Who Is The Customer?

It's not you or your child, is it?

Bean Primary School has banned packed lunches for children in Year 1 and Reception due to the need to guarantee a certain number of cooked dinners from the meal provider. But parents are outraged by the implementation of the policy which they say strips their children of their choice between a packed lunch or a hot dinner.

Why would a school ever sign such a contract? You never agree to something that's not in your control, or you have to then attempt to control it... 

Some also bemoan the quality of the cooked lunches - citing meals such as 'onion bhaji and chips'.

Surely a carb-heavy meal is the worst thing for promoting attentiveness in an after-lunch lesson? 

However, the headteacher of the school in the village of Bean, Kent, insists the lunches are of excellent quality and include alternatives for children with special dietary requirements.

I wonder if she - and the rest of the staff - are forced to eat them too? I can bet what the answer is... 

Fay Armitage, whose lactose intolerant daughter Bonnie is in Reception at the school, is vehemently opposed to the new policy. She says four-year-old Bonnie regularly comes home with tummy aches from school as she's no longer able to control how much dairy she has in her diet. Mrs Armitage was hoping to send Bonnie to school each day with a packed lunch so she would know exactly what she'd eaten throughout the day. But parents have now been forbidden to do so, as all children in Reception and Year 1 must partake in school dinners.

It should never, ever be the case that a school tries to dictate what children must eat. Haven't they learned that lesson in the past? 

The new policy currently only applies to children in Reception and Year 1. But under the government's universal infant free school meals (UIFSM) policy, the same scheme will gradually be rolled out to each new academic year group until it covers the entire school, and there are three choices to order from. Parents are now arguing that under the new policy, Unicef children's rights, which the school is signed up to, have been breached.

Is popcorn allowed, because I need to go get some!