General Chat

There are three sides to every coin.

I have always believed in the theory that you should not criticize somebody unless you have walked a mile in their shoes. We don''t know that this lady bought expensive Christmas presents which she is still paying for, we don't know that she smokes, we don't know if she has offered a packed lunch to her child who maybe refused it. In fact all we know are the details given in the article. I have a feeling that she may need help to organise her money or she may be very clever and simply be trying to get out of paying. I don't suppose we will ever know as the newspapers are good at throwing a story at you and not following it through. I notice it is also in the mail today so it must be the sort of story that sells papers! I just hope that, if it is practical help she needs she gets it and that the little girl gets a hot meal every day in future. Thanks you all for your input. Ann Glos

I think the idea that Jan's Dad had is great............. Use the family allowance Maybe some of the family allowance should be of better use if after a certain age it was given to the schools to ensure that every child has a good dinner each day................... Now some kids may prefer sandwiches but that could be accomdated surely with the portion of the family allowance been used I think it is a great idea........... Perhaps the lady in question in this thread should put aside her family allowance that she recieves for the school dinners instead of using the excuse that her Tax Credit didn't come whilst Wednesday There is after all more than one way to skin a cat Joanne

PP I was just thinking the same as you - Lidl's sell weetabix type cereal for less than £1.50, and it is fine - I know cos I eat it! If you have three or four children, I can't see it would be cheaper to pay someone else to give them breakfast. My own daughter would not eat breakfast when she got up, so I made my own flapjack thingies, with cereal and dried fruit and powdered milk etc, and she took a chunk of this to eat on the school bus. It required a bit of forward planning and careful shopping though - something which seems beyond these mums. OC

I fail to see that it is cheaper to send a child to a school breakfast club instead of feed it at home, at the moment Poundshop are selling Quaker Oat Hoops at would you believe £1 a box! You can buy a loaf of wholemeal bread for under 60 p at Iceland and baked beans are not expensive yet beans on toast would give a good start to anyone's day. More likely many parents can't be bothered, but I know from my own experience that some kids won't get up, my son is an owl like me and finds mornings difficult, it wasn't that he didn't want to go to school, so if there had been a breakfast club where he could chat with his mates while eating a meal, that might have been an incentive for him. These mums don't know they're born these days, so much help available before and after school etc and often financial help with it too, and they still can't do the right thing.

Regarding the Tax credit. The government changed the way they paid people on Income support so they now receive Child Tax Credit plus income support. These people are eligible for Free School Meals. Working Tax Credit is a different thing entirely and people receiving this aren't entiltled to free school meals. As for the mother of this child I think she needs a bit of structure to her life. Why can't she save the money from the previous weeks allowance so the child has it on a Monday. My youngest is 13 yrs old and I still get up with her to see she eats properly before school. Tracy

My daughter runs the breakfast club at the local school and some of the children are from families who are on benefits. Some days a few of the children will say Mum has no money today but she will send double tomorrow . She was taken to task about this by a young newly graduated young man who was shadowing her to see what her job actually entailed .( government funded) He was of the opinion that the kids shouldn't have breakfast if they hadn't brought the money She told him that the mums would send double money but he was still dubious He was amazed when the kids brought the double money in The Ofsted inspector told her she should put the prices up because she didn't make much of a profit He wouldn't listen to reason that if the prices went up it would mean that some of the children wouldn't have breakfast at all. because their parents are on benefits and the families who have a child in every class wouldn't be able to afford it Like one mum says it's cheaper for the kids to have school breakfast than it is for her to give it them at home Bren

Brenda, my thoughts entirely. My son's girlfriend has a little lad, not my son's and they don't live together, and she was on benefits, in a council flat. Now little lad is 6 and in full time school she has started working part time, encouraged to do so by DSS office, who promised her she would be so much better off etc and quoted certain amounts of money. Instead, this girl has to find most of her rent, her council tax, afterschool care costs etc etc and is barely any better off and is able to spend less time with her son. She was messed about so much by the benefits people, her rent got in arrears before the whole situation was set up, and she was threatened with eviction!!! Luckily her mum got on to the council as she was so upset and couldn't do it, and she now has to pay extra to clear the arrears that were caused through her trying to better herself! This government couldn't organise a p*ssup in a brewery!

