School lunch

[Cheery Thistle]

Don’t laugh at me. I just read elsewhere that kid ordinarily don’t get a table/chairs for lunch and they eat on the ground. Is this right? Actually can’t get my head round it. Is there no such thing as a school dinner hall/canteen? 

[Toots]

5 minutes ago, Cheery Thistle said:

Don’t laugh at me. I just read elsewhere that kid ordinarily don’t get a table/chairs for lunch and they eat on the ground. Is this right? Actually can’t get my head round it. Is there no such thing as a school dinner hall/canteen? 

When my two were at school both primary and high school had a roofed area outside with tables and benches.  Always took a packed lunch or bought something from the canteen.  

[Skani]

The norm in Australia is that children take a packed lunch to school  and eat in the playground or under cover if the weather is poor.  But there are always seats/benches provided.  Some schools have canteens which sell food at least some days a week.  I did all my schooling in Australia and never once was the ground the only option for seating.

[InnerVoice]

7 minutes ago, Cheery Thistle said:

Don’t laugh at me. I just read elsewhere that kid ordinarily don’t get a table/chairs for lunch and they eat on the ground. Is this right? Actually can’t get my head round it. Is there no such thing as a school dinner hall/canteen? 

Not in any state school I've worked at in QLD. There's usually a tuckshop (sandwiches, burgers, etc) which vary dramatically in quality (as mentioned above, a lot of kids bring pack lunches) and there are covered outside seating areas, which never seem very popular unless it's raining. Most of the younger girls do indeed sit on the floor with their friends and the boys tend to eat whilst doing some sporting activity. There's no inside school dinner hall or canteen serving hot foods like in the UK, although I can't comment on schools in the southern states where the climate is cooler.

One significant difference here is that you can walk around the entire school undercover because all external walkways are covered, and there are usually benches for students to sit on along the walkways. Another thing that may surprise you is that there's no such thing as wet weather break here, so kids are not permitted in classrooms during break or lunch unless they're doing a specific activity.

[Skani]

10 minutes ago, InnerVoice said:

 There's no inside school dinner hall or canteen serving hot foods like in the UK, although I can't comment on schools in the southern states where the climate is cooler.

No, it's not normal in cooler areas either.  Although Tasmania has introduced hot school lunches  in a few schools in low socioeconomic areas in the hope of improving health and educational outcomes.  These are schools where students would often turn up without lunch - or breakfast either.  It's a trial at that moment so it remains to be seen if it will be extended.  

I should clarify that I used the term canteen in my previous post in the sense of tuckshop as IV did above - not  the sort which provides cooked meals.

[calNgary]

HaHa , i was confused at the lack of dinner hall when we first moved,lol....There is no dining hall but Tuckshops and undercover seating in any schools i visted. My kids flicked between packed lunches and Tuckshop and always had an Ice Pole (ice lolly) at the 3rd break in summer. Tuckshop normally has to be pre ordered or paid for at school drop off. The quality of food can vary dependant on the tuck shop manager/ cook our primary school had a great cook who made batches of spag bol etc the night before. High school was more sandwiches , wraps,toasties, pies etc

 Wait till your kids have been through a lock down practice, that was something else that blew my mind at first,lol

       Cal x

[Jon the Hat]

4 minutes ago, calNgary said:

HaHa , i was confused at the lack of dinner hall when we first moved,lol....There is no dining hall but Tuckshops and undercover seating in any schools i visted. My kids flicked between packed lunches and Tuckshop and always had an Ice Pole (ice lolly) at the 3rd break in summer. Tuckshop normally has to be pre ordered or paid for at school drop off. The quality of food can vary dependant on the tuck shop manager/ cook our primary school had a great cook who made batches of spag bol etc the night before. High school was more sandwiches , wraps,toasties, pies etc

 Wait till your kids have been through a lock down practice, that was something else that blew my mind at first,lol

       Cal x

What?  Don't think ours have done this since we arrived 2 years ago in WA.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Jon the Hat

[InnerVoice]

57 minutes ago, calNgary said:

HaHa , i was confused at the lack of dinner hall when we first moved,lol....There is no dining hall but Tuckshops and undercover seating in any schools i visted. My kids flicked between packed lunches and Tuckshop and always had an Ice Pole (ice lolly) at the 3rd break in summer. Tuckshop normally has to be pre ordered or paid for at school drop off. The quality of food can vary dependant on the tuck shop manager/ cook our primary school had a great cook who made batches of spag bol etc the night before. High school was more sandwiches , wraps, toasties, pies etc

 Wait till your kids have been through a lock down practice, that was something else that blew my mind at first,lol

       Cal x

3rd break - those were the days!

