Do your children eat their midday meal at school? If so, do they pay for it? If they do pay, what happens if they don’t have enough money?

32 comments

1. They have an online payment system linked to canteen thumb scanners, so they select their meal (think McDonalds screens), pay with their thumb, and go get it. If they don’t have funds it gives them a bit of grace (about £10) and I get warning emails telling me I’m being a shit parent and to top up their accounts. They never let them starve!

2. They often do. Some kids in primary school go home to eat but that has become much rarer now that more and more people have two working parents. So much so that a lot of schools have cut the long lunch break (~1h) kids used to have in half, and instead they all eat at school and school ends a half hour earlier.

   There are not school lunches, kids bring their own lunch. Usually just sandwiches.

3. In italy (north) kids eat at school, we usually pay about 5 euro a meal. Which usually has some pasta, some meat, vegetables and bread. If the kid is low income i think he gets it free. If you forget to pay, It’s not a big problem, they ask you to pay eventually giving a letter to the kid to give to his parents with the outstanding amount. Eventhough the price might vary from town to town.

4. Pretty much the same. Up until high school most kids eat at the school canteen. Price was under 1,5 last I was there (soup, bread, main course, fruit, water, youghurt/jello). Free for some kids with lower means. In high school many become too cool to eat there and will buy some food at a nearby cafe ou supermarket. Going home, at least in my school, wasn´t so common but some kids who live very close by might do it.

5. From elementary school to high school everyone gets a free, warm meal, which are usually pretty good imo.

   In university the food is paid for by the students, but is subsidized by the government, leaving just under 3€ for the student to pay, at least in my university.

6. Finland: it’s completely tax-payed in elementary schools, vocational schools and highschools, and subsidized for affordable costs even in universities.

   Just the other week there were news of some kids choosing to go for a snack from a grocery store as they didn’t like what was being served on the “vegetarian food day”, and there were also news about how there are individual schools with such low budgets for the meals that they’re not too good. On a general level I’d still say the system works well enough, and I do remember some of my classmates being picky eaters and they have probably criticized it since childhood pretty much because they didn’t like all of it. In addition, some individual schools have offered an oatmeal breakfast for those that want to eat it at school, which at least the kids interviewed for an article liked.

7. Spain. I studied in a semiprivate catholic school (a plague in this country, they are everywhere). About half of the kids stayed at lunch in the school while the others went to their parents or grandparents home to eat. We had about 2h of lunch break. The food there was not free, you needed to pay and if you didnt have a ticket you couldnt even sit in the lunch room with the other kids (nuns, alwaya so lovely…). But that was about 15y ago and not in a public school; I cant speak for those. Maybe other spanish users can explain that part.

8. Not commonly, most eat at home. School finishes at 12:30 or so (in my case there were some exceptions, like it was 11:45 on one day and 1pm on another day). Most schools don’t have canteens. School is from Monday through Saturday though.

9. Depends on the municipality, as the state compensates a certain part, and municipality covers the other. I think it used to be free for all 1-9th grade students (before was 1-6, or 1-4, but gradually improved), however now with the prices for everything going up massively, some municipalities require parents to contribute an euro or so a day. I’m in my early 20s right now, when I studied I had no such thing, in primary school had to pay about 1-2 lats (converted to 0.7-1.5 euro) for lunch, in high school about 2.40 euro for main course (rice/potato/buckwheat/pasta with some meat, salad, soup and a drink).

   The food was generally very good for a school cafe, I didn’t understand kids who instead opted to go to the nearest shop for snacks. Cafe food is cheaper and more filling.

10. When I grew up kids go home for their lunch and eat over there. Or they go to one of their friends home. That’s when they are in elementary school. Apparently nowadays most of them stay at school and eat together their lunch the brought from home. On secondary school kids bring something with them from home or buy something in the school canteen or they go to the local supermarket.

11. Generally lunch is not part of school which ends around 12:40 for primary school or 13:30 for higher school types. Most schools offer an afternoon curricula and lunch for those that attend it. Lunch isn’t paid by the children though but billed to the parents depending on the number of days their children attended. Normaly about 3-3.5 EUR a day. So a month worth of school lunch costs between 60 and 70 EUR.

    Families who can’t afford that can apply for various subsidies to help them pay the meals. But that does not keep them from getting into trouble when not paying. The kids ain’t involved at any time but the municipality that is responsible for the meals might ultimately take them to court to get overdue lunch money.

    But, this is rare and only happens if the parents ignore all atempts to resolve the issue. If they really cannot pay some solution is found, be it the town waiving the money or a social club stepping in. Generally majors tend to avoid suing poor families for their kids lunch.

