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From cradle to grave Overseas readers often scoff at my pessimism about the state we are in in Britain. Scoff may be the wrong word. Scoffing is now under close supervision:
David Ashley, headmaster of Greenslade primary, says that pupils who bring in packed lunches “are allowed chocolate on a biscuit but not a Mars bar”. If such sweeties are spotted, parents are called in for a quiet word.
At Charlton Manor primary, the head, Tim Baker, says: “Children get stickers for healthy boxes . . . If a child brings in a chocolate bar, we take it out of the lunchbox and give it back to the parent at the end of the day.” Pupils give each other away, he confides: “They say, ‘Miss, he’s got sweets in his box’.”
Perhaps the scariest thing about the article from which that comes is the vaguely approving tone. Here is information about what is being done, no questioning that it needs and should have government attention.
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“Pupils give each other away, he confides”
Teaching children to snitch on each other – lovely.
Schools have absolutely no place in dictating what students can and can’t have for lunch. If they’re really that concerned about their diet than they can offer a healthy alternative or send a leaflet out to the parents or something. All this smacks of teaching children that authority has the last word, which isn’t a lesson I’d want any children of mine to be learning.
Euw. Antecedents of the hideous Parsons children in 1984.
I swear to all that is holy that if a teacher “had a talk” with me about sticking a couple of mini candy bars or Hershey’s Kisses in my child’s lunch they’d never talk to me again after we were finished. And if they took that candy from my child? Well, I’d probably be in jail for threatening that teacher with one hell of a beating.
I had heard this a year ago from a friend in Kent. Seeing it here prompts me to think that here is a wonderfull opportunity for civil disobedience. If I had a child in this situation (Since we are homeschooling it is not likely to occur) I would, not only be sending a chocolate bar every day, but I would send enough for the whole class!
No great surprise here. We forget that Blair promised that he was going to start doing this at the beginning of this year and placed especial emphasis on the state taking over the nutrition and wellbeing of children from their parents. We’re just seeing the NuLab minions within the education sector (always a great Blair fan)falling over themselves to obey their masters’ voice.
This story reminds me of that hero of the soviet union, Pavlik Morozov. Soon brainwashed British children will be betraying their parents to the authorities for breaches of political correctness.
Do you think it;s even legal to swipe a chocolate bar from a kiddos lunchbox? Mars bars are not illegal, its not like mom backed a joint in there. I agree with you, Hank. School officials would get an earful from me for usurping my role as parent.
here is a wonderfull opportunity for civil disobedience
Oh yes, I would suggest the inclusion of a jaffa cake, or maybe a wagon wheel in the lunchbox and watch these idiots as they attempt to determine if it is a permitted item…….
Scary stuff. It is one thing to regulate and provide good school meals, as the State has a hand in it, but another to interfere with the contents of a child’s lunchbox (which in some interpretations could get you 5 years and your PC impounded).
If the kid is being supplied with sunnyD or other such mood-altering foodstuffs the basic underlying foundation that the school should be able to exclude, expell or otherwise deal with the child should remove the need for this kind of “micro-legislation” that Blair and Lawyers in general prefer.
Having a Lawyer in charge of government is like having an arms dealer in charge of the FCO.
This is nothing new.
When I was at primary school (which was up until 1995), dinnerladies inspecting lunchboxes for sweets was mandatory- this would often result in the child being told off, rather than the blame lying with its parent/s.
Furthermore, they would then check your lunchbox before you left (if I remember, you had to put your hand up at the table, before you could leave) to ensure you had eaten your food. This often led to food being discarded under the table.
So this isn’t a by-product of Blair’s micro-management, as it’s been going on for a long while before he came in.
Obviously I’m preaching to the converted when I say I do not approve of the theft of other people’s property, even if it is a mini Mars Bar.
Apparently the school authorites are trying tostamp out entrepreneurialism as well:
Teenager William Guntrip was raking in more than £50 a day by selling chocolate bars and fizzy drinks to other pupils during break times.
Now the health-conscious school, which has banned sweets from vending machines and filled the canteen with healthy options, says he will be expelled if he does not shut up shop.
It would be funny if it weren’t true.
Oops, forgot the link:
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=16767&in_page_id=2
I guess that destroying freedom these days is as easy as taking candy from a baby.
It will be interesting to see how this continuing drive to “educate” children into a bunch of little robots will clash with the multi-cultural imperative to let radical muslims “educate” their children into screaming little jihadis.
Who’s bringing the popcorn?
I would very politely inquire the name of the school employee who took my child’s lunch item, excuse myself that I have to make an important call, call the police on the non-emergency line and ask to report a theft while I was sitting in front of the officious twit.
I would repeat the process every time it happened until it stopped happening. If it was done according to policy, I’d add conspiracy.
No doubt the local prosecutor would decline to file charges on the case. I would just tell the police that I simply wanted to have my choices respected as to what my child eats and if the school wants to teach my children good nutrition, that’s fine. If they take my property they’re thieves and the cops will continue filing paperwork. Eventually, the bureaucracy will adjust to the patient, annoying fellow that isn’t actually breaking any laws.
TM Lutas,
Your prescription presumes a number of non-British institutional arrangements, such as police who respond to theft complaints within 48 hours, who do exercise the discretion not to confront other bits of officialdom, and local prosecutors rather than a national prosecution service.
If someone tries this in Britain and doesn’t get threatened with prosecution for wasting police time and harrassment of the school, I should like to hear about it.
Tim in PA,
It is the same thing. Whether the program is based on a collection of reported mediaeval sayings or a thick volume of bureaucratic recommendations incorporating the latest pseudo-science, it is still about making people who are wholly compliant with authority that makes rules for the whole of their lives.
That’s why they get on fine: they share the same presumptions that there exists a single correct way. The differences are in the changeable but non-negotiable details of perfection, and those can easily be glossed over. Challenge to authority itself cannot.
Our state is vastly improving its school lunch program and its food/beverage vending policies at school for better nutrition and calorie control…however, they are NOT regulating private lunches. Whatever fool tried to do that would have a bunch of pissed off hillbillies showing up and demanding their job.
Aren’t all lunchladies fat? If a lunchlady told me I couldn’t have a choccie bar, my snarky self would say, “No, YOU can’t have a choccie bar!”
Doesn’t forbidding the treats make them forbidden fruit and set some kids up for some kind of eating disorder?
Chocolate is a vegetable! It has antioxidants that fight free radicals (the smoke emanating from the teahers’ lounge).
I suppose you could bake your own cakes/cookies and use it as a teachable moment for your kids about how to bake and how it can use healthy ingredients: flour is a grain, eggs are a very good complete protein, milk is dairy, etc. Use some whole grains (part organic white wheat flour is just like white). Then your kid can really argue with the lunchlady about the healthy ingredients in his bikkie.
In my day, the officious little prick would have gotten his ass kicked after school.
I hate to say this but I think that with the babysitting of the general populace like this, you folks may have lost the war to Orwell-ville a long time ago. I can understand this kind of thing happening in France or Sweden but in the UK? I’m just dumbstruck.
“As Michael Nelson, the trust’s chief researcher, puts it: “We need to get across that if you pay a little more for school food, it means your child may do better academically and get a better job.””
Like the senior developers in computer companies with masters degrees who live on a balanced diet of pizzas, coffee and jolt cola? That really wrecked their concentration.