My previous school got rid of it about 10 years ago because that's when most of the misbehaviour and fights used to occur. One of my friends works at a particularly rough school and they've recently got rid of 2nd break too. It's two lessons, an early lunch, two lessons and home, which needless to say is popular with both students and staff as the school day ends just after 2pm.

There's always a decent queue outside our tuckshop as the food is pretty good. I'd say about a third of our students buy something from there everyday and the rest bring a packed lunch. Those numbers double on 'red food days', when basically the entire menu is junk food of one form or another. There's now an app called Qkr! for pre-ordering food, although you can still pay with debit/credit card or cash (not many do). Phones are banned between 8.30am and 3pm so they're not allowed to use them as a payment method. Our tuckshop is also open for breakfast as kids start getting dropped off from 7am. I was rather partial to their egg and bacon wrap, although that's gone by the wayside since my last cholesterol test.

 

[InnerVoice]

1 hour ago, Jon the Hat said:

What?  Don't think ours have done this since we arrived 2 years ago in WA.

I can't speak for WA, but QLD schools develop their own emergency procedures based on government guidelines and I believe there's a requirement for a rehearsal every 3 months. Our school has either a lockdown or evacuation practice each term, and they run alternately. I read recently that lockdowns were introduced here due to American high school shootings and there's been some debate about how relevant that is to Australia. Apparently, some kids in primary get quite traumatised by the whole experience.

[Cheery Thistle]

OK. Mind blown lol. I think it’s going to be the little things about this move that leave us scratching our heads! 

[ramot]

3 hours ago, InnerVoice said:

I can't speak for WA, but QLD schools develop their own emergency procedures based on government guidelines and I believe there's a requirement for a rehearsal every 3 months. Our school has either a lockdown or evacuation practice each term, and they run alternately. I read recently that lockdowns were introduced here due to American high school shootings and there's been some debate about how relevant that is to Australia. Apparently, some kids in primary get quite traumatised by the whole experience.

Had a lockdown on a school In Caloundra recently. A young person was walking round outside the school with a large knife, so the alarm went off

its so sad that there is a need for a lockdown in schools 

[Cheery Thistle]

They do similar in Scotland. Staff are trained on how to react in the case of an active shooter. I remember this incident well. 
 

https://metro.co.uk/2016/10/27/schools-closed-down-because-of-killer-clowns-on-the-loose-6218518/amp/

[calNgary]

This happened on the Gold Coast a month or so ago, it is quite funny and at least its a good lockdown tune,haha (maybe not so good if you live next door)

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12383695/Living-nightmare-residents-Men-Works-blasts-loop-night-local-high-school.html

 

          Cal x

[calNgary]

3 hours ago, Cheery Thistle said:

OK. Mind blown lol. I think it’s going to be the little things about this move that leave us scratching our heads! 

I think schooling and the Medicare system were 2 of the main things that took some adjusting too for me, lol, after a while you realise its just the way its done here,haha.. 

          Cal x

[FirstWorldProblems]

3 hours ago, Cheery Thistle said:

OK. Mind blown lol. I think it’s going to be the little things about this move that leave us scratching our heads! 

Certainly this is the case in NSW, don’t know about the rest of the country…….

All of the major suburban roads have had lanes added over the years as traffic increased.  At many points along the road a natural land feature will mean there isn’t space for the extra lane so 3 will go back to 2 for a moment, or 2 back to 1.  And it’s the LEFT lane that has to merge into the right. So human nature being what it is, most people ignore the left lane (and all the signs saying Keep Left) and camp out in the next lane.   So frustrating. 
 

Like you say, it’s the little things.  

[InnerVoice]

 

13 hours ago, FirstWorldProblems said:

Certainly this is the case in NSW, don’t know about the rest of the country…….

All of the major suburban roads have had lanes added over the years as traffic increased.  At many points along the road a natural land feature will mean there isn’t space for the extra lane so 3 will go back to 2 for a moment, or 2 back to 1.  And it’s the LEFT lane that has to merge into the right. So human nature being what it is, most people ignore the left lane (and all the signs saying Keep Left) and camp out in the next lane.   So frustrating. 

Like you say, it’s the little things.  

The slower-moving traffic has to merge into the faster moving lane which clearly isn't safe or easy to do, so as you say, everyone just sits in the right lane and you have a traffic jam for no real reason. I've had this conversation with a number of Australians and they don't see what the big deal is, but then by and large their driving is appalling. Roundabouts usually improve traffic flow... but not over here!

