parents outraged that school pet lamb is to be slaughtered

[wannaBe]

here

Think the head has the right idea tbh, although not quite sure how my ds would react...

Maybe the head should have made it clear form the outset this is what she was planning for the sheep and any other animals.

Having a pet rabbit and then eating it for tea is different from rearing pigs with the sole purpose of sending them off for bacon one day.

Do we know that she didn't make it clear. The vote was whether it went to slaughter now or later.
They had been doing projects on it all year I'm sure they would have talked about what was going to happen to it.

Also the whole pet lamb is such a media thing, its a 3 year old wether.

Well, I'm all with the head.

I just wish more heads had the guts to do things like this, but with all this media attention, I wonder if other schools iwth be put off.

During the miners' strike, some friends of ours were in huge difficulty. Eventually they decided they had to eat the pet rabbit. Didn't tell their little boy, who tucked in merrily - but neither parent, knowing it was Snowy, could actually face eating what was on their plate. Even though they were genuinely short of food. (I know there was help from the Union, but even so. I'm not sure whether they were too proud to accept charity, tbh).

edam - yes they were short of food and there was also a brick through the window if anyone dared break the strike. I met a young miner at the time doing cash in hand work delivering straw from my Dads farm with a wife and new baby to support. He was not in favour of the strike and terrified to say anything.

We used to eat the lambs that we reaised, my brother did the same with his children. With the head on this, children need to know where there meat comes from. I remember asking a 6 year old once where milk comes from, he said from the supermarket, didn't know where it came from before then.

our school have a pet tortoise, no plans to boil him up in a stew that i know of......

but seriously, I live 20mins from Lydd, there are sheep EVERYWHERE round here, it is part of life. No issue.

tis awful that our kids don't know where their burgers and nuggets come from.

I happened to read about it in the Daily Mail today, not a paper that I generally read,and the fuss!! It was built up out of all proportion, with people in the media offering to save it as if no one ever ate lamb!
It seemed to me that the school is in the middle of a farming community, people had bought raffle tickets and were looking forward to a nice piece of lamb.
I think that the mistake that the Head made was not to explain why they were raising it in the first place, and then it would have been better not to have given it a name.
Those who were complaining that their DCs were having nightmares about it should have done a much better job explaining why there are sheep all around the village in the first place! (I bet many of the parents complaining, eat meat but like to forget that it was once running around).

Message withdrawn

What a wonderful sounding school!

So long as it is handled well and sensitively then I totally agree with the Head Teacher. I think they are exactly the right age for it too!

Like some others I am veggie, because when I found out very young (ie before 2years) where meat came from I simply couldn't stomach it much to my parents confusion :-). BUT I think I was unusual in that and the various life lessons that these children will be learning including the moral questions that will be raised are all crucial and something too many children miss out on.

fivegomadindorset - 'We used to eat the lambs that we reaised, my brother did the same with his children.'

that sounds like your brother raises and then eats his children!

(assuming that's not what you mean!)

Good idea to raise them as meat and for the kids to know about it.

Bad idea to name the bloody thing, you should never name something you are going to eat. It messes with your head. Names are a human thing, so when you give it to something, it kind gives that thing a little bit of humanity.

My children attend this school and although I want the whole world to be vegetarian like me its not going to happen, so as my kids have chosen to eat meat I would rather they learnt that its better to eat free range organic meat thats been looked after and had a happy life, than mass produced meat raised in cruel conditions. I want them to know where their food has come from. The way this is being handled the kids are going to think its wrong to eat free range food. The whole country is being encouraged to find out where their food comes from and go free range yet a few people have made our school look bad for it. The whole junior school were asked again this week and they all still chose to send the sheep (Who incidentally was never called Marcus but Market) to market. It is a very small minority who have started this protest one of whom actually brought raffle tickets! Now we have children who are upset that they might lose the farm they are so proud off, and are having threats to burn down our school. The children were given the option of changing their minds but refused. And as for the pet part the school has only had the lamb for 3 months the children were off for 7 weeks, and each class only spent about 10 mins a week with the sheep. It is the ignorance of the handful of parents here that condones intensive and battery farming, with all the associated issues of animal welfare, drugs and disease . I know which I'd rather my children were involved in!

well said Candyfloss

It is nice to hear it from someone involved candyfloss-and very refreshing to have a vegetarian with realistic views. I thought that it was bound to have been blown out of all proportion by the media.
My secondary school did it for years with not a single voice of protest.
I can't understand how people can see farm animals with their children and not explain why they are kept. I equally can't understand how they can serve up chicken, sausages, fish-you name it- without saying what it is!
The reality is that the majority of people eat meat-getting all sentimental and coy about where it comes from is ridiculous. There is only an excuse in doing that if you are going to turn vegetarian.

