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

Family fast day is not the same thing and is usually part of lent, usually done for CAFOD in Catholic schools, nor is it given such a patronising title. Conflating the two in an attempt to justify this is poor.

Austerity is having to choose between heating or eating. Austerity is living off porridge oats with water for breakfast, toast for lunch and pasta with half a tin of value tomatoes which is what I did for a while.

Been there done that too.. lived off oats, lentils & the whoopsys aisle..

Baked spud & fruit sounds like a hearty filling lunch IMO!

There would have been better ways for them to do this.

What French Catholic schools do:

www.google.co.uk/amp/m.leparisien.fr/amp/societe/vendredi-saint-un-simple-bol-de-riz-au-menu-de-nombreuses-ecoles-catholiques-30-03-2018-7637175.php

My ancestors ate 45 potatoes a day and not much else in Ireland!

Sorry, WHAT? Each?

Re the bursaries, these schools get tax breaks for them & a lot of them go to siblings of a kid at the school already. They're going to kids who are from families that are not exactly deprived even if they're not rolling in it. They will probably have educated parents, books available etc, as someone said higher up. They're not going to kids from severely deprived homes - they're not even on their radar.

The baked potato lunch is insulting.

Interesting, user that one of the French schools mentioned offers their pupils the choice of the bowl of rice or a full meal, and that they are clear that it is symbolic and not meant to represent genuine deprivation.

I clearly remember doing something similar with my CofE primary school 35 yrs ago. We went to the village hall, ate tomato soup and a roll and thought about others less privileged than us.

"Family Fast Days" are clearly symbolic and are not intended to give children an experience of "austerity". FFS.

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.

THIS, so much.

This attitude existed at my boarding school in the late 80s . Girls thought by not having a desert , they had experienced hunger . The school also to turned the lights out for two hours one day a year to 'simulate' what having no electricity or the means to pay for it meant. Cue hysteria from the girls believing the world has ended(I remember one girl phoning their mum the next day claiming child abuse had occurred because they had to sit in the dark for two hours on a Saturday night).The other girls would then pin a badge on their blazer stating end 'world poverty' this after presumably experiencing it.
Fortunately I entered that school via a modern and a children's home... !

noble - absolutely, there aren’t hard and fast rules about how the “bol de riz” lunch is delivered in each school but it does enjoy fairly widespread understanding of the symbolism behind the fundraising event.

Private schooling in England can ger a bit too close for comfort to luxury schooling.

I think the intent was good but the delivery poor. The girls at that school are privileged. The vast majority of private school children are privileged. (note - both of my DC are in private schools). It is a matter of fact that if someone comes from a family that can cough up school fees at a similar level to many people's earnings then they are privileged. My DC's schools do things for charity etc. and so they should but it doesn't show you what it is like to be poor. I am supportive when DS1 gets a basic bowl of soup meal to acknowledge poverty but lets not pretend that makes him understand what it is like to be poor.
I think the supermarket challenge where you give the children a small budget and tell them you only have 1 ring and a microwave to cook your meal is probably more effective.

People are still missing the idea that austerity was according to Cameron 'we are all in it together' whereas we know that austerity has hit the poorest hardest in an artificial way.

Well we are all in it together, aren’t we, kitten? Some people can’t afford to live and some people choose to have a jacket potato for lunch. Everyone doing their bit.

Yup.

Except of course for private schools, who give out 1% of their bursaries for full funding, cause they are charities.

It’s presumably cheaper to give out bursaries than lose charitable status?

I think a lot of private schools fund the bursaries by tapping alumni for donations specifically for that purpose.

Thunder, yes it's amazing! we have looked it up several times. The Irish in the 18302/40s were eating 45 potatoes a day and men even more. It is hardly credible. It was their only food I think just about presumably other than gathered weeds and a few veg and the population increased from £1m to £8m just because of that introduction of the potato so I am not sure longer term it was that great a change of diet for them. How they managed to eat 45 a day is strange. I suppose they had some fried, some boiled. perhaps 10 at least at each meal time and may be they were quite small ones.

Interesting that the money raised wasn’t for food banks or other charities, it was money saved on lunches that went back into the schools charity...

My son goes to an independant school and jacket potato with beans and cheese is a regular lunch there. They get two choices, one is more interesting like Stir fry or curry but they are kids and can be fussy so there’s always a fairly basic meal as an option.

Potatoes can be quite small! Remember people were working hard labour, often in the cold and wet, so they needed calories.

School's like St Paul's do much more than just give out bursaries for their charitable status. I think people would be very surprised by how much they do for the local community. I am not very familiar with the girl's schools, but am very familiar with the boy's school and many of the things they do for the community are not even known about from stepping in and covering funding shortfalls due to budget cuts for a staff member of a local community centre, having it's kitchens being used to prepare Christmas dinners for elderly people who are alone at Christmas, to the usual headline things like offering latin classes for state school students who don't go to schools that teach the language. This is only a fraction of the things they do - bursaries are a very, very, small part of their charitable work.

I think if schools want to educate on poverty they could look at the 'poverty premium'. Get students to do some research and work out the cost of being poor. Then get them to come up with solutions and critique each other's ideas.

Think about how businesses market their goods:

E.g. go to the garden centre to 'grow your own veg' as advised, and find that you can buy three bags of compost more cheaply, but you haven't got a car so you can't take advantage of that deal.

or - £5 off a £40 shop - not much good if you only have £20.

more expensive electricity

ADark
That reminds me of when the DC were small and Sainsbury had a 1/3 off big bags of nappies. We bought a load in various sizes because we had the money to buy several packets at once, a car to transport them and a place to store them at home. It really struck me that the people who would really benefit from the cheap nappies probably couldn't take advantage of the offer in the way we did.

A good state school in my county has this menu: certainly less pretentious but also not exactly potato and beans every day.

I know they serve homemade bread daily, homemade soup and a big variety of pasta salads, other salads etc as well as the specific items listed.