[Toots]

8 minutes ago, InnerVoice said:

 

The slower-moving traffic has to merge into the faster moving lane which clearly isn't safe or easy to do, so as you say, everyone just sits in the right lane and you have a traffic jam for no real reason. I've had this conversation with a number of Australians and they don't see what the big deal is, but then by and large their driving is appalling. Roundabouts usually improve traffic flow... but not over here!

Devonport is a town full of roundabouts and 70% of people have no idea how they are meant to work.  Appalling drivers here too.

[InnerVoice]

26 minutes ago, Toots said:

Devonport is a town full of roundabouts and 70% of people have no idea how they are meant to work.  Appalling drivers here too.

They seem to have no anticipation of the road conditions ahead and as they're approaching a roundabout they're never looking at what's entering from the right. They drive up to the junction, completely stop, and then look right - by which time something is already coming so they (and the rest of us) have to wait.

Mini-roundabouts are the worse though. I have actually seen them stop halfway around the roundabout to give way to incoming traffic!

[Toots]

23 minutes ago, InnerVoice said:

They seem to have no anticipation of the road conditions ahead and as they're approaching a roundabout they're never looking at what's entering from the right. They drive up to the junction, completely stop, and then look right - by which time something is already coming so they (and the rest of us) have to wait.

Mini-roundabouts are the worse though. I have actually seen them stop halfway around the roundabout to give way to incoming traffic!

I was coming home in the car this morning and I had right of way on the roundabout when a car hurtled down the street and didn't even look and shot through right in front of me.  Luckily I am an old chook who through past experience takes my time but if I had being going at a fair pace I would have hit him hard side on.  The air was blue with very unladylike expletives I can tell you.     

[Blue Manna]

55 minutes ago, Toots said:

I was coming home in the car this morning and I had right of way on the roundabout when a car hurtled down the street and didn't even look and shot through right in front of me.  Luckily I am an old chook who through past experience takes my time but if I had being going at a fair pace I would have hit him hard side on.  The air was blue with very unladylike expletives I can tell you.     

Sounds like they had plenty of time. You can have more than one car on a roundabout at the same time. Australians are often very backwards about roundabouts and don't really understand how they work. It was probably a recent immigrant and their brains work much faster than Australians.

[Marisawright]

1 hour ago, InnerVoice said:

They seem to have no anticipation of the road conditions ahead and as they're approaching a roundabout they're never looking at what's entering from the right. They drive up to the junction, completely stop, and then look right - by which time something is already coming so they (and the rest of us) have to wait.

You are so right.  I learned to drive in Australia and my oh is Australian so we were both taught to do exactly that.   The idea of flying into a roundabout, looking to your right instead of where you're going, is completely alien.  The speed with which people negotiated roundabouts in England frightened the life out of both of us.  British drivers seemed adept at making such split-second decisions in all kinds of situations, whereas we're so used to taking our time -- in spite of having spent our lives driving in Sydney and Melbourne. 

[InnerVoice]

50 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

You are so right.  I learned to drive in Australia and my oh is Australian so we were both taught to do exactly that.   The idea of flying into a roundabout, looking to your right instead of where you're going, is completely alien.  The speed with which people negotiated roundabouts in England frightened the life out of both of us.  British drivers seemed adept at making such split-second decisions in all kinds of situations, whereas we're so used to taking our time -- in spite of having spent our lives driving in Sydney and Melbourne. 

Well it's good to finally get an explanation. Given the volume of traffic in the UK, if drivers took as long to negotiate roundabouts and other junctions as Australians do, by the time you arrived home it'd be time to set off for work again!

[Toots]

1 hour ago, Blue Manna said:

Sounds like they had plenty of time. You can have more than one car on a roundabout at the same time. Australians are often very backwards about roundabouts and don't really understand how they work. It was probably a recent immigrant and their brains work much faster than Australians.

I don't think you get it.  He was supposed to stop.  Instead he sped through.  He is also one of the local morons who speed through lights when they turn red.  We all recognise him.  He drives a lime green ute.  One day he won't be so lucky.

[Parley]

The law is actually whoever arrives at the roundabout first has right of way.

I instinctively give way to the right, but that is not the law with roundabouts.

[Cheery Thistle]

1 hour ago, Parley said:

The law is actually whoever arrives at the roundabout first has right of way.

I instinctively give way to the right, but that is not the law with roundabouts.

Is this an Australian law, which goes against the universal law of common sense? Haha!