Kids eating mash potato with their fingers to prevent Covid

[Bushola]

Well, if we thought we'd seen everything then we were wrong.
Kids in a school Walsall can't use cutlery to prevent the spread the Covid.

www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/walsall-school-bans-children-using-19380208

Let's find the ultimate mumsnetter, is there anyone here who agrees this is a good idea?!

Pure madness! Even plastic disposable cutlery is more hygienic than using your hands

right, so lets use fingers that rely on a small person washing them sufficiently well with dodgy school soap, touching taps and door handles that lots of other little hands have touched, under time pressure as miss is waiting for you to line up and little bobby is elbowing you in the ribs to get at the taps... instead of cutlery that has been sterilised in a dishwasher at high temperatures

?????? Who in the name of all thats good and holy thinks eating with your fingers is safer right now???? Its kind if terrifying that these people are in charge of kids

Wtf

That is bonkers. Hope they never give the kids soup

Ludicrous.

Sounds like an experiment that didn’t work out (mash in a Yorkshire pud as finger food).

Back to cold sandwiches then I guess. The logistics of delivering hot food to classrooms is a bit of a nightmare.

I read the article and it looks like it was the Academy bosses who decided this not the teachers. That is, people in an office somewhere not the people who have to supervise washing the children's hands. The teachers themselves probably think the same as you do.

Between putting our children's meals on "prison trays" using plastic beakers and now banning cutlery, is it any wonder we have young adults that can't sit at a table and eat a meal in a civilised manner.

Maybe they don't know that covid can actually be acquired through the gastrointestinal route also.

@LowlandLucky

Between putting our children's meals on "prison trays" using plastic beakers and now banning cutlery, is it any wonder we have young adults that can't sit at a table and eat a meal in a civilised manner.

Only if you think it’s a school’s job to teach children skills that used to be expected of parents?

Oh that is disgusting. Aside from anything else, if the kids are using hand sanitiser in school that'll make their fingers and the food taste horrid.

Schools often have used trays as it's a simple mathod to help children carry items securely. Nothing wrong or "prison" about that.

My DC's school copes with sending each classroom of children to the hall to collect their tray of food to eat in the classroom without resorting to ridiculous, impractical measures such as serving food in bags and forcing children to eat inappropriately without cutlery.
If I wanted my children to eat "finger food" I'd send a packed lunch anyway.

I really hope the media coverage makes the responsible over-paid twit who came up with this to have a good think about how stupid they've been.

Makes you really wonder about how some people got through the interview process to get their jobs.

If it was my job to wash the cutlery them I am all in favour. In fact I think plates and trays are covid risk so do away with them. Let the darlings eat off the table and pressure wash it between sittings

@YardleyX

Makes you really wonder about how some people got through the interview process to get their jobs.

Definitely this too

Really can't get that excited about this, tbh. It's a bit grim and unhygienic and I think the concept of "finger food" to cut infection rates is bizarre. Why not just ask the kids to bring their own plastic picnic cutlery?

But we use a credit card to slice cake and cheese when we forget cutlery on a family picnic and I've eaten noodles using two biros as chopsticks before so probably not the best people to comment. Especially since we have a liberal interpretation of the 5 second rule.

Whilst it's ridiculous to use hands to eat mash the suggestions of kids bringing disposable cutlery wouldn't work as how many kids would swap knives and forks sat next to each other or drop somewhere and put someone else's in their bag if they can't find theirs?

I don't understand why normal cutlery can't be used though

My dds school is the same.

It does cold lunches 4 days and one day a week it's hot.

So they serve burgers/hot dogs/pizza with wedges so it can be eaten with fingers and not cutlery.

All food gets delivered to classrooms to eat at the desk as well.

Dd says her teacher mutters "for gods sake" a lot when she's wiping everything down

Does this poor school not have access to a dishwasher - I think dishwashers are considered OK for removing Coronavirus, certainly restaurants etc are considered OK to use cutlery.

@LowlandLucky

Between putting our children's meals on "prison trays" using plastic beakers and now banning cutlery, is it any wonder we have young adults that can't sit at a table and eat a meal in a civilised manner.

My children eat more meals at the table at home in their life than they do at school, so it's not Something I can get worked up about to be honest.

Dishwashers sterilise baby bottles so they definitely sterilise cutlery. This is madness

@stepintotwitmas

Does this poor school not have access to a dishwasher - I think dishwashers are considered OK for removing Coronavirus, certainly restaurants etc are considered OK to use cutlery.

Not all primary schools even have kitchens. My grandson's school has meals brought in. He says the TA washes the dishes in the classroom sink atm but most children are taking packed lunches.

I thought the government promised to sort out the kitchens so that all schools had a kitchen for fresh food etc?