Parents are criticizing a brand new vegetarian school in Oxford, UK for banning kids from bringing packed lunches or consuming meat or fish, forcing some kids to go house “very hungry.”
The new secondary Swan School in Summertown, Oxford, opened to 100 college students on Monday. It boasts a very vegetarian canteen and doesn’t permit kids to deliver lunch from house, leaving them with no different however to eat the sizzling meal on provide.
While the school does provide some meat and fish choices throughout snack time, lunches are strictly vegetarian. The coverage has left dad and mom complaining that their kids are coming house from school hungry due to the dearth of selection.
“The solely factor about this school is the vegetarian food – my daughter got here house in the present day very hungry,” one mom told the Oxford Mail.
“I’ve heard that a number of kids have been very hungry as effectively – there needs to be choice [SIC] at time for dinner [to] eat meat, I’ve by no means identified a school to be like this,” the guardian added.
The Swan School’s headteacher, Kay Wood, mentioned dad and mom have been made conscious of the vegetarian coverage prior to admission. Wood claimed the rule permits the school to serve higher high quality meals for a similar value, makes an environmental influence, and is inclusive of all faiths.
“Most importantly, it permits college students of all faiths and completely different dietary necessities to eat collectively,” she mentioned
Wood additionally denied that the coverage is an try to make college students vegetarian or disgrace those that eat meat. She additionally burdened that the packed-lunch ban just isn’t to keep away from meat, however to pressure college students and employees to eat their food collectively.
School lunch campaigner and movie star chef Jamie Oliver praised the new-age strategy to feeding college students. Oliver told the Herald Scotland that meat-free faculties are “a brilliant idea” including that it “would save a great deal of cash.”