After realising lunches for the three children in secondary school were costing over \u00a380 a week, and included unhealthy items such as pizza slices, brownies, bacon sandwiches and pasta pots, the stay-at-home mum decided to make a change to save money.<\/p>\n
After changing to a mix of packed lunches and school dinners for the three, she is now saving \u00a350 a week, with one of her sons priorly even spending \u00a311 in one day.<\/p>\n
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Ms Beverley told The i Paper: \u201cIt\u2019s a ridiculous amount of money to be spending. Last year when they started school, they didn\u2019t realise how much they were spending because it\u2019s a thumb print.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her children\u2019s academy trust school, like many others, uses the cashless biometric thumbprint system in canteens, which allows parents to top-up via an online portal. The school sends out weekly reminders to parents that any pupil with \u00a315 of arrears on their account will not be able to access a meal.<\/p>\n
\u2018Free-for-all\u2019<\/p>\n
After realising the thumbprint did not automatically let you set up a daily cap, she asked for one to be installed, and now sends her children to school with a packed lunch thrice a week, and a \u00a35 daily cap for the other two days.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a free-for-all, and the teachers are well aware because I remember in a meeting teachers saying it does happen quite a bit when kids first come in, they get a bit silly or crazy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Beverley also complained about the endless options at school causing long canteen lines, with her children like many others relying on unhealthy meals from the fast snack bar.<\/p>\n
The long lunch queues mixed with only a 30-minute lunch break were causing her children to rack up costs at lunchtime.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cThe kids are just trying to ram stuff down their throats as fast as they can.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThe impact of free school meals<\/p>\n
One teacher at a primary school in Mitcham, London, told The i Paper that the Mayor of London\u2019s free school meal policy <\/a>has made a difference to pupils.<\/p>\n
The Year 4 teacher said: \u201cNow you\u2019re sure that they\u2019ve had something to eat, so that eliminates worries about child poverty and children eating\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for most children who couldn\u2019t afford lunches, you would just find very unhealthy stuff in there packed lunches. Because mums and dads are just throwing stuff in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cYou might have kids who are quite lethargic because they\u2019ve not had proper milk, and they\u2019re quite sluggish.\u201d<\/p>\n
The primary schoolteacher said a universal free school meal policy would not work in secondary school because teenagers are quite unforgiving and would laugh at students whose parents can\u2019t afford to buy a school meal.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
A report by the charity School Food Matters found the average cost of a meal in 2024 to be an estimated \u00a33.27 in England. The study found that at the time, this was 23p higher than the \u00a33.04 Consumer Prices Index adjusted rate.<\/p>\n
And the estimated cost was found to be 74p higher per meal than the 2023-24 Free School Meal\/Universal Infant Free School Meal (FSM\/UIFSM) rate in England. However, the price per meal allocation in Scotland (\u00a33.33) and Wales (\u00a33.20) at the time of the report was closer to the estimated cost of \u00a33.27.<\/p>\n
The FSM\/UIFSM rate has only risen 23p between 2014 and 2024, despite caterers reporting increasingly higher costs. Food prices<\/a> have risen 4.5 per cent in December 2025 and are 37 per cent higher than five years ago, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.<\/p>\n
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