They offered my son food rather than the support he needed

After my son got diagnosed as having SEN I was told to claim for free school meals. I couldn't understand the logic behind it at all or how my son would benefit from a free meal that he didn't want. All I wanted for him was suitable SEN services that never materialised despite repeated requests. My son was also given a small bottle of milk with a straw free of charge at morning breaktime that one of his classmates ended up drinking.

I'm not sure if this bizarre behaviour of giving children with SEN free meals and breaktime milk rather than the support and services they need is confined to Leicester education department or whether it is national. I perceive it as nothing short of a sweetener and a coverup for neglecting the real needs of children. From a more sinister perspective it could be that those in authority think that SEN is the result of bad parenting.

Lots of strange things happened when my son attended school but nothing as bizarre as this. When you say your son was diagnosed as having SEN then what exactly do you mean? Did he have a statement? As far as I am aware free school meals only go to children who's parents are receiving benefits and not those statemented for SEN. There could be sinister motives behind this bizarre move but then it could also have been a cock up in the system.

My son told me that the food offered at his primary school was disgusting so he wouldn't have accepted free meals even if he was eligible for them. This was in the days before Jamie Oliver came on the scene so much of the food was clearly in the burger and chips category. My son didn't like eating in the dining room because the smell put him off his food. Like many people with AS, he has sensitivity issues. He asked the school if he could eat his packed lunch elsewhere but the head teacher thought he was acting in an unsocial way.

The school provided milk at morning breaktime in third pint glass bottles. It was free for children in nursery and reception but you had to pay for it in Y1 and Y2 unless you had free meals. My son enjoyed drinking the milk and he used to nick the empty bottles so he could drink out of them at home and has a collection of them.

My son never had a statement of SEN because they are dastardly difficult to obtain nowadays. After the Ed Psych thought that my son had Asperger syndrome, I tried in vain to get a statement of SEN but was refused every time. I'm led to believe that about 20 years ago statements were dished out like confetti. My son's first diagnosis of SEN was carried out by the Ed Psych who stated that my son needed extra support and attention. The school interpreted this as including him in a group with children from "deprived backgrounds" who had low intellectual ability and struggled with the basics. It was the school that told me to claim for free meals. Most of the children in this group had them.

The milk bottles looked like this. They were provided to all children in reception class free of charge and the teacher complained that my son rarely drank his milk.

My local authority has only recently started offering hot meals to primary school children. Most primary schools have no kitchens and children had to bring a packed lunch.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7538029.stm

I'm surprised those milk bottles still exist. I attended nursery and primary schools in Rochdale during the 1980s that provided free milk in small bottles to all children from nursery through to Y2. It was warm and yack come morning break. Nursery children weren't allowed to play outside on the bikes and climbing frame until they finished off their bottle. I can vaguely remember the head teacher saying in assembly that we were very lucky to have free school milk and very few places in Britain still have it. Personally I think it was a waste of public money that could have been spent on better things like computers and science equipment that my school so sorely lacked.