12. All children are guaranteed free school lunches up until the year they turn 16, and while upper secondary schools (ages 16 to 19) aren’t required to offer it almost all do. Since kids apply to upper secondary school it’s generally seen as a disadvantage in the competition for students if they have to pay for their meals.

    Lunches are generally hot meals, with a salad buffet and side options for vegetarians and kids with allergies. Through most of my time at school there’d always be one meal with fish a week, one soup a week and one completely vegetarian day a week, but this will vary depending on the school. The only rule is that the food is supposed to be nutritious. Teachers will often eat together with the students, at least when they’re younger, which I’ve gathered isn’t as common elsewhere.

    Apart from the midday meal, schools generally offer a morning and afternoon snack in the form of fruit and “knäckebröd” for the youngest kids, then only in the afternoon for the older ones and not at all for teenagers. I’m not sure this is mandated though, it might just be the schools I went to.

13. All schools have their own canteen or they have a canteen shared with another school. The lunches here are not free but part of the lunch is paid by the government, so they are fairly cheap and pretty much everyone can afford it. That being said, the quality of the meals is pretty bad and most children usually don’t eat the whole thing because it doesn’t taste good.

    In my elementary school we had two meal options. You had to go to a terminal in the school canteen where you chose the meal you want in advance. In my highschool tho, we had three meals and you could just come in and choose. If your lunch break was late tho, it often happened that they would run out of the popular options.

    Every student has a card or a chip with funds from their parents. Depending on the canteen you either have to pay online or there’s a cash register where you can pay cash to transfer money onto your chip.

14. Most children bring their lunch to school. In some schools it is also an option to buy food, which kids typically do once in a while but few buy lunch every day.

    There are no programs for poorer kids to get free lunch (as far as I know).

15. In Finland kids eat lunch at school cafeteria for free, both rich and poor kids. No payments at all and the food is basic healthy home food with veggies & salad, absolutely no french fries or hamburgers or pizza or nuggets or other fast food! Proven allergies & religional diets are taken jnto consideration (and you can’t get a doctor’s note if your kid doesn’t like something lol) and usually vegetarian & vegan food is also served on request. This goes from daycare to high school. Kids eat with their class & the teacher and at least in my school we were taught also proper table manners, eating only with a fork was not allowed.

    Example pic of what the food looks like: https://www.wikiwand.com/fi/Kouluruokailu

16. In the polish schools that I’ve been to:

    * Not every school offered dinner/lunch that consisted of soup + main dish

    * If they did, they were paid for on a monthly basis

    * The meals were optional. You did not have to pay for them, but you did have to pay for them to eat. If a kid previously paid for the food but stopped, they couldn’t eat. However…

    * Soup was generally not “checked”, as in you could get some even if you didn’t pay because it was usually put on the lunch tables so kids would not spill it on the floor. And anyone could just walk into the lunch room

    If a kid didn’t pay for the meal but wanted to eat, they’d bring food themselves. Typically no one would bring dinner with themselves to school though. Kids just brought homemade sandwiches or store-bought pastry and ate them throughout the day

17. In my school, kids from low-income families or kids who only had one parent would get free lunches. The food was shit, though. Soups looked and tasted like fodder for pigs, stuff like porridge or pasta were bland and so sticky you could turn the plate upside down and they’d stay there forever glued to the plate, and sausages were cheap and weirdly crunchy as if poorly processed. Only the very basic stuff like cheese sandwiches were more or less edible.

    Everyone else starting from middle school could pay for lunches monthly, but the payment wasn’t much, within 1000₽ or so iirc, and they’d get the food from the buffet, which tasted heaps better (mostly pastry, though).

    Most kids would bring their own lunches from home, buy food from the buffet, or not eat anything till they get back home. Some would snatch the free shitty food from first-graders if they were very hungry or didn’t mind the poor quality.

    But it was 10 years ago or so. No idea if it’s got any better, maybe slightly.

18. School lunches are state subsidized. So the parent pays a minimal fee (like 20€ a month) and the kids get lunch every day. This is only in kindergarten and elementary school tho, the rest is still state subsidized but kids pay for lunch after recieving it in cafeteria (this is usually done by card from school that you can recharge for these purposes).

19. When I (now 24) was going to school we got month’s worth of coupons, if parents had paid for lunch. The cost was ridiculous because local government paid half of it. You could apply for full lunch compensation back then it didn’t depend on your family’s income, so some rich kids ate for free just because they could.

