all just suddenly went, cans were banned and we got cheap soft drinks. It was quite a sudden change, there was no messing about. I never remember the 'healthy' food being much better to be honest, it all comes down to the schools budget.

I worked as a lunchtime assistant in a school in a run down area of Leeds in 2011 an was really shocked at the food primary kids get, and the portions not enough for an ant!
There were never any 'seconds' :(

I think it's good to promote healthy eating but schools get a bit anal about the whole thing IMO.

I think it due to teachers having to deal with kids either lethargic due to having no food or whacked off their gourd on sugar and caffeine. I would say the problem in inner city schools is pretty bad to take the decision to control what children consume whilst in their care.

This is rediculous.

I loved all the unhealthy school meals.