Meatballs off school menu amid choking fears (From Tewkesbury Admag)

Meatballs off school menu amid choking fears

MEATBALLS have been booted off the menu at a north Cotswold school for fear that children may choke on them.

Rebecca Scutt, headteacher at Stow Primary School, has written to parents in her latest newsletter to let them know that their offspring will no longer be served up meatballs.

The decision, which was taken a couple of weeks ago, followed parental concern about reports in the national press of two children who died choking on meatballs at separate schools.

Mrs Scutt said this week: "I have asked the caterers to take meatballs off the menu and to do alternative meat dish.

"It does sound like a mountain out of a molehill but I would rather be safe than sorry," said Mrs Scutt.

"A couple of weeks ago the cook and I had a chat and decided it was not logistically possible to cut the meatballs up.

"Children are closely supervised at meal times and we are all first aid trained but they do like gobbling down the meatballs," she added.

She said the move to ban meatballs fitted in with the school's overall aim of removing all pre-prepared food from the menu in favour of food prepared from scratch in the school's kitchen.

Instead of meatballs, children will in future be offered tasty meat treats such as wraps, lasagne, spaghetti Bolognese and hot dogs.

Mrs Scutt said she had informed parents through the school newsletter.

"I think everyone can understand our reasoning," she added. "Parents are glad we take such good care of their children."

She denied the move was political correctness gone mad.

"We still have conkers here. We are very sensible at Stow," she said.

Sandra Richards, headteacher of Bledington Primary School, said that she had no plans to ban meatballs and no parents had raised concerns.

"We try to instil table manners in the children so that they use their knife and fork," said Mrs Richards.

Karen Lewis, head of Swell Primary School, said: "We don't have hot school meals on the premises."

Bob Forster at St David's School, Moreton, said the pupils bring packed lunches. "If we find that children's packed lunches have inappropriate content, such as chocolate or fizzy drinks, we do contact the parents," he said.