TEACHERS ASK FOR TRUCE ON WAR AGAINST BARBIE LUNCHBOXES

Exasperated parents should not be pushed to the extremes of feeding their children fish suppers through school gates, a leading educationalist has claimed.

Avril Hall Callaghan, General Secretary of the UTU Northern Ireland’s only locally-based teaching union, was speaking as members debate the issue at their annual conference (March 18 and 19) in Newcastle’s Slieve Donard Hotel.

In a resolution they are asking school inspectors to re-think their guidance to teachers when it comes to policing lunchboxes for healthy foods.

“The last thing anyone wants is a repeat of the situation in a Yorkshire school a couple of years back when parents were feeding fatty foods to their children through the school gates in a row over food,” said Ms Hall Callaghan.

“Our schools provide excellent school dinners but it is up to the parent whether or not their child takes these – and every parent knows their child best.

“While it’s laudable for the Department of Education to want every child to be eating the best possible diet, any parent will tell you that it isn’t always possible to get children to eat what’s good for them all the time.

“A balanced diet is what’s important and teachers need a child who is fuelled to work – not a hungry child who can’t eat the foods a well-meaning parent, hamstrung by equally well-meaning nutritional guidelines, has packed for them.

“Teachers are facing an era of unprecedented pressure – cuts, monumental changes in working practices, chaos over the transfer system, confusion over InCAS testing, challenges over classroom discipline and some of the biggest class sizes in the world – and now it would seem they’re being expected to declare war on packed lunches and police the Barbie and Scooby-Doo lunchboxes up and down country.

“We would ask the school Inspectorate to chew over this food for thought and re-think its guidance on the issue.”