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

I wish people would just say "yes, I am very lucky-I can afford to buy my children nice things"

It's the weaselly stuff about sacrifice and scrimping and honestly there are hundreds of full bursaries that is so unpleasant. Particularly as it comes with the implication that anyone could do it if only they tried-cared a bit harder.

It isn't an austerity meal in the slightest. At food banks they are aware that not all people coming have ovens (for example) and a baked potato means that oven is running gas or electricity for up to an hour - which would be a no if you were struggling with bills. As for fresh fruit - perhaps if they picked up the free stuff for kids in Tesco. If they have that choice - if you are getting food from a foodbank there would be no fresh fruit or veg and you wouldn't have a bloody choice - Oh it's cornflakes and pasta again (we'll save the rice pudding for tomorrow) ...

Then again wouldn't want little Tarquin and Arabella getting the horrible povvy scurvy would we?

How f*(king patronising. Reminds me of the Pulp song 'Common People'.

Isn’t a baked potato and fruit a normal lunch. Wtaf do they eat for lunch then on normal days? Greedy little posh sods

It must be weird to be so convinced that you're right, when actually you have no idea what you're talking about.

I think that is a side effect of errrrrr, what do they call it? Oh yes...

Privilege.

Hundreds of kids on bursaries, Bertrand and loads more charity work than any state school ever. So much more altruistic than you.

I am happy to say "yes, I am very lucky-I can afford to buy my children nice things" (not that I actually choose to buy them much to be honest - I am not into material possessions but I certainly could choose to if I wanted to. I don't eg buy them birthday or Christmas presents but that does not remove the fact that I can replace their shoes when they need them and that kind of thing).

"Particularly as it comes with the implication that anyone could do it if only they tried-cared a bit harder."

Ah yes, and the scholarship/bursary thing, until you dig a bit deeper into it and then find that most bursaries and under half of the fees, meaning that most parents have to find the majority of the £23,934 it costs to send a girl to St. Paul's.

Austerity day is as patronising as dressing up as chavs etc.

The pampered princesses will be left thinking that austerity isn't so bad after all. And that's because they won't have experienced anything like it with their jacket potatoes and fresh fruit lunch.

This, exactly.

How much better for them to have to come up with a menu that will feed a family for a week for £50, then cook it and eat it. And choose between deodorant and sanpro, because they can't afford both. And share bathwater because you can't afford to put enough money on the meter for everyone to have a bathfull to themselves.

The £25k a year their school fees costs are 50% more than the amount a family can get in benefits, unless the family includes a member who gets PIP/DLA. And that money's for everything - rent, heating, food, clothes, water and council tax.

The problem with privilege is that people who 'have' soon come to think its because they deserve it and are better, and the other side of the coin is that the 'have nots' also deserve their position.

Many of the girls at St Pauls will one day be making decisions which will impact the 'have nots' so its massively, massively important that they understand the fallacy.

That is one reason they have days like this but next year perhaps it should be champagne for the sixth form instead as no one seems to appreciate the effort this year!

What effort?

There you have it - the poor should appreciate the trouble the rich are going to to notice them

"That is one reason they have days like this but next year perhaps it should be champagne for the sixth form instead as no one seems to appreciate the effort this year!"

Days like this are patronising and twee, they do not in any way make very the very privileged scions of wealth appreciate the hardships that others go through in poverty.

There has been no effort at all here.

It says a lot though that some people think there has been effort or hardship.

People saying 'oh but they give loads to charity'. They should! Their turnover is in the millions and they are classed as a charity so get tax write offs too. Giving to charity is the least they can do.

'oh but they give loads to charity'.

Most big secondary schools raise tens of thousands a year for charity, I wonder how much of St Paul's "charity" is actually bursaries, paid to people who are already significantly better off than your average Joe.

I know quite a few children with large bursaries to very desirable London private schools. Without exception they are from families where at least one if not both parents were expensively educated / Oxbridge themselves but now work in relatively poorly paid fields- journalists, authors, artists.

In terms of cultural capital/background there is nothing between those kids and others at their schools apart from the type of holiday they go on.

My school in the eighties did FA for the local community and does little now. For example my kids primary school gets to use their flash theatre for ‘free’. Only it has to pay for the technical support to operate the lights etc. So not free at all.

Finally..... I once very briefly flat shared with a girl who had gone to SPGS and done history of art at Cambridge. She knew for a fact that Big Issue sellers re sold old copies that they found on the tube. All that education for such a lack of thinking.

I would abolish the whole stinking system tomorrow. Watching the jostling for position of some of the families where I live for secondary places has been revolting

There are far more children at private schools who have bursaries whose parents knew about them beforehand and knew how to apply for them than there are poor kids given an opportunity by the school's outreach programs.

The idea that bursaries are an equaliser is utterly false, only 1% of private school students are given full fees, and more than 50% of those with a bursary pay more than half fees.

All that education for such a lack of thinking

This. This is education that parents pay for yet the school thought this was a good idea. Where were the teachers or leadership team in all this. Did no one at the school think this was a bad idea. If this is a reflection of the level if critical thinking skills I worry about what else the students are being taught.

I think it was a really good idea and it's a very good school. Luckily we are all free to express our own opinions, not something that is possible in all countries. i certainly agree that most children at these kinds of schools are not fully funded just as most children at the most academically selective grammar schools do not represent the number of FSM and disadvantaged childreni ntheir local area and that is morally worse because plenty of those parents could pay fees but choose to take money from the hand of the state rather than more honestly pay school fees and thus they deprive the state of funds whilst advantaging their children.

Is this a boarding school? Do they eat all their meals in school? If so, I'd have a bit of time for the concept, had it applied to an entire week, and ALL meals were "austerity" meals. One meal isn't going to do a thing, but a week would give a real stark kick in the butt as to how truly complex it can be to eat well and feel good on a diet that's dictated by a very low budget. This one meal is utterly meaningless. If they'd really wanted to make it different for them, they should have been given a cheap white bread sandwich, scraped with the nastiest margerine they could find and "generously filled" with a slice of processed cheese (just the one slice) for their main, with a "dessert" of a multipack sized packet of supermarket skips. Something like that, where there's more air than protein. That would get indulged bellies rumbling within an hour of eating....

You can express your opinion, it doesn't mean that you are right or have supported it well with convincing arguments. The one about grammar school parents is utterly ridiculous as you are suggesting that the majority of parents that send their children to grammar schools could afford fees, which obviously is not the case.

This was not a good idea, its patronising and little or nothing would have been learned by those at this school. It shows a level of privilege and ignorance which is stupefying in those that you supposedly think are so intelligent.

Private school parents thinking it’s a good idea just means those kids aren’t getting any sense of reality from school or home.

Do people similarly think state and private schools that do family "fast day" including at school (a more modest lunch without choice - just like the St Paul's austerity lunch) is wrong too?

The examples given above of rice or soup and water are miles apart from the St Paul’s experience, don’t you think, Xenia?