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

Back in the 1970s at a bog standard comprehensive we used to have 'austerity lunches' from time to time (and yes, that is what we called them). Instead of having school lunches we had bread and soup.

It is a very hard thing to do for a bastion of privilege to try to engender a sense of community and caring. Those kids are all so overwhelmingly rich and privileged that they genuinely have no idea and nor, more worryingly does the school.

I speak as one who has privately educated my children. I have to say the DCs schools were a lot better in terms of community outreach and genuinely trying to engender a sense of one world. Genuine community service. Mind you their school food was mostly appalling anyway - nothing like the normal menus at St Pauls. Which are quite unbelievable actually.

Those kids are all so overwhelmingly rich and privileged
To go to the school and get those lunches they are, but not necessarily at home. Some will be, some will be on full or part bursaries or parents stretching to pay the fees and so on I should think. Whether private schools are a good thing is a whole separate question. I agree with pp well intentioned but badly executed.

My understanding was that normal SPGS lunches were significantly better than most London private schools. Not because of affluence, though their fees are higher than other girls schools, but to help counter on-going problems with anorexia and self-harming that the school’s high achieving and competitive culture seems to generate.

(DD was at a school down the road where the food was so awful that we switched to packed lunches as she was not eating anything. Sodexo catering can be grim whether state or private. You just pay more for the latter.)

Doing things like this for a day is imo rather stupid. No, it's actually more than stupid. It could be genuinely toxic.

Having a life skills class/project where the pupils need to plan a week (or more) of meals on a tight budget would be good imo. They'd learn some life skills, some money might go towards a charity and they wouldn't have the impression of knowing 'how it is' (which they now may...) simply because they had to eat one simple but perfectly acceptable meal...

Jacket potatoes take a fair amount of energy to cook (assuming they aren't having microwave ones). It would be more interesting if the sixth formers had gone to a food bank and seen the sort of food donated and helped the chef come up with a menu, one which could be cooked on one hotplate - although of course multiplied up for lots of people.

Yes, people always forget about fuel costs when they talk about poor people ought to eat more beans. Also travel to cheaper shops and the upfront cost of bulk buying. It's called the poverty premium.

If they really want to teach about austerity how about:

• split the year group into two.
• half of the forms get the austerity treatment for a week. That means shit sugary food, carbs, value everything, EVERY meal.
• The austerity group also have to get into bigger classes - so three forms squeezed into two classrooms.
• any other privileges withdrawn from the austerity group.
• whole year does the same project for a week, a new topic.
• On the last day they get tested on the topic and have a mini sports day.

See whether the austerity group manages to do as well as the other group.

.

Food bank donations depress me. I volunteer at one and you often get bashed tins and stuff that's out of date. It's not very respectful.

Ideally I'd like to hand people a box of really decent stuff that will give them a boost. People are not poor for one week and back on the blinis and caviar the next.

remember this next time there is a sponsored sleep rough to he!p the homeless. equally stupid, pointless and insulting.

I accept the point about bursaries for a small number of students but anyone whose family can afford London private school fees, even at a 'stretch', comes from a financially privileged background compared to those truly struggling in our society.

The regular attempt to say that anyone at these elite schools is anything but privileged is as distasteful as the "austerity lunch"

How so Bertrand if they're on 100 percent bursary ie fees paid? Not distasteful to state a fact.

What exactly do you mean by “privileged, Bertrand?

Here's a sample weekly menu from SPGS

spgs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/School-Menu-PDF.pdf

It would be too outing to link to the equivalent at DS's school but suffice it to say that slow baked Moroccan lamb has never featured :)

Sorry - repetitive - I see the menu has already been linked up-thread

"How so Bertrand if they're on 100 percent bursary ie fees paid? Not distasteful to state a fact."

There are very few 100% bursaries.

Do 100% bursaries cover uniform, school trips, music lessons, sports equipment, laptop, etc? If not, I can't imagine many people who grew up like me would apply for one.

This is so horribly, horrible patronising not to mention inaccurate. A jacket potato and fresh fruit is a very good main meal for people living in poverty. Although they won't have the organic and expensive produce the SPSG children will have.

I would also consider this a decent meal for me and my children.

Any children on 100% bursaries and living in poverty (don't think it's a large demograhic....) wouldn't be able to afford the cost of school dinners, uniform, trips, extras etc

It's obscene to pretend that these bastions of wealth and privilege are anything else.

Quite.

Scholarships and bursaries are usually a %age -often quite a small %age of the costs. But it kooons good to offer them. Takes the eye off the embarrassing charitable status.

The DS's school offers means tested bursaries (like SPGH in an unspecified quantity)

So any family with income of less than £35k qualifies to have half the fees off

If they manage to find one person a year with that sort of financial qualification I would be surprised.

Back to charitable status - which we had just about got onto - I don't think it would make a whole heap of difference TBH. I mean it would make some difference but not so much as you might think. Plus schools that had genuinely opened up their facilities and their teaching to the local community would no longer feel any obligation to do so.

I agree with ADark and Bertrand and special.

I have a very wealthy friend who I had to spell a lot of stuff out to, as a working poor. For many, many, when the money runs out, there is no other money, no access to money. You have no one you can borrow from. You have no access to credit except at high interest rates. There is literally no money. And it's every.single.month, because you never have enough to save and you've cut everything to the bone. You may be stuck in some dire estate, and that's you stuck because there is zero way to save for a deposit on a private place and no private landlord will take you anyway because you'd need partial housing benefit. It's not being able to do a wash because you're in the emergency credit on your leccy metre. If you're rural, you may not have the ability to get to a Aldi or Lidl or to the one shop in town miles away when they put the reduced products on. It's relentless. The slightest thing goes wrong, an appliance breaks, the banger you use to get to your zero hours job fails its MOT, your kid loses their shoes at school or they go missing and it's a catastrophe. It's years and years of endless grinding down and facing that fact now that if you're poor, everyone blames you for that.

One meal of jacket spud and slaw and a piece of fruit is heaven because it means you had the leccy to do a jacket spud, a microwave to do it in, slaw and fruit. Wow.

And if you got a 100% bursary then who pays for all the extras that are charged for in such a school? Seriously? Who pays for the pupil's train fare or coach fare back home for hols because that could just be the tipping point where a family can't afford it

It smacks of playing poor, slumming it and even Marie Antoinette gave alms to the poor. Didn't stop the government's systemic persecution of the poor.

I've just been looking at King's College Maths Sixth Form which is a state school with no uniform. They offer free travel and a free laptop for the duration of study for any child on FSM and 50% off both for families getting WTC/CTC. So even a school that doesn't charge fees recognises there additional costs.

The school at which I teach has 10% of pupils on bursaries, many of which are more than 100% - this means that uniform, trips, etc are covered on top of the fees. Kids get free travel in London so that isn't an issue.

I'm not saying all schools have the same provision, but it does exist. And yes, some (a handful, but more than none) of our pupils are genuinely poor.

The school at which I teach has 10% of pupils on bursaries, many of which are more than 100% - this means that uniform, trips, etc are covered on top of the fees. Kids get free travel in London so that isn't an issue.

That's great.

But it doesn't change the fact that the pupils going to this school (even with a bursary) are imo privileged compared to many other children.