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UK, Further Education College, 16, 17, 18 year olds... Salad bar is getting popular at lunchtime although the potato salad and coleslaw get heavily used, low d

UK, Further Education College, 16, 17, 18 year olds... Salad bar is getting popular at lunchtime although the potato salad and coleslaw get heavily used, low dressing alternatives less so. I'm trying to get the students interested in porridge when they come in the morning instead of bacon and sausage sandwiches. We shall see! Beans and chips is cheap so popular early evening (some students might get a 9 or 10 hour day depending on timetable and extra lessons they decide to take).

david-given 11y ago
I went to a traditional English boarding school from the age of about 11 to 17. When I was 16 they switched the dining hall from the full-on Harry Potter long tables and served food (served by students) to a cafeteria style. At the same time they changed catering managers and the new one wanted to improve food quality and get the pupils eating better. What he did was really simple: he added a self-serve salad bar with as many refills as you liked. What ended up happening was hulking great rugby players would collect their hot food, and then go to the salad bar and add vast piles of salad. Then they would frequently go back for more. I forget whether there were salad dressings or not. He may not even have reduced the portion sizes for the cooked food --- active children of that age use vast amounts of energy. So the end result was that without any kind of pressure or active encouragement, he managed to get complete generations of children to train themselves to like salad.
stegosaurus 11y ago
My sixth form had beans and chips. Also, beans and sausage roll. For me at the time it was the only viable lunch option due to cost. There are probably various factors making this impossible, but I would expect that spending £5 per head on a decent lunch would return more than spending £5 on tuition. I could make up for large class sizes by sitting in the library or using the internet to study - a better lunch would have meant taking a weekend job (which I had anyway, but the proceeds went to savings...)
- keithpeter 11y ago
  I agree with your basic point that beans and chips cost £1.50 and a warm meal with (say) chicken/starch/vegetables costs around £2.50. Some rebalancing of the subsidy would be a good idea. 'Tuition' costs (i.e. everything except the canteen subsidy) are a tad hard to fine tune in Colleges. And remember someone has to put the stuff on the Internet - in the UK its quite often teachers in there spare time or as part of a project.
  - stegosaurus 11y ago
    Ours was more like 70p vs. £3, but the general point stands I agree. WRT 'stuff on the internet' - I wasn't thinking necessarily exam revision material; more Wikipedia, the C++ reference, etcetera. Project Gutenberg for an English student, etc. I've always considered the examinations as a starting point - probably an artifact of living in a near winner-takes-all society.

david-given 11y ago

I went to a traditional English boarding school from the age of about 11 to 17. When I was 16 they switched the dining hall from the full-on Harry Potter long tables and served food (served by students) to a cafeteria style. At the same time they changed catering managers and the new one wanted to improve food quality and get the pupils eating better. What he did was really simple: he added a self-serve salad bar with as many refills as you liked. What ended up happening was hulking great rugby players would collect their hot food, and then go to the salad bar and add vast piles of salad. Then they would frequently go back for more. I forget whether there were salad dressings or not. He may not even have reduced the portion sizes for the cooked food --- active children of that age use vast amounts of energy. So the end result was that without any kind of pressure or active encouragement, he managed to get complete generations of children to train themselves to like salad.

stegosaurus 11y ago

My sixth form had beans and chips. Also, beans and sausage roll. For me at the time it was the only viable lunch option due to cost. There are probably various factors making this impossible, but I would expect that spending £5 per head on a decent lunch would return more than spending £5 on tuition. I could make up for large class sizes by sitting in the library or using the internet to study - a better lunch would have meant taking a weekend job (which I had anyway, but the proceeds went to savings...)

keithpeter 11y ago
I agree with your basic point that beans and chips cost £1.50 and a warm meal with (say) chicken/starch/vegetables costs around £2.50. Some rebalancing of the subsidy would be a good idea. 'Tuition' costs (i.e. everything except the canteen subsidy) are a tad hard to fine tune in Colleges. And remember someone has to put the stuff on the Internet - in the UK its quite often teachers in there spare time or as part of a project.
- stegosaurus 11y ago
  Ours was more like 70p vs. £3, but the general point stands I agree. WRT 'stuff on the internet' - I wasn't thinking necessarily exam revision material; more Wikipedia, the C++ reference, etcetera. Project Gutenberg for an English student, etc. I've always considered the examinations as a starting point - probably an artifact of living in a near winner-takes-all society.