Vent - New primary school headmistress.

JimmyTheWig

Azari wrote: »

There is something completely perverse about banning totally sugarless carbonated water but allowing sugar laden fruit drinks.

If someone is inspecting the bottles to check for banned fizziness then they could equally well check the sugar content and make an exception for water.

The problem for children is the sugar, not the CO2. Quite honestly, this headmistress sounds dangerously ignorant.

My point is that the drink in the bottle may well not be what is on the label. In our case, certainly, we try to re-use bottles. So we may have pure apple juice in a Fruit Shoot bottle, Ribena in a pure orange juice bottle or flavoured water in a Disney Store flask-style bottle.
Checking for fizzyness is easy.
Checking for sugar level isn't.

Azari

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

My point is that the drink in the bottle may well not be what is on the label. In our case, certainly, we try to re-use bottles. So we may have pure apple juice in a Fruit Shoot bottle, Ribena in a pure orange juice bottle or flavoured water in a Disney Store flask-style bottle.
Checking for fizzyness is easy.
Checking for sugar level isn't.

The point is, though, that virtually all drinks that are given to children are saturated with sugar (including pure fruit juice) except pure or carbonated water.

So in this case the banning/checking is doing nothing but preventing children having one of the very few drinks that is not laden with sugar.

It's completely pointless and is an example of "Something must be done - this is something - we're doing it".

It's a stupid policy that will appeal to people who have no real knowledge of nutrition and food composition.

meer53

My daughters school banned fizzy drinks too, i fully agree with them. I've seen a bottle of lemonade which was dropped explode, and shards of glass lacerate a friends childs leg very badly. She needed stitches followed by plastic surgery. I know these days that bottles are usually plastic, but it's still dangerous.

Azari

meer53 wrote: »

My daughters school banned fizzy drinks too, i fully agree with them. I've seen a bottle of lemonade which was dropped explode, and shards of glass lacerate a friends childs leg very badly. She needed stitches followed by plastic surgery. I know these days that bottles are usually plastic, but it's still dangerous.

If that's their reasoning they should be banning glass bottles, not preventing people with cans and plastic bottles drinking what they want.

Any glass bottle can cause injury if it shatters, so this is yet another case of some idiot picking the wrong thing to ban.

Allow still drinks in glass bottles that can shatter but ban fizzy drinks in cans, which can't.

The stupidity gets ever worse.

JimmyTheWig

Azari wrote: »

The point is, though, that virtually all drinks that are given to children are saturated with sugar (including pure fruit juice) except pure or carbonated water.

I agree, though would argue that despite its (natural) sugar content, pure fruit juice is very good for you.

So in this case the banning/checking is doing nothing but preventing children having one of the very few drinks that is not laden with sugar.

Are you suggesting that they should allow coke and lemonade rather than banning fizzy water?
Presumably we're talking primary school here, I can't remember. In which case I don't think coke and lemonade are appropriate.
I can't see many people wanting to bring in fizzy water, so I would say it is a sacrifice worth making.


[But I agree with you abuot the glass bottle issue. Glass bottles, regardless of contents, aren't appropriate in lunchboxes these days.]

Azari

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

I agree, though would argue that despite its (natural) sugar content, pure fruit juice is very good for you.

Indeed. I'm not saying that fruit juice is bad, just that it's beyond stupid, when trying to cut down sugar consumption, to allow something that does contain sugar whilst banning something that doesn't.

Are you suggesting that they should allow coke and lemonade rather than banning fizzy water?

No, of course not.

All fizzy water sold nowadays is in sealed bottles. If the seal is intact then the contents of the bottle are what they originally were.

There is no reason for anyone to ban water as part of a general ban on fizzy drinks.

sillygoose

Sounds like a great school now to me, our school has many of the same policies. Tummy bugs spread through schools like wildfire affecting kids and staff, often caused by parents sending kids in too soon after having one. If 1 kid says their tummy doesn't feel right get them sent home ASAP.

We have just had one go round due to someone sending a kid in unwell so they could go to work, consequence was my wife and I had to take nearly a week off work alternate days as my son got it very bad. Of course so did many other parents too.

Fizzy drinks are rarely good in any way, suppress healthy appetite and make kids more likely to be sick running around, then your left with the problem is it Tango or Gastroenteritis.

Pencil cases - not bothered.

Being on time is a fact of life, best to learn it now. Our school gives end of term prizes for attendance, not fair to those that always play by the rules if others who push it a bit and are late get it too.

DiJones

Taught over 35 years in a primary school. I found that very few children ate the contents of their own boxes as swapping items was the done thing. So if a child liked fruit they probably had lots of the healthy bits from the others, and lovingly prepared home-made cakes were not in as much demand as jammy dodgers. Bizarrely banana sandwiches scored very highly.
So, there is very little staff can do to monitor what is eaten, as opposed to what started off in the lunch box.

We banned fizzy drinks mainly because of their explosive nature. Oh what fun it is to secretly shake up another's drink and then watch the results when opened. But also the additives were not considered healthy and could contribute to hyperactivity. Fruit drinks, agreed they contain sugar, were thought better.

Slowhand

Our local school had the Inspectors in a couple of years ago and they had a bee in their bonnet about the vending machines containing unhealthy items. Basically they wanted everything removed except water. What did they request at the tea break for themselves? Bacon butties and choc. biccies!

JimmyTheWig

Azari wrote: »

All fizzy water sold nowadays is in sealed bottles. If the seal is intact then the contents of the bottle are what they originally were.

I would imagine that it would be much better value to buy a big (1.5l?) bottle of fizzy water and decant into lunch-box-sized bottles than to buy it pre-packed in that size.
Are you saying that only children whose parents can afford to buy the small bottles of fizzy water should be allowed it?
And are you saying that lunch staff should have to check that a bottle is sealed before a child is allowed to open it?

Whenever there are rules there are going to be legitimate situations that fall foul of the rules. It is unavoidable.
What would be ideal is if there were no rules and all parents sent their children in with appropriate lunches. But where there are no rules that isn't what happens in practice.
I think a rule of "no fizzy drinks" is not ideal but it is a simple rule that works most of the time.