Any Parents out There with Primary School Aged Students - Does Your School Have a Tuck Shop?

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  drdolphin on 08/10/2014 - 12:26

  My child's primary school has a tuck shop, and from doing schools tours a year ago - they all did. But to answer your questions (as we rarely use the tuck shop option):

  • make their lunch every morning
  • sandwich, snack of museli bar or equivalent and a couple of pieces of fruit
  • not much. Maybe its a dollar or two all of that added up
  • no; tuck shop is there but theres no way to make it cheaper than a home made lunch
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  slow on 08/10/2014 - 13:15

  Our school (Bayside Melbourne) does not have one. They have an arrangement with a third party where you can submit a lunch order and exact change (there is a menu / form to fill in) before 9am and they deliver it to the school at lunch time. (Except that sometimes the kids forget to hand the form in and then they get a vegemite sandwich from the staff room). My kids are actually not that keen on it for some reason so we don't do it much

  They have a compulsory fruit break in the morning, so you have to provide a piece of fruit each day.

  Usually just give a sandwich and a snack (biscuit/crackers/dried fruit etc etc) as they have 2 breaks

  No idea what I spend but not much I would guess - the cost is not a major factor anyway

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    dasher86 on 08/10/2014 - 14:17

    there is a 'bakery' that services quite a few schools in Melbourne. From what I am told due to logistics lunch orders come lukewarm most of the time.

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  scrimshaw on 08/10/2014 - 13:29

  The school I used to go to doesn't have one, the kids generally just get handed out muffins, muesli bars, yoghurt or fruit for morning tea break. Kids generally did not bring their own food unless they had specific food allergies.

  For lunch it's catering service provided by the Spotless company (meals paid for in tuition fees, no need to bring money) , students eat in a dining hall that sits around 110 students. They manage it by having different year groups eat at different times.

  • 

    mskeggs on 08/10/2014 - 17:24

    +1

    Was this a primary school? This is the first time I have ever heard of catered lunches at an Aussie primary school.

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      scrimshaw on 08/10/2014 - 18:18

      Here
      http://www.saints.nsw.edu.au/food

      It's a boarding school which is why there is catering.

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        mskeggs on 09/10/2014 - 18:59

        Doh! HArd for Dad to make the lunch each day for a boarder ;-)

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  stephi on 08/10/2014 - 14:59

  My kids school tuck shop is only open on Monday and Friday. My kids usually have it once a week. It's run by volenteers (mums, dads). Otherwise they have a sandwich or salad tub made at home, fruit and/or vegies (celery, cherry tomatoes, carot sticks, cucumber) and a choice of "junk" food eg. slice of cake, small pre packed chips, or biscuits, small handful lollies, musli bar. Kids tend to swap all their food, healthy and junk.

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  mskeggs on 08/10/2014 - 17:22

  Our school has a tuck shop (canteen) sporadically. It basically comes down to finding a parent willing to run it on a volunteer basis. This year it has only been open on special days (sports carnivals, book week, that sort of thing).
  There is also a 3rd party for profit service that delivers lunches. I don't believe it is very well used:
  http://www.myschoollunchbox.com.au/browse-menu.asp

  My primary kids get a sandwich or hard boiled eggs or left overs if they are good to eat cold (quiche, chicken drumsticks, that sort of thing).
  My biggest boy sometimes takes a thermos of hot water and some mi goreng.
  Add a piece of fruit and a morning tea snack, either home made cake or some bought crackers with cheese and/or cabanossi.

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    partymix on 08/10/2014 - 19:01

    Thanks mskeggs! I've emailed Rae from that website to see if she's happy to talk about her experience. Have you ever used the service? If so, what was your experience?

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      mskeggs on 09/10/2014 - 19:03

      I think we let the kids order something once. It was a bit of fuffing around to register an account, from memory they seemed to want a lot of info, but that might have been because we have 3 kids at the schools so maybe had to enter things thrice.
      A big polystyrene box gets delivered outside the class of the customer kids containing all the ordered lunches. I presume they pick it up again when they next deliver.
      My comment that it doesn't seem that popular is because I rarely see the boxes any more, but maybe they have just changed the pick-up/delivery times so they're not present when I am.

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  spersephone on 08/10/2014 - 18:01

  We don't have one, I have to make the lunches every day. Once or twice a term there is a special lunch day where the parents committee provides something, and we have to order it in advance.

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  bradsmrbetty on 09/10/2014 - 08:08

  I use to work for three Lutheran schools in NSW. Two where primary, they just used the corner shop, The exception being the boarding school (high school) staffed in house canteen.

