To not see the big deal about Jewish and Muslim dc wearing red disks

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www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-school-forces-muslim-and-jewish-pupils-to-wear-coloured-discs-a6669396.html

So basically it stops dc being given food they can't have at lunchtime and no way imo can it be compared to the yellow star.

I might be biased in that I am a school cook and before that a nursery cook where every dc had a placemat with their photo and dietary preference. Schools don't do this instead we have a list with photos on and what they can't have but we have had near misses with jelly for example. A child who couldn't have the jelly asked for the jelly knowing they couldn't have the jelly and luckily as soon as the server put the jelly on the plate the child said but I'm not allowed this it's not halal and she had a fresh new plate of food.

Something for the cooks to see in primary schools to avoid mix ups is a great idea. The only problem I see with what the French have done is not to do it for all dietary requirements like allergies and intolerances

Ilovesooty - the school was established 100 years ago and has always been veggie. The reasons for it being so, were that not everyone eats meat, or some people don't eat certain types of meat for different reasons, so by making it completely veggie, people of all faiths and persuasions can sit down and enjoy a meal together. I think that's quite commendable.

I used to live in Austria, and disabled people there had to wear these armbands which always made me wince a bit.

So zzzzz the teachers can't have their lunch break now as you've decided your child needs their teacher with them all the time. Do you home school?

"The reasons for it being so, were that not everyone eats meat, or some people don't eat certain types of meat for different reasons, so by making it completely veggie, people of all faiths and persuasions can sit down and enjoy a meal together."

I like this idea and I am an avid meat eater who has no religious persuasion.

Same as Tooshyshy - ds2 wear a coloured band to indicate main/veggie/jacket potato.
They hand it over when they get their lunch - seems to work well.

Why should none religious or none vegetarians be forced to have a veggie version though?
In my college , the vegetarian options always look so unappealing

All veggie food is fine, healthier for most of us, too. Better catering would result if it was the main option rather than a tiny sideset.

MrsSchadenfreude I don't have an issue with your suggestion but I thought scatteroflight might.

I don't really see the difference between them wearing a red disc badge at lunchtime and being given a red disc to hand in at lunchtime. It's really the same thing, except one has some sort of adhesive on the back presumably.
To compare it to being made to wear the Star of David in Nazi Germany seems to completely miss the point, in fact I think it's a fairly grotesque comparison tbh.

at the Austrian armbands

At my school children can choose from meat, Halal, veggie, jacket potato or packed lunch.

At lunch time the children who are not having the meat option are given a card as they line up: V for veggie, H for Halal, J for jacket potato. t is purely so that the people serving the meals know what to give each child. Our children are infant age and we have a proportion of EAL and SEND children so it avoids any child not being able to ask for the appropriate meal at the time - and to ensure everyone gets what they ordered too, so numbers are correct.

I can't speak for all schools but it's already been commented on that there is more choice on the veggie choices then the main part in my councils school kitchen menu.

For example Friday will be fish fingers, or macaroni cheese, or stir fried noodles or omelette or jacket potatoes or wraps with a choice of fillings. So the only option that isn't vegetarian is the fishfingers.

So I agree an all veggie menu would be great, it's better for the environment and would bring our costs right down plus it would cater to the majority. The only downside is would parents send their dc for dinners. Our most popular days are roast days, sausage day and chicken curry day. If the dc don't like the veggie options and their parents pack them a ham sandwich instead we wouldn't be making a profit or at least to cost and there wouldn't be school dinners anymore.

noeffingidea yes yes to the discs

There's a big difference between someone handing a card in and wearing a disc.
And I don't think the comparisons with the yellow star are at all grotesque.

Maxxytoe - I think the fact that the school is still vegetarian 100 years later says something about how appetising the food is. I've eaten there - I had an excellent chick pea and tomato curry. The difference is between producing only one veggie option (butternut squash risotto, anyone?) and producing only a choice of different veggie options. So, for example, the choice might be between a curry and rice and a quiche with potatoes and salad.

And really, if only having veggie food is unacceptable to you, then don't send your child to this school! No-one will die if they are forced to have one meal a day that is veggie.

Ilovesooty - agreed!

Funny to see that this made the UK papers ...

Apparently it was a small pre-school with a new canteen supervisor who didn't know the children well enough to be sure which kid was to eat which meal and who thought this was a good solution.

So it seems that it was well meaning, but clumsy and very culturally inappropriate (the kids concerned may have been Jewish as well as Muslim remember ...) - and it's been widely condemned.

Some French schools don't provide any choice at all (it's up to the local council and some are quite racist and anti-Semitic especially in the south) - if you're veggie or Muslim or Jewish or even allergic it's tough shit. There's a campaign at the moment to make it a legal requirement to offer a vegetarian alternative in french school canteens, because this would be appropriate for children of all faiths and would respect the French tradition of secularism in schools :) .

I agree with the idea a PP had of handing a coloured disc over that has been issued to you by your teacher or classroom assistant. The idea could be used for other special dietary requirements, and actually is a sensible premise and stops children being given the wrong meal. Lots of children (certainly reception children) might well get easily confused, and it stops them being offered choices they can't even have because that's not fair either.

I don't think I'd want to rely on someone else giving my child the right meal though, if my child had special dietary requirements for whatever reason; allergy or religion. I'd rather have them take a pack up or have home dinners.

Zzzzz it comes across that you don't send your dc to school due to your unreasonable expectations of what a school does. I can't be bothered to copy and paste what you've said but to expect teachers or a ta to do the dinner ladies job so your dc will be able to always have someone that knows them and every other child in the school to help them choose their food while they're in the line is ridiculous. Dc with additional needs usually have their own ta who is with them for lunch and other dc with behavioural needs might have a lunchtime assistant to themselves while the teacher and ta have a break but to do this for everyone is impossible.

There are loads of great systems on this thread, the colour band one is great but that's not been implemented in any school I've worked at unfortunately.

The adhesive makes all the difference hey.
A regime marking out an entire race it views as subhuman and wishes to annihilate is not comparable to children wearing badges at lunch time to indicate their meal choices/dietary requirements. It's the same principle as the wrist bands, the only difference is on which part of the body its worn and how its attached.

The school I work at runs a profit, it helps balance the smaller schools that don't make a profit in the scheme of things.

Small schools don't usually make a profit due to running costs and staff.