Thanks for posting, Candy. And I agree with you - as a veggie with a non-veggie child, I would like him to appreciate where meat comes from and the importance of animal welfare.

He wants to go out rabbiting with his uncle but I think it'll be a fair few years before I allow him near any guns!

Hi Piscesmoon there are a couple of secondary schools here that do the same thing and no parents have a problem, I fear it it just a handful wanting their 5 mins of fame! If their children came home a bit upset some explanation and some TLC and it would have been over with, but the whole hoo ha they have caused must have made it 10 times worse for their children and the rest of the school children who now feel as if they have done something wrong with the choice that they made.

Hi Edam I know how you feel my partner will go out and bring dinner home (Strange mix with a vegetarian I know but we work together somehow) I have 5 children and allowed the eldest 3 who are meat eaters to go with him. I said they could also say while he prepared the duck for their dinner. I was so secretly hoping they would turn their backs on meat, but alas they came home and helped him cook the damn thing for dinner!

I think that you are a great role model for your DCs Candyfloss, you quietly get on with being a vegetarian and they may follow your example in time-it is much better than giving them a load of emotional stuff about 'dead flesh'. I think that people should bring up their DCs with the diet they eat themselves, but accept that their DC might not agree. I don't think that is too bad if the parents who complained were vegetarians, but I very much suspect that they get their meat packaged in supermarkets and try and forget that it was skipping around before it got there!
No one would have even thought of complaining at my school-it was a rural area and they understood that it was the whole point of keeping the animals.
I don't see how the school could have afforded to keep it until it died of old age-or afforded the vet's bills. I suppose they could have given it to a local farm and drawn a veil over what would have happened on the farm-I think it much better to be honest -most country children would know anyway.

Very well put Candyfloss - I hope that the farm continues to thrive. You sound like a very balanced mum!

Candyfloss-you are the voice of reason.I salute you!

Thanks Guys there is now a petition to remove our wonderful head who has turned our school around in 9 months. Started by someone the other end of the country and signed mainly by people from other countries tho not surprisingly by only a couple from the school. I have have had one very upset DD here today and is it because Market the lamb was sent to market?? No its because she feels that the whole country is against her school and her teacher she loves so much, and because It was the children who made the decision they feel like the country feels like they have done something wrong All because of media untruths grrr. Press outside the school all day again (I'll be glad when I can leave the house without lippy on again he he) The teachers are receiving anonymous threats against them from animal rights activists its awful! They are all wonderful and care so much about the children its not fair on them.

for those who do not know, Market was slaughtered at the weekend(local news still calling him Marcus though, twits)

Candy, what an absolute disgrace that there is a petition against your head. The world is indeed mad.

our kids need to be brought up aware of the food industry, and if they choose to eat meat, to be responsible consumers buying quality meat ethically raised - instead of buying cheapo sausages and nuggest all the time.

as you will no doubt know candy, our local kids rare breeds farm started selling their own meat a while ago, which I thought was a bit oddd, but then they explain that having a market for the meat means the breeds will not die out. And they are raised in a lovely environment, not intensively reared

and the sausages are scrummy!

I read today that one of the parents is getting legal advice to sue the school for the distress caused to her daughter. I reckon the daughter would be better off sueing her mum for being such a twat. Hope she loses.

Perhaps if the girl's mother hadn't been such a sensatialist harridan her dd might have been able to handle it better.

Candy this reminds me of that story about the school near Rotherham that became famous because, as the press had it, parents were pushing pie and chips through the railings rather than let their children eat the new healthy-style school dinners. That was utter bollocks too. The real story involved a new shorter lunchbreak making it difficult for everyone to be served during the first few days while eveyone got used to it, and a lot of students buying tuna salad sandwiches from the shop over the road while the new arrangements settled down. But much better to pillory ignornt chip-eating northerners, regardless of the truth.

I guess the best you can do is shield your DD from the media and use this as an example to show her that what you read in the papers isn't necessarily true.