Guest essay by Eric Worrall

The school has even asked parents to avoid including meat in packed lunches.

FOOD FIGHT 

Our children’s school has BANNED meat forever and we’re furious – they even told us to make vegetarian packed lunches

Alice Fuller

15:15, 12 Feb 2022

Updated: 16:23, 12 Feb 2022

PARENTS have blasted a school’s decision to go permanently “meat free”.

Students at Barrowford Primary School near Nelson, Lancashire, are only offered vegetarian dinners – and kids are also urged not to bring meat in their packed lunches.

The new rule was brought in last year, but a letter informing parents of the change was only sent out on Thursday. 

And while the school claims it has hasn’t received any complaints about its meals, Facebook is full of unhappy parents.

Mum Zoe Douglas is so seething at the situation she is even trying to transfer her children to a different school.

“It is a joke. I’m looking to move mine as I’ve had enough of that school,” she said.

“I think they forget that non-meat eaters and vegans have to take a lot of supplements. What supplements they getting instead at that school?

“Nothing, probably saving on food costs.”

…

Read more: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17631295/school-bans-meat-vegetarian-packed-lunches/

This isn’t the first time Barrowford has hit the headlines. A few years ago they were criticised for a “lack of structure”, over their policy of never reprimanding the children.

Inspectors slam primary school where there’s no such thing as a naughty child and teachers are banned from raising their voices – and give it Ofsted’s lowest possible rating

• Barrowford Primary School in Lancashire branded ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted
• Head teacher Rachel Tomlinson had banned punishments for children
• School warned it could be put in special measures unless it improves 
• Parents call for Ms Tomlinson to resign and complain over lack of structure

By JAYA NARAIN FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 23:59 AEDT, 25 September 2015 | UPDATED: 00:40 AEDT, 26 September 2015

A school which refuses to discipline misbehaving pupils saying there is no such thing as a naughty child has been handed the worst possible rating.

Then 355-pupil Barrowford Primary School has been told to improve or face action after it was branded ‘inadequate’ by Government inspectors.

The school has faced ridicule and condemnation after the head teacher ripped up the rule book and scrapped all punishments for bad pupils.

She also banned teachers from raising their voices insisted no child was ever to be considered naughty.

Traditional fixed times for playtime and lunch were also scrapped with the pupils deciding when they wanted to eat or have a break.

…

Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3249078/Inspectors-slam-primary-school-s-no-thing-naughty-child-teachers-banned-raising-voices-Ofsted-s-lowest-possible-rating.html

I’m guessing they’ve restored at least one rule – the kids are strongly discouraged from eating meat, in order to save the world from climate change.

My wife tells horror stories about her school in Britain. There were a few teachers who made an effort, but there were also time servers whose focus was on collecting their pension, who couldn’t have cared less about the kids.

I also heard another story, at a dinner lecture given by a head teacher of a deprived school who cared. She told us it didn’t matter how poor or deprived or uneducated the parents were, every one of them wanted the absolute best for their kids. She somehow managed to do her job, despite the 300 lengthy reports she had to complete every year, every one of which was attached to a narrow tranch of funding the school desperately needed.

A few months after the head teacher who cared gave her talk, she was fired. She had quietly transferred some money, not for her own gain, but to help the kids – she used some book budget money to buy the kids some sports equipment.

But she got caught. The tranches of money associated with those 300 useless time wasting reports were very strictly prescriptive on how that money should be spent. The head teacher’s attempt to exercise on the ground judgement infuriated the remote bureaucrats she answered to. The bureaucrats didn’t care that the head teacher was doing an amazing job, that the school in a deprived area was starting to rise up league tables, as growing student and teacher engagement started to bear fruit. All the bureaucrats cared about is the head teacher who challenged their authority by not following their strict guidelines to the letter. She had to go.

My impression of the state education system in Britain is pretty negative. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of teachers who make an effort, islands of excellence, head teachers who burn their life and health fighting off the bureaucrats, trying to do right by the kids in their charge.

There are also teachers who don’t care, who are too lazy or untalented to leave teaching and try to find a job they might enjoy, who linger on, wasting everyone’s time.

Its the third kind of teachers who frighten and horrify me – teachers who see the kids as toys, playthings for their deranged social engineering fantasies. Bad teachers with wild ideas, who thrive like a nasty fungus infection in a decaying education system which appears to actively discourage genuine compassion and effort.

I don’t know whether this is what is happening in Barrowford Primary. I have never been to the school, the closest I came to Barrowford Primary in person is a passing visit to the town, on a day trip driving around Lancashire, admiring the old buildings. But whatever is going wrong at Barrowford Primary, it has to stop.