has somebody said they are entitled to free meals when on tax credits? I thought they were not. Ann Glos

I'm pretty sure that any of us, parent or not, would have paid for that child's meal. Possibly the catering staff felt very sorry and embarrassed about it, but if the meals are pre-ordered and delivered, then there was probably no spare food in the kitchen - not like the old days where the school kitchen had a pantry store. It does sound as if it was not the first time this had happened. Perhaps this woman will now get her act together and set aside her daughter's dinner money as a priority every week, as most of the rest of us would do. In eighteen years of standing at the school gates waiting to collect a child, in a poor area which had plenty of single mums, I can honestly say I only ever knew of one child who was neglected - and Social Services were already well in evidence as soon as he started school. All the other single mums managed to take and collect their children, and provide them with a lunch box - ok, maybe rubbish, but they had at least made an effort, as someone says above. Poor little scrap - and all the other children whose parents do not care enough for them. OC

Dried bread? At least they could have made banana sandwiches for her, I used to love them as a child.

Dawn thanks for getting back to me. At daughters school, she has a cash card...... this card can be capped or have unlimited spending. Daughters is capped. If any of the girls forget their card, they can borrow a card from the school office to get food, on the condition it is paid back the very next day. Daughter has forgotten hers a couple of times, but she'd rather go hungry than ask the office for help, so she 'borrows' the money from a friends card and pays the friend back the next day. Can't see the difference in asking the office or a friend but there you go who understands the minds of teenagers???

Maybe a thread such as this is good in more ways than one. It educates those of us who have no family at home in the difficulties of bringing up families today. These measures that were brought in with so many fan fares as being wonderful inovations by the current government to help needy families don't seem to have been thought through. They seem to have left many caught in the trap of earning too much to claim but not enough to live properly. it is not just young families caught in the poverty trap but many pensioners too who are being left to fight for survival on a pittance with the ever increasing costs of council tax and fuel bills. Ann Glos

Maybe the authority that issue these benefits could offer classes to educate families on living within their means, then all parties would have an idea of what a struggle bringing up a family on a very tight budget can be. I'm not for one moment sticking up for this woman and agree 100% with many of the comments raised by previous posts, we would walk over hot coals to make sure that my boys are all well fed and provided for,often going without ourselves to ensure they are provided for. The whole Tax credit system is a mess, my family income is currently less than if we were on benefits but we still have to pay full mortage, full council tax, are not entitled to any help with schools meals(so they all have pack ups) or school uniforms, so they have to make do with hand me downs, but at least we are all together in a loving contented family.

two comments on the story by e mail, one of which is mine. Surely if the mother does not get money until Wednesday, then she should save the £3.50 for the following monday. However, that does not excuse the attitude of the School and their supplier. Granted, they need to ensure meals are paid for, but the health of the child, who has no fault in this whatsoever should not be put at risk. Sodexho are a very large company who should be able to affort to have a buffer and not have to hold a childs health to ransom for the sake of a couple of hours and £3.50! Mr B Kirby, Gloucester It is not clear if the £3.50 is for one day's meal or an accumulation but if for one day, that sounds excessive for a child. However, if Mum has a problem on Wednesdays because of her cash flow, why doesn't she give her daughter a packed lunch that day? Anything would be better than dry bread. I appreciate that this may be an ongoing problem and we may not have the full story, however, nobody should see a child either go hungry or be exposed to ridicule from her peers. I do feel the school could have been a little more accommodating for the child's sake, and the catering company could at least have put some sort of spread on the bread. we no longer live in victorian times. bread and water (with or without a banana) sounds very like a punishment to me. Mrs A Knight, Churchdown

