Parents charged for kids to eat own packed lunches at school, says NASUWT

It has been revealed that, in some schools across the UK, parents have been charged a “sandwich tax” for their child’s packed lunch.

The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) explored the issue during their Annual Conference.

They explained that parents of both primary and secondary school children have been charged between 10p and £1.80 per day.

The money is reportedly being used to pay for "setting out and clearing away" after pupils eating their own lunch.

“Parents almost feel like they’re being fined because they haven’t gone for the school meal,” Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT said.

“Schools are justifying it by saying, ‘you’re having to be supervised to eat your lunch and therefore if you’re not having a school meal, you’ve got to contribute towards that supervision because you’ll be in the dining room, sitting there’.”

Keates added that the Government was to blame for the charges because of the squeeze in school funding.

Unless the government clearly sets out what schools can and cannot charge for, Keates added, then the number of schools charing a fee for packed lunches will only increase.

It seems as if this is a very strong possibility indeed, as The Mirror recently reported that Caerphilly council, in South Wales, were planning to charge every primary school in the borough around £2,200 a year for "setting out and clearing away" after pupils eating their own lunch.

George Osborne recently announced that all schools in England will either have to convert to academy status by 2020 or be committed to converting by 2022.

Any schools that do not meet these requirements will be forced to do so by the government using radical new powers to intervene.

Explaining how this will affect school budgets, the NASUWT explained: “The Government claims that schools will be better off because they would be able to spend money currently with the local authority on support services, etc.

“However, the academy school will still have to procure services to ensure that they continue to deliver their statutory functions.

“Given that local authorities have delegated a significant proportion of their budgets to schools, schools will be able to save very little, if any, money.

“In fact, academy schools could well have higher costs.”

Schools are also being hit by the introduction of the National Living Wage for school dinner supervisors, which has resulted in some having their hours cut to fund the rise.

However is it acceptable for schools to begin charging parents money for supervising and cleaning up after children eating a packed lunch?

Absolutely not, according to the Department of Education.

A spokesperson told the Times Education Supplement (TES):

“If schools are looking to exploit loopholes to get money out of parents we will investigate and make sure those loopholes are closed.”

Are you shocked at the new “sandwich tax” that some parents are facing? And do you think it should be brought in across all UK schools?

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