Parents feed pupils through gates

They used to lock them in at Eton. Maybe that is the answer now.

Fredrik

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arbitrary?

Apologies for that one Adam. The original "sales@naim email" on Monday evening was the cause of my confusion. I thank you guys for affording me the opportunity to return to a state of fair mindedness.

David

When you are in a public place, doing the shopping perhaps, do you "have a quiet word" with every fat family you see to tell them the error of their ways?

If not, why not.

It's really not the duty of schoolteachers to 'care' about whether their pupils are eating correctly. They should be feeding their minds and educating them to exercise as prescribed. It's all down to bad parenting, lack of proper mealtimes, and junk food. This in turn derives from the kiddie culture we now inhabit - where parents, afraid of the sort of emotional deprivation they themselves may have suffered at the hands of repressive regimes in earlier decades, overcompensate by letting children have and eat whatever they please, which of course will be crap. Not to mention behaviour...

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When you are in a public place, doing the shopping perhaps, do you "have a quiet word" with every fat family you see to tell them the error of their ways?

If not, why not.

Interesting point Nigel, and no, I don't. The reason for me not commenting is that a.)It would be just a comment (insult) and unlikely to make any difference and b.) I have no formal long term relationship with such individuals wheras schools (teachers) do.

Depending on ones politics, you could argue that a childs 'lifestyle' is no business of the schools either. But schools have made it their business (I assume with the long term aim of keeping down health care costs). And, if the BBC can believed, will in the future not only passively attempt to affect pupils diets and health through the meals offered but also actively. (From the same BBC article)

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Parents of any obese four- or 10-year-olds can expect a letter telling them their child faces long-term health damage unless they lose weight.

I am certainly not pro nanny state or being dictated to from on high, and I cincerely hope that this 'letter' is not the sum total of this particular initiative, but the more contact (dialogue) between schools and parents the better as far as I am concerned.

/dl

I'm afraid that it still remains that women are generally the ones who look after the children. In my experience , men who take the children to school (apart from one instance I know) walk them there. Women tend to drive. When men cook for the children at weekends, they do so with fresh ingredients and make real food. Women put something in the microwave and go back to lying on the sofa. The current standard of parenting is crap. I'm sure (and hope that) my personal experience of fellow parents of young children is an unfortunate sample , but it does for me highlight a difference in the sexes. I think probably Brighton is an unfortunate sample because here people are generally young, do not adopt conventional roles, and like to feel "free". Now I'm getting older I see it as a lack of responsibility where responsibility is needed for the sake of the children. What's happening here isn't working. This is my experience and I don't expect it to represent the UK in general, as I know people in Wiltshire where they adopt very conventional roles, and those children eat properly. The more I think about it, the more I can see it is a problem with attitudes in this city specifically. It's like the green activist hippies driving 2CV's which are the most polluting cars on the planet. The freedom from convention is found to be ultimately failing the vulnerable and causing problems (sadly). I would have hoped that it would have been better that way.

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Originally posted by Rasher:
The current standard of parenting is crap.

That's because all and sundry feel they have the right to breed when they really shouldn't.

As for what kids eat, who cares? I remember feeling sick at the very sight of cauliflower or sprouts when I was young, now I could live on it. Tastes change. This idea of the government wading in to try to stop kids eating sweets would be funny if it weren't true. Fuck off and bomb some foreigners!

EW

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Originally posted by David Legge:

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When you are in a public place, doing the shopping perhaps, do you "have a quiet word" with every fat family you see to tell them the error of their ways?

If not, why not.

Interesting point Nigel, and no, I don't. The reason for me not commenting is that a.)It would be just a comment (insult) and unlikely to make any difference and b.) I have no formal long term relationship with such individuals wheras schools (teachers) do.

I think you misunderstand the role of a teacher and that of the catering staff of a school.

Teachers are there to teach the core curriculum; caterers feed staff and student.

Teachers are not there educate parents of fat kids. Nor are you, apparently.