Well said Mags and Liz, my thoughts exactly. She doesn't live in my village but I don't know how she can go publiic about this issue without being a)embarrassed or b) ashamed. What on earth will her neighbours think? Ann Glos

My son always had free meals as I was a single parent receiving benefits, and there was a scheme in place that if the child didn't want hot dinners, my son was a bit of a faddy eater, they got prepacked sandwiches instead and could choose and order from a menu for the next day, so he almost lived on tuna and sweetcorn on wholemeal bread cos that was his favourite. He always had a good breakfast, often beans on toast, another favourite, or cereal and a banana, if we were late as he was hopeless at getting ready in time (still is!)and he would eat the banana on the walk in, and he always had a cooked meal in the evening, and cereal before bed too. He drank milk instead of fizzy drinks and was strong and healthy. When I was a dinner lady there were kids who came in with rubbishy stuff in their lunchboxes but at least their parents had made an effort. This woman needs some sorting out, budget and nutrition wise, so she can look after her child properly, I wouldn't be surprised if the child is not fed well at home either but I wouldn't mind betting the mother smokes! I too would have bust a gut to get to the school in time if I had promised to do so with the money. I can't understand all this so called poverty, it is written about so much in our local paper, there are certain estates in Norwich where the kids often seem deprived and I have seen for myself the way some families live, but it is because their priorities are all wrong. The government keeps pumping cash into these areas, where does it go? I used to do party plan with jewellery (anyone remember Trumps parties lol) and the number of times I would be invited to an address on these estates where the furniture would be awful, big holes in the sofa stuffed with an old pillow, coffee mugs so stained and dirty you would accidentally leave yours to go cold, rather than drink from the mug, kids scrawny and scruffy, yet the parents found money to buy gold jewellery. Always friendly people with lots of mates, relatives etc to attend the parties and buy the goods, but they always seemed to smoke, and have money for the fripperies of life, rather than essentials like comfortable furniture, cleaning materials etc. Yet they all received the same amount of benefits, so why was it that some folk could do well with it and others not manage? Time for lots of tuition in schools before the youngsters follow in their parents' footsteps. Liz

Shelli sorry have been out. When I phoned the local school welfare service and asked about it they said they knew how I felt and wasnt fair but out of their hands they are telling people to write to local MPs so that they are aware of it as well, to be honest I havent done anything about it as mine have sandwiches apart from tiddler who actually gets hers paid for by school as do all the other 7 full time nursery children, will have to start paying in September so now this has come up again may send letter off to MP anything is worth a try must be sooooooo many people like us that would rather earn a pittance than be unemployed while others can get more than us but get free meals.

I find it deeply distressing to think that ANY child has to get themselves up and off to school, never mind a primary school child. Mine all had to be shoe-horned out of bed every day anyway - says much about the home conditions if a five/six year old is motivated to get themselves up and off to school. These women need parenting classes alright - and they should be made compulsory when the schools know that neglect is going on. Sometimes I think we live in a horrible world. OC

The headteacher's comment is, I feel, very telling: 'We have, on numerous occasions, provided meals and accommodated late payment from this parent' THIS parent not any parent, so it's not the first time there has been late payment or possibly there has been no payment at all? What were they to do? The lunch the child was given does appear to be meagre but we don't know what else she was offered. We all know the sulky 'Don't like that, I'm not eating it' and when you look at what she did have, a banana on its own would have offered sufficient nutrition for a lunch. Am I being simplistic in thinking that if the tax credit or whatever arrives on a Wednesday then that should be the day the mother pays for the whole week in advance? It is hard to manage on benefit but not impossible. It's a case of cutting your coat according to your cloth - and yes, we have been blooming hard up in our time! People on benefit with three children were better off than we were with two and my husband in full time work but we qualified for no help at all. My children never went hungry. I may have had only one bra that I had to wash out overnight but my children were fed and clothed (albeit in second hand things) before anything else. I feel that perhaps this lady could do with some help - not only in budgeting but getting her priorities right? Mags xx