20. School generally don’t offer any big meals.

    In the majority of cases kids will bring their lunch from home and eat it at school (usually a sandwich). Sometimes parents can opt in for the option for a premade sandwich or soup for a price, but in general you won’t be getting a hot meal for lunch in most schools. In my school they had a punch card for these opt in meals.

    For older kids (final years of secundary school) they can have the option to eat outside of the school with parent’s consent and then kids can generally choose what they eat (usually sandwich shop close to the schools)

21. Families on low income get free school meals and so do all kids from p1-5 I’m sure. In primary lunches cost about £2.50 but that was a while ago now so it’s likely more. If they can’t pay depends on the school. One of mine gave you credit and your parents would have to top up your account and I’m not sure about the others because I’d never seen it happen. Kids can also bring their own lunch.

    In secondary school if you can’t afford it most people would just go without or borrow money from a friend but idk if there was an official system in place for it.

    Now I’m in college and everyone can get free tea/coffee and a slice of toast for breakfast and free soup and roll at lunch. There’s other reasonably priced options too.

22. At my school there were no free meals for students. Typically students bring their own lunch/snacks. You could also eat the cafeteria and had to buy a meal ticket in the morning. There were three meal options per day each of them cost around ~4€ if I remember correctly. (Must be higher now. As this has been around 10years ago.)
    Older students who were allowed to leave the school property during breaks could also buy snacks/food at the supermarket near the school or some fast food sold in small stalls near the supermarket.

23. I live in France. My daughters eat their lunch at the school restaurant. The meals are quite varied and appear to be of pretty decent quality. But it can be different in different towns as school meals are organized at the municipal level.

    As for payments, the cost depends on the income of the parents. The highest tier is about 8 Euro per meal. It’s almost free for low income parents (I believe 2 Euro per meal) with further reductions possible on a case-by-case basis I think. These prices apply for regular attendance. You can also have a kid stay incidentally (because you happen to not be available to pick them up one day) and then you pay about 20% more.

    The lunch break is about 2 hours long, so the price not only covers the meal but also the supervision during this break as the kids spend half the time playing.

24. They have the choice of either going “home” or eating their, the family pays for it and its a fix price, low income households can ask/get money for it through social security and so on, for some (still way too many) children its their only real meal of day.

25. I haven’t been in school for more than a decade but the way it used to work was that kids either got lunch from their parents and just ate it during the break, or if the parents were below a certain income level the kids would get cards for each day of the month and could exchange them for a free meal in the school’s kitchen.

    You could also just buy the lunch if you wanted to but that wasn’t too popular.

26. it is subsidized and now the price for lunch at elementary is somewhere around 40CZK (1,7EUR), this is indeed going to be increased. There is some way to have it fully paid by state but not easy to obtain.

27. I’d also point out that in the US, the situation described is not universal. For instance, here in California school meals – breakfast and lunch – are available to all children (without any requirement to be low-income) without any charge.

28. We have a morning snack and lunch in schools. Some schools also offer breakfast (?) and afternoon snack.

    Everyone has a morning snack. Highest subsidised price is 0,90€ but price depends on how much parents earn. More than half of kids have it for free. Snack is more like a breakfast. It’s things like bread, ham and cheese/eggs/milky rice/millet porridge/ cheese bun…

    Highest subsidised lunch price is around 2,50€. Again some kids have it for free.

    I’m not sure how it is now but I’m pretty sure parents get a bill at the end of the month for the amount of snack and lunch their child had. Kids don’t pay at the spot.

    Food, bread and unsweetened tea is offered all day to everyone for free.

29. They eat at school, at least in Primary, not sure up at to what level on secondary. It’s not free, but if the family has not enough money, as you said, it’s free for them. I thing in my city more than half of the kids get it for free.

30. In Ireland, kids generally bring a packed lunch. I remember in the 80’s certain underprivileged schools got free sandwiches and milk, not sure if that’s still a thing. School canteens are virtually unheard of.

    In secondary school you can also go home/go outside at lunchtime usually.

31. In Poland a school midday meal costs about an equivalent of 1.5 euros. The quality reflects the price. But you also can apply for free meals if you’re very poor, and elementary schools even have breakfast and dinner sometimes.

32. They have the pause but school doesn’t provide the food, kids either bring something from home or buy food in closest bakery or grocery shops. However, when I was in elementary school (only during first 4 grades, if I’m not mistaken) there was food delivered from bakeries to kids who paid for it (only few kids did it) and it was given for free to kids from low income families and orphans.