To think Argyll and Bute Council are a gang of morons

[DreamingofSummer]

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jun/15/girl-photos-school-meals-blog

So incompetent your couldn't make it up

Next step - photos of packed lunch box contents.

Well that may be the official policy, but that is not what she says on her blog, almostfifty.

They can't put what they like on their plate, they have to choose which dish they want in the morning and are given a coloured wristband for lunchtime. They can't change their minds. They are given what they chose in the morning. Sometimes it goes wrong and she doesn't get what she thought she had opted for. The children did not know they were allowed fruit everyday. Then the teachers told them they were, but when she asked for fruit, the dinner staff didn't know if they were allowed it... etc

JulesJules

I do think that's the fault of the individual school, not the council. I don't think for one moment the council are dealing with it well, but I do know that they spent a lot of time and money sorting out the school menus to make sure that they followed a healthy eating policy.

I have children who were in another primary in A&B and the food there was and is extremely good and healthy.

If there is anyone following this thread who has kids at Lochgilphead Primary I would be interested to know what their kids think of the meals on offer. Although Lochgilphead Primary is the biggest primary school in Mid Argyll I have not read any comments from any other parents and I think it would be interesting to have the views from more than one family.

Sconetta I submit to your local knowledge & smirk at the delicious irony of your "bread & butter" comment.

The thing is though, the comments on the blog are generally pretty positive about the food. The press reaction may not have been, but Martha seems to really enjoy lots of her school dinners. That's what makes the council's response so odd. They could easily have responded by pointing out that Martha likes the food and now she understands what she's allowed to have much better.

I love the blog, read it a few weeks ago, was particularly amused by her inclusion of "number of hairs in food"

So I was pretty angry at A&B council for their heavy-handedness when I heard about it yesterday and am equally delighted that they have retracted their ban now. I hope they continue to allow Martha her blog, with pictures - it's been a great international schools exercise, as well as raising money for the charity!

Excellent result there mind you re. the donations - if I was really cynical, I'd think this had been engineered to achieve that but I'm not that cynical, not quite. I just think it's a lucky side-effect of some gross over-reacting by a Council.

Excellent work - have donated and shared.

Yes, she often likes her meals and is being told bit by bit what they are allowed to have. However in most schools there is often a mismatch between what is in theory available and what is not. If you are late doing a sport or something there may be very little left.

Clearly this is an own goal for the council with the ban and publicity so hopefully on Monday she will be allowed to photograph her lunch again.

The wider issue is cameras in schools. My children aer not allowed mobiles or cameras in school because children lose expensive things and schools rae blamed and technology can interfere with lessons. Anyone watching that Jamie Oliver programme about bad state schools will remember the huge distracting impact of phones in schools. Or schools have a system where they are handed in first thing and collected at the end of the day.

My dd is at a different school in A&B and I asked her if she can take as much fruit and salad as she likes but she wasn't sure. She takes what she is given but doesn't know if she could have more if she would ask for it. She gets fruit every time she eats school dinner.
Overall though she is really happy with the school dinners. I remember only once that she complained about a very small baked potato.
I have no idea what the school's policy on cameras is. I always assumed they wouldn't be allowed.

Glad the ban has been over turned, their attempt at censorship is shameful - nutritious or not those uk school dinners look truly awful in comparison to the international photos. The school dinners at my dc's school look pretty awful too - who want to eat from a plastic prison tray?

In our borough we have a high % of kids eligible for free school meals. The uptake at primary level is 89% but was 37% at secondary level. So the council upped the quality and choice of meals provided to secondaries so they could get more kids to apply for their FSM and increase their income. However subsequently Ive noticed the quality of meals at primary really go down and hardly any primary school kids who have to pay for their school meals are now doing so. This story has a rings true despite all the legal nutritional standards that now apply to school meals if a child does not chose a balanced meal or doesn't eat school meals daily they will not meet the nutritional requirements and most schools have no one to oversee that they are choosing a balanced meal. If you are concerned about the quality of a schools meals or general food and drink provision you can complain to ousted who are obliged to investigate the complaint. However theses food standards don't apply to academies and they can serve whatever they like.

Sorry OfSted stupid iPad autocorrect!

Why does she not just take a packed lunch?

DS school dinners are pretty good, it's on a two week rotating menu system so if there's a day he not keen on what's on offer he takes a packed lunch.

Xenia - she got permission from the school to take pictures of the meals for her blog. It was part of a creative writing project. She had specific permission to have a phone with a camera.

Poor children having to eat from a prison tray. Who thinks that's acceptable!

Martha's fundraising is up to £59,716 now she must be just overwhelmed by that .

edam. It makes you wonder if any other child will get permission to photograph in schools after this. What do you lot think?

Seems to me that the villains here are the paper with their hysterical headline, not the council.

Wow, £60k? That's brilliant news - it will make such a huge difference to Mary's Meals. And it means loads of people who would never have heard of the charity find out about it and may continue to donate. ds's school did the backpack project which they all really enjoyed - great idea to get all the stuff together that children need to go to school.

Patter, I dunno, but I suspect King Canute is an apt analogy - at secondary level, at least. Techology is changing so fast and the way young people use technology is beyond the comprehension of most adults. I doubt schools will be able to stem the tide.

Perhaps all schools should be made to do it... blog the school meals. They could have a camera for the purpose of that and give it to a child at random in the dinner queue. The child selects what they want to eat from the available menu, takes a picture and hands the camera to a member of staff - who then uploads it to the school's website. The child could complete a comments form appropriate to their writing ability.

Should schools be more open about what food they are serving children? They publish menus of which some have pictures (though hard to know if the food when it actually appears on the child's plate looks like the one on the menu).

I drop a child at school at lunchtime and I go into the dining hall and I see what is being served to the children. So taking a photo and uploading it to the school website is just an extension of that.

Its amazing that a nine year old has managed to raise so much money to feed other children. I hope that Martha gets the opportunity to go to Malawi and see the kitchens that her blog has paid for. Prehaps she should ask the Daily Record to pay for her and her family's air fare as it was their article that caused all the problems in the first place.

I was really moved by Martha. I learned about this via Twitter last night, and was disgusted to find that she'd been asked to stop. It's a lovely little blog, and she's doing so much to help others. Well done Martha!

nearly £75,000 now ... 5 million hits and counting on her blog.