In refusing to send DCs to school with plastic water bottles?

[MadameCastafiore]

Right may be a bit long winded but here we go.

DCs have a new head at their school and a couple of months ago were sent home with really shite plastic bottles with sports caps which we were told had to be used for them to drink water in class - now I refused - the bottles were made of the same plastic you buy evian, you couldn't put them in the dishwasher to clean them and IMO you can never get a sports cap properly clean and the ones on these bottles were really soft plastic which after they had been chewed a couple of times (which all kids do I think) they looked grotty and really filthy.

Anyway fast forward to DCs getting in trouble for not having these bottles - I worte to the head and told him about the crappness of the plastic and the fact that they were made of a type of plastic that was not meant to be used over and over again and I said my kids would be using their sig bottles due to the fact that they were easy to clean, did not have sports caps (a urologist I spoke to said sports caps are vile and harbour germs and he told all of his kidney patients not to use them but to sip straight from the bottle) and they were made of metal which did not leach chemicals into the water (don't want my kids drinking from bottles which leach chemicals that mimic oestrogen into the water they are going to drink) and they were not see through so sunlight and heat wouldn;t affect the water and make bacteria multiply if the bottles were not properly cleaned.

He then fought a bit and last week they were selling new bottles (because the first one was free after that you have to pay £1.50 if you lose or break them), new bottles that are made out of a different kind of plastic and can go in the dishwasher but they still have sports caps.

The headmaster says that the bottles have to be see through so he can be sure we are not sending the kids to school with juice or fizzy drink (doh flavoured water is what most of DSs friends have in theirs which nulifies the point to some degree!) I said I am quite happy for him to check the DCs bottles and to make sure it is just water or I am happy to send them in with empty bottles which they will fill up from the water fountain at school.

Now do you think I am making a big thing out of nothing, I do think it is silly to kick off about lots of little things but it grates on me that this man does not trust us enough to do the best for our children and I know some parents don't but really this level of control is a little purile IMO. DSs teacher hasn;t said anything else to him after the first few times but DDs teacher is on her case telling her she muct have this see through bottle.

Can he make us use them is something I would also like answered?

Thank you for taking the time to read my ranty essay.

When I was in primary school we didn't take water bottles. Not because we had drinking fountains but because our lovely mummies supplied us with packages of juice, the about worst thing ever. And it was GREAT

Give your children whatever you want for a drink and in whatever bottle you want. Honestly, when did a bit of juice start to make you hyper? I am doing work experience in schools and cannot say that a package of juice kills either teachers or children. Children are active because they are children.
I am very much into healthy eating but nevertheless I enjoy drinking juice, have a candy bar or something.

I think the level of control about what children eat or drink in schools in this country is becoming ridiculous. Yes healthy eating is important but the parents are responsible here. So schools/the government honestly think that children will be healthier because children are only allowed healthy food at school? yeah right. Maybe to control a bit more we should only allow certain things that parents can buy in the supermarket, just so they don't feed their children crap food at home.

So OP, I hate certain bottles too ad I think it is your responsibility how to feed and 'water' your child. Give them the bottle you deem appropriate!

There are 3 choices:
They use a plastic bottle
I let them go out to the water fountain
A parent volunteers to come in twice a day and wash glasses and a water jug in hot soapy water, drain them and leave to dry.

I think that is perfectly fair.

Parents who insist on 'their rights' may like to do the washing.

Sadly MsHighwater some of the parents are not to be trusted.

Children didn't have any drinks in the classroom until the late 1990's. They always spill-at least water just dries and doesn't get a sticky mess over books etc. I can tell that most of you have no idea what it is like to have 30 DCs with drinks in the classroom! We have cascades of water down cupboards, in trays, over work etc!

Well I can only tell you the way we handled it was that we had a really short break every 45 minute. If you didn't finish your juice you put it on the floor for later (between the desks).
That was fair enough and I had no need to drink more than that.
Yes there were spillages but that's how it is. My mum always told me that if I am not careful I will end up with sticky trousers.
I do think it's silly however to tell parents what they can and can not give their children to drink. In in what kind of containers.

Knowing what ds is like with his drinks at home, I would be very surprised at any teacher who welcomed juice or other sticky drinks into a classroom full of children his age.

The class DD is in just now don't seem to have any spillage problems. They have access to their water at snack time when any work/books etc are out of the way. And if they want a drink at any other time - they go and drink it by where the bottles are kept, not wander around the class with it. Maybe you could try doing it like that.

piscesmoon, rules like this give the impression that none of the parents are to be trusted.

