To think this 'Austerity Day' is one of the most patronising things I've ever seen?

[NoHunsHereHun]

St Paul's Girls school having to eat baked potatoes and fresh fruit for lunch. For a day. I mean FFS, there are SO many better ways to help. Volunteering at a food bank for one.
www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-44578499

Exactly, Noble. The offensive thing about this isn't that they were raising money for charity by fasting, it's that they're not fasting! It's like Henry VIII deciding to have goose instead of swan to help the poor

Ignore my last post.

It's not even really about lack of choice or the food.

These students know that at their next meal everything returns to normal. Real poverty is unrelenting, some people don't even know if they can afford to eat tomorrow, they dont care about choice. This doesn't last one day, it can be weeks months or years.
To suggest eating potatoes for one meal provides any insight or education into poverty is ridiculous

I have this for dinner 3/4 times a week. With salad rather than fruit.

I am not deprived and my diet is not deprived.

Posh, clueless tossers.

Okay, I agree that the pupils aren't getting a true taste of poverty, but it's better than nothing, surely?

And it's pretty unreasonable to call them tossers - many of them may come from families who give a lot (whether time or money) to charity, or whose parents were raised in poverty themselves. Some might even be on bursaries. Not all people at private schools are posh, blinkered idiots.

Exactly Noble it's completely cringe making and slightly rage inducing that this perfectly normal lunch for thousands of people is viewed as austere by this school of incredibly privileged students.

It made me think of a student I spoke to at my school a few weeks ago. I saw him at lunchtime with a bowl in his hands. Asked him what's for lunch? He replies pasta. It's plain white pasta. Did you not want any sauce?, I say. No, he replies, I didn't have enough money on my fob to buy sauce I only had enough for some water.

And I know it's not because he spent it all on cheese on toast at break time it's because his mum can't afford to put any more money in his lunch account. Poor kid.

but it's better than nothing, surely

I'm not sure it is, I think it massively misrepresents poverty and austerity, leading to these students being even more out of touch.

FGS, they're kids. Yes they're privileged, but that's not their fault. It's good that they're trying something and thinking about other people.

Agreed.

We had jacket potatoes with cheese and beans for lunch today. It was excellent. I think if this school want to make a point they should have had the girls eat actually frugal food rather than a nutritious meal that most ordinary people enjoy everyday.

mycelialnetwork

I absolutely hate it when kids don't have enough money to buy a reasonable lunch 😔

Pengggwn I know. I think the free school meals kids get £2 per day. Pasta with sauce is £2.50. It's insane.

This is the link to the schools sample menu:
spgs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/School-Menu-PDF.pdf
It opens with Slow-Baked Moroccan Lamb with broad beans, prunes and preserved lemon. A baked potato is slumming it in comparison - I see a baked spud as a perfectly normal lunch, certainly nowhere near the bottom of the food rankings.

That is a nice menu. I'd prefer a jacket potato to most of it, though!

The problem is that private schools can't do right for doing wrong and it's a shame that these things are publisized so negatively. Anyway a better approach, which my DD did at one of her schools, was to give the children a small amount of money and make them go to the supermarket and buy things to make a meal, it had to be as nutritious as possible. I think they did it in groups of 6 or so. I can remember my DD commenting on the price of fruit and the fact that white bread and crappy ham were so cheap so it was good learning exercise.

We still do fast day to support caffod- soup and a roll, money goes to charity. I think it's a good idea!

Off the point, but if you have a menu like that every day, then it would totally ruin going out for dinner on special occasions wouldn't it?

I absolutely hate the title of 'Austerity lunch' though it is honest, because austerity really only hit the poorest and the squeezed middle. It rather shows that austerity was never for the wealthy. Cut everything to the bone and those who are poorest cannot eat and cannot access good education.

Confit duck leg!

In fact it's sickening, given that it is Tory cuts that have led to such poverty and these very privileged pupils get to say oh look at us, eating like the people who are struggling because of these cuts that don't affect us.

To be clear my criticism is of the school not the pupils.

If anyone didn't see the original tweet from the school announcing the austerity day (which has been deleted) it featured a picture of 3 peas being served on a silver platter.

The menu doesn't look too different from the one at the (private) school I teach it. The descriptions are always far fancier than the actual food (although the food is usually very good)!

Sorryfor disappearing - posted in a pique before going out for the rest of the day. Yes, I think I would be less pissed off with this if it wasn't labelled austerity but still... Marie Antoinette eats a jacket spud like the poor poor people. No.

The menu is very different to the one at the state school I teach at.

Yes this move isn’t the fault of the pupils who won’t have selected the menu or written the tweet. It’s the fault of the people who run the school who should know better and are therefore fair game for criticism. If this is what they are teaching their pupils about austerity, then the state of the country starts to make more sense.

itssquidstella I’ve been thinking more about your comment about this really teaching pupils about having a lack of choice. Actually for the pupils they still have choice. And the biggest choice is to choose not to eat the food because they don’t fancy it and can keep going as they had a decent breakfast and know that food more to their liking will be along later in the day.

I’m not sure how people will feel but the school does has a constant collection box for local food banks where students volunteer. The austerity lunches used to be soup, I expect they worked out that jacket potatoes were cheaper, the head chef is very good, the school keeps track of food waste and the students are told how much food waste there is each day to discourage waste. Yes the menu is good and the students are incredibly privileged to benefit from a well run catering department, no one can deny that. The school doesn’t do World Challenge or any of the other trips like that. DofE Gold is the only DofE option, the students go to the Brecon Beacons. I think the image posted was a big mistake & it would have better to stress that the difference between the cost of normal lunch for 850 & that day‘s lunch had been given to charity. Each year the students support a UK based charity and an international charity. There is also a used clothes shop on site run by students, with the proceeds going to charity.

They are children. They must be provided with a nutritionally balanced meal at school.

I think it's good that the word Austerity was used: most upper and middle class people are completely unaffected by the sacrifices made by the poorer people who have been badly hit by Austerity. At least the girls are being reminded regularly that people in this country are worse off than themselves as a direct result of Austerity measures.

Not sure how it is a left wing political point. Or even remotely akin to starving.
Disclaimer: DS goes to a prep school in SW London.
I am appalled actually. There are many ways to have a conversation about your own privilege and how other people might live. We have this conversation with ds1 all the time (DS2 is a toddler) because I am aware of how privileged he is and how privileged much of his social circle is. A school with the resources of St Paul’s could have come up with MANY creative ways to teach the same message. This is just patronising bollocks.
On Twitter there was a former pupil pointing out that most girls roll their eyes at Austerity Day and go to Wagamama’s after. Which encapsulates the point many previous posters are making.