Merton's "Jamie" campaign in national headlines!

[tiddlypom]

Merton/Wimbledon MNers please join the campaign against crap school dinners - if you've got pre-schoolers, it's even more important - you could save yourself years of making packed lunches .

It's on the front page of The Guardian today.

Outrageously, in the article, the council STILL appears to be saying they're unaware of any parental concerns over school dinners .

Because we're in a very important, very marginal constituency, now is a really good time to say school dinners are a big local issue - don't know about you, but I'm being rung all the time by canvassers, and I just say "school dinners, school dinners, school dinners".

(Well, OK, I do say other stuff, but...)

I also think it's important for parents to make their views known to local councillors. In yesterday's Guardian letters page, the Leader of the Council says: "Regular discussions take place with schools but have not revealed substantial complaints about food quality." So we do need to shout a bit louder to them.

All the councillors will be up for election next year, so then they'll be begging for our votes.

Probably local parents have seemed vaguely content with secondary education, since so many of us go for private or out-of-borough schools, and the council isn't extrapolating from that that we're voting with our feet. Likewise so many of us labour over packed lunches rather than insist that school dinners be improved.

I've made lots of "suggestions" about school dinners over the years, but maybe they didn't count as complaints because I tried to be diplomatic. I now do packed lunches through gritted teeth.

Lobbying politicians just before an election seems to work - especially if the issue has been raised by the media. I wrote a letter and a follow-up email to Ruth Kelly on the school dinners issue, not something I've ever done before, and I got a reply on each one, the second being more personalised. So I'm prepared to do that again on issues such as school discipline.

Yes, individual letters are much more potent than signing a petition, sadly, althought that's still worth doing.

That's great news, Pamina! My sister thinks it's a shame it didn't get turned into a secondary school rather than a primary school as she has a lot of fond memories of the teachers.

Congratulations, that's wonderful news!