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?!

@stepintotwitmas

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

It would be a massive undertaking involving creating new buildings. They might have promised it but it hasn't happened.

Well that will be why kids are eating with their hands. Some poor TA might be ECV and not wanting to handwash cutlery.
Obviously it is daft because Covid-19 can be transmitted and caught by gastrointestinal route as well - in terms of kids eating with their hands.
Any place that serves food should have access to proper food preparation and washing up facilities. What kind of government promises a kitchen for every school, but several years later there is no kitchen. It really isn't that hard. There is money for other things. We are 5th/6th richest country, children and teachers should not be washing up in a classroom sink.

What do they do with the trays the meals come on then?

That sounds ridiculous. My DF told me that his DF taught him always to eat sandwiches holding them by the paper. My DF’s DF was a bricklayer. DF was a miner with no handwashing facilities during a shift. Always eat with paper around or with cutlery.

Also why are TAs washing cutlery. Aren’t there dinner ladies or lunchtime assistants if food is being provided. Surely these days a dishwasher is not a big ask. Most homes have them.

@Iwantacookie

What do they do with the trays the meals come on then?

My grandson told me the TA washes them in the classroom sink but I don't think they normally do this. Maybe they send the trays back normally.

I’ve not come across a primary school like this. Year groups have a staggered lunch time (bubbles) so there’s time for the children to eat in the hall and then staff clean afterwards. Those with a school meal have hot food and use metal cutlery.

@Splodgetastic

Also why are TAs washing cutlery. Aren’t there dinner ladies or lunchtime assistants if food is being provided. Surely these days a dishwasher is not a big ask. Most homes have them.

They can't have a dishwasher if they haven't got a kitchen.

@CaptainMyCaptain I was under the misapprehension we were a first world country. We don’t eat with our hands. There was a kitchen with a dishwasher in my first school in the 1980s when dishwasher weren’t widespread. How is food being prepared without a kitchen anyway?

A lot of primary schools are eating in the kitchen at the moment. At my grandson's school the junior classrooms are around the edge of the hall and the infants don't have a hall. In my area there are a lot of small schools in villages and meals are prepared in larger school kitchens. The school where I worked was one of the largest and had a kitchen so I don't know all the details of how the smaller schools manage.

Not eating in the kitchen, obviously I mean in the classroom.

Soap and water kill covid, it is far more likely people will breathe it in than to catch it from surfaces like that. I work in secondary and this just makes me laugh that people have the time and energy to worry about covid-y forks.

I'm not recommending eating mashed potato with hands just explaining why some schools don't have dishwashers.

This must be some kind of policy in places as my DC also have only finger food. The younger years get to use the dinner hall (which is also the gym hall) and the older years have to eat in their classroom. It was sandwiches up until few weeks ago when they started to do hot food but it’s still “finger food” chicken in wraps, folded pizza, macaroni. I assume they have disposal forks for the pasta at least!!

I think they should ban glasses and cups for drinks too. Maybe replace them with a hose pipe that shoots orange squash?

Peak Covid

Re kitchens, many rural primary schools don't have their own kitchen or even gym/dining hall, so children eat in classrooms and there's certainly no dishwasher etc. We don't have TAs washing up though, the dirty crockery is sent back to where the meals came from. Our children get a hot meal (with cutlery!) daily.

My dd is at an academy school ran by the trust mentioned in the article. Its a great school; caring, encouraging, sensible, but a few weeks ago she mentioned eating something at school with her hands. I said that is what her fork is for and she replied that they do not have knives and forks. I told her not to be silly (she is nearly 6 so saying things like this is not unusual).

But now reading that I'm wondering if she was telling the truth . The headteacher is approachable and friendly so I might send an email in - I am absolutely not That Parent! Dd1 tells us all the time about how important it is to wash hands but she will say this while picking her nose and scratching her bum! Their hands are not clean