I work in an inner-city primary school, and the free school meals children are well looked after.

At my daughter's high school, they use a debit card system as Izzy describes.  No one has any way of telling whose card is loaded by the local authority, and whose by cheque.

The issue here, however, is those who are poor but don't qualify for free school meals.

There is no presumption here that a child will eat a school lunch.  Many bring sandwiches, and there's no stigma attached.  In fact, the poor quality and cheap ingredients of school meals means that it's more often the middle classes who opt to bring their own.

In primary school, paid-for meals are booked and paid for a week in advance.  No money, no meal.

That's not to say that any child will be allowed to go without lunch: a dinner register is taken alongside the attendance register and a hungry child will be fed.  In fact, I've had several retrospective bills for school lunches after my son has left his sandwiches at home.  But a parent of a primary school child who sent in neither money nor sandwiches on a regular basis would find themselves receiving a phone call from the school's designated child protection officer fairly quickly. And rightly, in my opinion, because if a child isn't getting fed there's a serious cause for concern.

High school, though-staggered lunchtimes, scattered dining arrangements-frankly, I'm not convinced they'd know if a child wasn't being fed.