Hannah goes to Orchestra club at school on Wednesday lunchtimes.
The club used to last for half an hour leaving Hannah free to enjoy a hot school dinner in the other 30 minutes of her lunch hour.
This term though things changed and it was decided that Orchestra club should last for the full lunch hour. Children were told they would need to bring a packed lunch which they could eat during the first ten minutes of the hour.
Hannah ate only a fraction of her packed lunch today; she's quite a slow eater. From a health perspective slow eating is good. Everyone should chew food a lot and take time over meals; it aids digestion and helps to control appetite and weight gain. Clearly though, when only ten minutes is available for lunch, speed is everything.
On seeing that Hannah didn't eat all of her lunch, the teacher running the Orchestra club told Hannah to ask me to give her less food in her lunch box. Or, if that wasn't an option, to ask the teacher of the first lesson after lunch to allow Hannah to eat while the register is being taken.
So, when an artificial limit on the time available for eating lunch means that Hannah can't finish her food, the solution is to reduce the quantity of food.
Is it just me, or is that a kind of twisted, weird logic that doesn't take into account the welfare of the child?
No comments:
Post a Comment