Nigel, if we put things in boxes so that responsibility (for whatever) falls down between the cracks, then we will never get anywhere. I see schools as one entity; catering, teaching, administrative, etc. This may be wrong, nieve or whatever, but that's the way I see it. It all takes place in the same building, how it is cut up and organised/funded is really not my concern. And where is the natural line of dialogue between 'school' and home. Surely via the teachers. I am not saying that 'teachers' as individuals should educate the parents of fat kids as to how to cook, but that schools are well placed to try and make a difference. If not the schools then who? (You can run the same line of argument as far as discipline, interpersonal skills, etc.)

Like I said earlier, I think it is really sad when you see a child of primary school age or younger that is clearly overweight. This is not a choice they have made, but one that has been forced on them. Any structured support and help (NOT legislation and policing) that helps change this situation cannot be a bad thing.

/dl

Why not start with the parents rather than try to shift the responsibility/blame to teachers whom most parents consider to be state-funded child minders?

Why, if you think it so sad, don't you assume a bit of social responsibility and challenge the parents of fat kids in Mcdonalds?

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Why not start with the parents rather than try to shift the responsibility/blame to teachers ...

Exactly my point. But the question is how? I am not blaming or holding schools responsible for the situation, but surely you must agree that schools (via the various categories of employee) are well placed to make a difference if they chose to.

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... teachers whom most parents consider to be state-funded child minders?

And why is that then? My personal view is that this is down to respect; or rather lack of it. Active dialoge between teachers (schools) and parents would not hurt things. It might even raise the level of respect parents had for schools / teachers.

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Why, if you think it so sad, don't you assume a bit of social responsibility and challenge the parents of fat kids in Mcdonalds?

LOL, not my problem mate. If I worked in a school, however, I might feel different.
Not that I would "challenge" the individuals in question, that won't improve things at all. And as to heading off down to the local McD's of a lunchtime, to wave the flag, give me a break...

/dl

"Not my problem..." just about sums it up.

"Active dialoge between teachers (schools) and parents.." you don't much about parents these days.

Perhaps things are different in Sweden.

Nigel, things aren't that much different as far as 'dialogue' is concerned. The fault, I believe, resting fairly on the shoulders of the school. NOT the parents. But nothing that the school does aimed at me as a parent has really grabbed me. Easier, as you say, to drop the kids off in the morning and pick them up after. We have open evenings, PTA, and progress meetings with teacher, parent(s) and child present.

Open evenings are characterised by passivity on the part of the teachers. Loads to look at but context missing, ie why and how is the material being taught and where does this fit in with national curriculum sadly lacking. We get weekly letters, but this is at the level of sports on Tuesday and don't forget swimming Thursday.) Plenty of scope for staff to me more pro-active here.

The PTA seem unconcerned with having some kind of 'vision.' We are lucky (I believe) in that our kids are in a Montessori school (council run), but this must compete against other council schools and recently established independants. Lack of and expressed vision means that it is difficult to differentiate between what Montessori offers and other schools. (We are not limited by catchment areas, so parents and kids are more or less free to choose which school they attend.)

The progress meetings are strange things. For some reason I have never felt entirely happy afterwards. This could be the result of the Swedish 'not wanting to stand out' mentality when reporting progress, problems etc.


I don't think that there is quite the same problem (yet?) of overweight kids as suggested in the UK. When moving into infants from nursery my kids were weighed and measured by the school nurse. The form that these details were entered on also had a BMI field, but I had to prompt to get to know what this was for my kids and to have any discussion around it. There is a general awareness as far as junk food is concerned, so no vending machines in schools and reasonably healthy food. Swede's don't, as a rule, do chips; unless it's fries with a hamburger at the local fast food outlet. So school meals would probably get a half nod of approval. Having said that, 'quality', i.e. how much the kids like the food, is variable, so there is loads of scope for improvement. Dialogue between catering staff, teachers and pupils is noticable by its absence. The kids do, to my mind, a reasonable amount of sports etc. on school. And are encouraged to be out and about at breaks. Cycle, cross country skiing or skating trips are a reasonably regular feature. Lots of kids cycle to/from school; one of the advantages of living in a small town with a good number of cycle tracks in residential areas.

All in all, I am not unhappy with the situation, but there is massive scope for raising the bar. I feel certain that the same is true in the UK.

/dl