Silent lunches - are they a real thing?

[Anonymous]

Do ES really do this?

[Anonymous]

My daughter's school does silent lunches. Who cares - it gets them finished faster, so they can move on to the playground. At her school, recess starts as soon as eating ends, so it's not like they're sitting around in silence.

[Anonymous]

I've only ever heard of it used as a punishment for out of control behavior in the lunchroom. At DD's school they have had partial or full silent lunches a few times this year.

[Anonymous]

12:34 - what school system?

[Anonymous]

I just asked my DC (kindergarten, in a high FARMS school) and she said they are allowed to talk at lunch. At the end, they are supposed to be quiet and put their heads down, but only to determine which table gets to go to recess first.

[Anonymous]

French schools.

[Anonymous]

YesDD does silent lunch at her private in Alexandria.

[Anonymous]

My DD's school does silent for the first 10 minutes, so the kids can eat. After that, they can talk until lunch is over.

[Anonymous]

What is this? The Victorian era?

[Anonymous]

Ridic. Fun for power-tripping school staff.

[Anonymous]

Have a talkative kid that would take hours to eat but for a few minutes of silence. Ok as long as it's not a punishment.

[Anonymous]

Yup, first part of lunch is silent, and then they can talk. I was appalled at first, and then realized that it was to get kids to actually eat during lunch. There's not enough time for recess as it is, so if kids eat faster there is more time to get outside.

[Anonymous]

Not in our FCPS school.

[Anonymous]

Oh gosh, yes we occasionally have to have silent lunches at our elementary school.

I'm a teacher and have to supervise 56 second graders, sometimes on my own, sometimes with another teacher, at lunch time. Half the time they are in the cafeteria, another teacher is supervising a similar amount of K students, or two teachers are supervising a similar amount of grade 1 children.

We encourage the students to use good table manners, converse with their table mates, and eat their lunch so that they have energy for the rest of the school day.

But.... occasionally they get out of control, voices get loud, and start to rise even more loudly, especially when the next group of classes come in. When it gets to a level where I can't hear a child standing right next to me ask a question, I tell the students that the next 5 minutes are "silent lunch". Silent is a lot easier for kids to manage then quiet, at times, because silent is easy -- it means NO talking, no judgement needed about whether something is too loud.

We have never done an entire silent lunch though. The longest it would last is 5-10 minutes. Kids need time to talk to their friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not in our FCPS school.

Frequently in our fcps es. And the entire lunch period is silent. 3rd grade. We also get assigned seats at lunch.