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Wanderers Ways. Neil Thompson 1961-2021

Free School Meals


Winchester White

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3 minutes ago, Mr Grey said:

I'm not being heartless, I'm just trying to be realistic, surely there are other things a government can do, up child benefit to those in poor areas, supermarket food vouchers in school holidays etc..

 

 

Both of which don't ensure the child gets a meal mate. They rely on the parents too much and can be traded. It's sickening I know, having to weigh up whether a parent would use the support properly or not when making govn. policy. In my experience most do put their children first in difficult circumstances. But it's the ones that don't that dominate the headlines.

FSM have worked well in the holidays where I've seen them over the summer. It was no bother to get a few parent volunteers and the catering company had back up staff wanting extra hours. There were plenty schools in more wealthy areas no having a demand so they had plenty staff to choose from.

Honestly feels like the most effective solution we have in this situation. The other alternative would be paying other catering companies to do it - but schools no better about which families need it. 

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1 hour ago, London Wanderer said:

He's probably never set foot in the Constituency outside the Con Club

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As mentioned before no child should be going hungry but how do we work out which kids are in need of a free meal? 
 

Those parents whose kids have been on free meals are probably still in the same position as they were pre Covid so why now the big push to get them fed during the holidays? 

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1 minute ago, little whitt said:

back in the day at BIG school 

one poor lad on FSM 

would always WAG it 

i would go up give his name get the Free School Meal 

spend my £1.20 on two cans of GAS 

and i didn,t even smoke 

 

Did you do this in Germany as well?

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12 minutes ago, Mr Grey said:

Parents are part, or some of them, they need to get their priorities right, unfortunately even poor kids want a pair of Nike air and an a smart phone, some would go in to debt to get these items for them. Whatever happened to responsible parenting. For some it seems feeding your kids or educating them to be healthy is not an option.

There are other options out there, my College donates considerable sums to cornerstone and other charities, one of which enables us to put some of our Students that have shit home lives in to sheltered accommodation on the edge of Manchester city centre, we get all staff emails at work asking for household items, last month I gave one student a 32" TV I had in the loft and some other stuff, I even arranged transport to get the items to her.

That's one of many cases throughout the college year, there's a bigger problem and it's called shit parenting, or kids have parents who are dependent on drugs and alcohol and they become the ones looking after their parents, I've come across loads of these. In this day and age it shouldn't happen, unfortunately it does and probably always will. 

 

Some quality work your college does there. Simple to organise but so effective. That's how we begin to break the cycle and support young ones like the lass you helped to become better parents when it's their turn. 

I've seen these cases as well. But I've also seen more folk who work their arses off and always put their kids first, who are still struggling. 

Whilst we need to put kids suffering genuine harm and neglect into care, punishing all parents just doesn't work. We have to break the cycle.

There are some amazing youth organisations, schools, colleges and social workers out there with some quality solutions that work. If this government was serious about supporting them , investing in them and listening to their advice then my opinions and voting habits would be very different. I'm just yet to see it in the past 10 years. 

Edited by London Wanderer
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15 minutes ago, royal white said:

As mentioned before no child should be going hungry but how do we work out which kids are in need of a free meal? 
 

Those parents whose kids have been on free meals are probably still in the same position as they were pre Covid so why now the big push to get them fed during the holidays? 

The whole idea is to help kids who are already reliant on free school meals during term time is it not?

There will be plenty whos situatuon is much worse due to Covid.

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2 hours ago, London Wanderer said:

Personally I'd like to see experts in their profession co-running certain aspects of the country. Rather than MPs, who often have no idea what it takes to feed a community or run a school.

To be fair, they actually invite leaders of industry and Services to attend fact-finding discussion groups in order to garner expert opinion. That they often ignore such expertise is immaterial when the advice is going to cost money.

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It's definitely very weird what uses of public money people think we can and can't afford. Not arsed about the millions being sent to private companies run by people with government connections, offering spurious services - massively concerned about what Donna from the council estate spends her benefits on.

I haven't seen a credible argument against FSM beyond just not wanting to give a 'win' to the other side. Which of course happens on both sides, and is just as pathetic then.

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