More Vile Lunchbox Snooping In Yorkshire

Some cynical types hinted in the comments under my last article about a Bradford School's ban on sausage rolls - which really ground my gears if you hadn't noticed - may have had more to do with the pork than health.

Sadly, it seems it's not that simple, there appears to be something very rotten in the county of Yorkshire.

A fed-up mother of four, whose children attend Westgate Primary, in Otley, says she is considering launching a petition urging the school to review its strict packed lunch policy 

The mother, who does not wish to be named, said: “The teaching assistants take at least half-an-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.

Teaching assistants acting like prison guards; young kids egged on to become snitches; confiscating perfectly legal and benign products? It's quite staggering and shows just what a cancer the rent-seeking 'public health' industry is to have driven our public sector institutions to such insanity over fripperies.

As I said last week, a child's lunchbox is firmly in control of the parent and - as such - is a private space between the child and home and therefore out of bounds to teaching assistants, so I really struggle to understand how any school can believe this is acceptable behaviour.

Incredibly, the school head seems to think it is, though.

Helen Carpenter, headteacher at the school, said: “Encouraging healthy eating amongst our pupils is really important to us here at Westgate Primary School, therefore we have adopted a packed lunch policy, like many other schools, with a view to ensuring our pupils have a healthy, balanced and nutritious lunch."

And there's that word 'encouraging' again. Mandatory lunchbox inspections, the use of informers and forced confiscation is not encouragement' by any definition of the fucking word. It is hardline coercion. You'd think a teacher - even a hellbeast as vile and gullible as this one - would know that.

You'd also expect her to be using school resources better. There is no point her, or any other teacher, squealing about how their budgets are squeezed while they are wasting time and money on such vacuous and sinister nonsense.

Still plenty more to cut in her school's budget, of that there is absolutely no doubt.