There is another choice over and above the 2 you mention. Allow kids to bring any safe container of their choice from which to drink. Insisting on clear plastic only is unnecessary and counter-productive.

I think that it is very nice of schools to allow drinks in the classroom-a very new concept and it should be taken as a priviledge and not abused. It used to be drinks only at break times and not while you were working.

and piscesmoon, it might be inconvenient to you but parents do have rights.

Sadly MsHighwater you have no experience of some parents. If every parent was like you then of course it wouldn't be a problem-I can tell you that they are not! I can hardly say that I trust some DCs, but I want to see the contents of some of the containers! They have to be treated the same.

They don't have rights to drink in lessons-it is a priviledge. All rights come with responsibilities anyway.

I thought the point of it was that it was intended to promote good hydration and, therefore, good health. Hardly a privilege, I'd have thought, piscesmoon.

dont know if this helps at all but Tesco do BPA drinking bottles with sports cap.

"Sadly MsHighwater you have no experience of some parents".

Piscesmoon, you have no idea what I have experience of so you can just leave off patronising me.

If the rule is "water-only" in class, fair enough. Just accept that insisting on the type of container goes too far. As the OP has demonstrated, this has unintended and negative consequences that are not justified by the intent of the rule.

If you wish to treat everyone the same, you might try treating everyone with respect for starters. Who knows what effect that will have?

BPA - free I mean!

It isn't a priviledge to have a drink at break. It is a priviledge to have one while working in the classroom. I wait until break.
What happens when your DC comes out at the end of the day because some DC has spilled coke all over her work and ruined it? At least with water you can tell her that it will dry out.

At the risk of being patronising MsHighwater I don't think that you have ever had a class of 10yr olds high on additives-I have. We had to ban my DS from coke-he would bounce off the ceiling after a glass-it has a very bad effect on some DCs.

You are missing the point. The OP wanted to give her dc water in a practical container that she could wash and that did not have properties that she is concerned about. The HT has tried to refuse. If someone breaks the rules and takes something other than water into class, spills it and is thus found out, I would expect the school to impose some proportionate sanction. Isn't that how discipline works?

and isn't it also fair to say that spilling water will ruin things just as much as any other liquid will? Ink does still run when it gets wet, doesn't it?

I don't buy that as a reason for insisting on clear bottles.

Young children round our way don't use ink pens in school so less of a problem.

And books will not get as ruined by water as by sticky drinks.

Ok, cory but you're splitting hairs now. Slightly older children do use ink and the point is that water can still ruin things it is spilled on them.

I am not splitting hairs! There is a big difference between a bit of writing running and a book being ruined forever because all the pages stick together. Even at secondary, lots of children use biros, which do not run.

As schools have been told that they must let children drink during lessons, they are opting for damage limitation. Books are expensive.

'As schools have been told that they must let children drink during lessons, they are opting for damage limitation. '

Exactly, we now know that DCs concentrate better if they are not dehydrated and the sensible thing is to allow access to water in lesson time, otherwise many DCs don't bother to drink at breaks and can go all day with just a drink at lunch time. If you have 30 DCs with drinks you need rules, it isn't like having one or two DCs at home. I haven't got time to list all the accidents that we have had with water, but when a DCs tray, with all their work, is swimming in water you are very grateful that it isn't sticky!
Wasps in the classroom is another problem-I can't tell you how much I dread a wasp coming in-DCs go into panic mode and with high ceilings it is impossible to remove it.
In an ideal world, of course parents should be trusted to put water in a container of their choice, but experience says that this isn't always the case. DCs often do their own drink-the parent may fondly imagine they are filling it with water but they may not be!
I go into a lot of schools, they all allow water in the classroom and all the water bottles are transparent.
I have had 3 DCs through the school system and many have, what seem to me, strange rules but they can't just be ignored. I think that you are in for a shock MsHighwater if you think that schools don't have the authority. They can simply take the water bottle off your DC and give it back at the end of the day, letting her use the water fountain in the meantime. If you want to fight things you need to go through the proper channels with other parental support.You need to make sure that you have parental support before you start-I for one would rather they had water in transparent plastic bottles.

Have schools really been told children have to be allowed to drink during lessons. It's not allowed at ds1s school & don't see why it should be. Unless a child has a medical problem drinking at breaks & lunch should be sufficient surely.

YANBU - I understand your object to the crap plastic, the sports bottle cap and the insistance they use them.

Your stainless steel bottles are a great idea!!