Schools chief pushes Big Brother out of dinner line
Gov purees fingerprints for food policy
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The government has told head teachers to lighten up after one British school told children in the dinner queue that if they didn't give their fingerprints they wouldn't get any food.
The Department for Education and Skills said this week in a statement to the BBC Radio 4 Programme You and Yours that schools who refused school dinners to kids who won't scan their fingerprints might be in breach of the law, contrasting with the long-overdue guidance note it issued on school fingerprinting in the summer.
This draconian application of fingerprint technology at Morley High School, Leeds, had forced one parent to make her child packed lunches, since the school provided no alternative way for children to get their dinner.
John Townsley, head teacher of Morley High School, told You and Yours: "We have given parents an opt out. The opt out is that you don't have to have anything to do with the system whatsoever and that you then have the responsibility as a mum, dad or carer to provide a very healthy alternative to your child."
But the DfES said: "Schools have a legal duty to provide meals for pupils who want them. So telling concerned parents to provide pack lunches if they were unwilling to sign up to the fingerprint system, as Morley High was doing, might amount to a breach of the Education Act 2002."
However, the DfES said when it released the guidance in July that it supported schools' "freedom to run their own affairs", including whether they offered the children of dissenting parents an alternative way of getting their school dinners.
COMMENTS
Morley High School
UNBELIEVABLE
Those poor children, what a terrible situation to be in. This is "supposed " to be a civilized country.
And ALL public servants are accountable to we the tax payers, not the other way round!
My God, If this school is capable of doing something as horrendous as this, we need to ask ourselves:
What else is happening to children at Morley High School that we the tax payers need to know about?
@Jeremy Wickins
"you don't have to do it, but you are excluded from this aspect of society"
You could say the same aout a driving licence, passports.
You don't have to submit your information to the DVLA, UKPA, or anyone else. But if you don't you can't have a driving licence, passport. You don't hear people saying, "well this is ridicilus, i want to start driving a car, but they want my details. What ever happened to civil liberties?"
Stasi
This Headmaster is using Stasi tactics, it is unbelievable. I hope that Paul reports back to let us know of progress.
I wish that more parents would regain control of their kids from the State, you can't expect pupils to oppose this fingerprinting indignity alone, they need backup. If this is allowed unopposed then what other aspects of school life will be compulsory?
This reminds me of the Hurworth case a few months ago where a model pupil was banned from the school prom for declining to attend "voluntary" after school revision classes. Different schools, same type of management style.
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