Primary school sending pupils’ ‘fatty lunches’ home to parents

One primary school is carrying out “heavy-handed” searches of pupils’ lunch boxes.

Westgate Primary School has been monitoring the lunches of their students and has been giving any fatty foods back to parents after school. The school in Leeds grades food on a traffic light system, dividing them into red, amber and green categories. The school have also introduced a rule banning pupils from having sweets on their birthday in a bid to keep red foods out of the school. One angry mum told The Telegraph that she believes the school needs to revise its lunch policy.

“The teaching assistants take at least a half hour inspecting children’s packed lunches in the morning while wearing rubber gloves. “Kids as young as eight are being given the responsibility to ‘advise’ and tell on their friends if they have inappropriate items in their lunch. “If an item is removed it is bagged-up with the child’s name and given to parents at the end of the day. “The school says lunches have improved – which they have, but at the expense of parents and children who are now scared stiff of taking the wrong thing.”

This year, Westgate Primary was awarded a healthy school status thanks to their strict policy. Headteacher, Helen Carpenter, told local media:

“We have adopted a packed lunch policy, like many other schools, with a view to ensuring our pupils have a healthy, balances and nutritious lunch. “We take a flexible approach in individual cases where children have significant food issues “We only remove items with high fat or sugar content and replace with a healthy alternative.”