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  chichi on 09/10/2014 - 09:15

  We used to have a tuck shop all week when my boys started school. Then it went to 3 days then 1 then none.
  They have a special lunch day every now and then (Bakers Delight order, hot dog day etc) which we order in advance. This is a fundraising thing for the school.

  I make lunches every day. No big deal really and cheaper than buying lunch every day.

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    chichi on 10/10/2014 - 10:10

    Just an update. Yesterdays newsletter asked if we would like the canteen to open on Fridays for this term. However they will only be selling fruit, Quelch frozen fruit tubes and some drinks (my son has autism and doesn't eat fruit at all so he will not be happy about that!). First half of lunchtime only.

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  lenlynn on 09/10/2014 - 09:34

  Hmm I'm curious about this topic too. From what have been said, kids here get packed cold lunches usually unless they buy it from the canteen? I'm assuming cos no microwaves for them to use?. I'll be bored if it's my lunches haha

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    mskeggs on 09/10/2014 - 19:04

    My high school daughter has access to a microwave, but there are only two for the whole school so it isn't a daily option. She has an open-every-day tuck shop at her school too.

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  dp1 on 09/10/2014 - 10:22

  Ours (WA public school) has one on 3 days a week, there is one paid manager and 3 parent volunteers at a time. It's really handy for when there is no bread in the house etc on a Monday morning. We use it twice a week on average (less if I get organised in time to make bread as my children prefer the taste). It is supposed to be not-for-profit, and there are actually some pretty good things they bake fresh like muffins and garlic bread for morning tea. They also sell drinks and ice cream at morning tea time. Lunches are ordered on the day, cost between $2.50 and $5 a day depending on what you want.

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  ramshead on 09/10/2014 - 14:00

  Small schools in the bush will tend to have an arrangement with the local store (if they have one).

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  partymix on 09/10/2014 - 15:41

  Thanks everyone for your comments :)

  If anyone is curious, I can share more information from what I've found out so far…

  From what I've gathered, it's not uncommon for some schools to not have a tuckshop/canteen. Some schools go as far as to give parents guidelines as to what food they can pack - eg, students can only bring water - no juice box/softdrink etc, and I've heard of a primary school in QLD where they have once a month, a 'no rubbish' day which means parents must pack the kids lunch with no packaging (such as cling film/foil).

  I also found some schools in VIC have apps (Skoolbag I think it's called) and some schools allow parents to order lunch from the tuckshop through the app.

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    spersephone on 09/10/2014 - 15:43

    I was hoping that we'd have a canteen, and I could send my children there once a week as a bit of a treat for them. Unfortunately my children don't like a lot of foods, so what I pack each day is very much the same thing again and again. I'm bored with it personally, I'd like to open them up to other foods. They don't want to try some of the themed lunches that come up on offer, so I don't waste the money on these special lunch days.

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  Kjjd on 13/10/2014 - 00:14

  Our school's canteen is open 3 days a week. Menus are changed twice a year. They sell garlic bread, cheesies, home made muffins, pike lets and Anzac slices for morning tea. Hot milos also available in winter. Lunches are ordered on the day except for special occasions like sports carnival which have to be preordered. A lunch time, boxes with the lunches are collected by the kids for each class. The canteen also sells snacks and ice creams at lunch time. We have a paid manager and staffed by volunteers. We hear of other primary schools who used to have canteens but closed as they could not get parent volunteers. Ours may have to decrease the number of days as it has become harder to get parent volunteers,

  Our family orders lunches once a week as a treat for the kids as they'll order hot food eg. Pizza, macaroni cheese, hamburgers.depending on what's on the daily menu. Other days, I usually pack wraps, sushi or home made hamburgers for lunch.

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  voteoften on 14/10/2014 - 07:35

  My daughter's school is private and has a five day a week canteen. Avg price seems to be five or six bucks. Cash in the junior school. In the high school,it is all done electronically. Junior school canteen run by one staff member and generally one parent volunteer. The senior school sends some items down. Many items such as lasagna or other pasta items come in catering packs and are split up into alfoil individual containers, labelled abd frozen. Each term, there is a set selection of items available on specific days. There are also items that are available every day. Kindy and PP kids can only buy snack items on one or two days a week and can only buy one item. The canteenmanager can and does limit items bought regardless of the age of the child. The canteen sells crap food as well as healthy food and I am not happy about that. If they are going to trot out a nutritionist once a year to lecture to the kids about their diet then they shouldn't sell once in a while foods like muffins,cookies,crisps and icy poles. They also sell healthy items, but they should limit themselves to that.