'It's madness!' Nick Ferrari blasts school where kids eat mash with their hands
9 December 2020, 10:14 | Updated: 9 December 2020, 10:18
'This is madness' - pupils set to eat school food with fingers
"It's nuts" - This is the moment Nick Ferrari blasted a school which is serving pupils mash potato but making them eat it with their hands.
A primary school has been accused of treating children ‘like animals’ after banning cutlery over coronavirus fears and telling them to eat hot food with their fingers.
Nick Ferrari branded the move "madness" when he heard that pupils at Edgar Stammers Primary were served Yorkshire pudding with mash and gravy in a bag.
Reading out a list of the food which was being served to pupils, sans cutlery, Nick noted they were eating "pasta, Yorkshire pudding, and mash potato... With your fingers? And you're a child? This is madness."
Citing one mother at the school, the parent said her children were being treated like animals.
Georgina Fensome, 28, whose two children are in years three and five, told the Daily Telegraph: "I think they have treated our children like animals. How can they expect them to eat a dinner without a knife and fork — it’s a basic human right."
Managers at the academy-run school in Walsall, West Midlands, said they have stopped issuing youngsters with knives, forks and even plates over fears of spreading the virus.
Nick told his LBC listeners, both hot and cold lunches are delivered to each class in the ‘grab bags’ and pupils wash their hands before and after eating.
"It's nuts, isn't it?"
'They go to Scotland and this is how Nicola Sturgeon responds?'
University of Wolverhampton Multi Academy Trust told LBC that the school wants to give pupils hot meals but it has to be ‘finger food’ under the Covid policy.
The trust said: "Our schools have increased hygiene measures throughout the day and pupils wash their hands before and after meals.
"We have ensured that we keep our children safe by limiting the use of hard utensils which may spread the virus, and continue to monitor the situation following all available guidance.
"We cannot transport plates, hot food and utensils around schools safely, as some have steps, nor can we keep that food at the required temperatures to serve it.
"Therefore we have chosen to provide brown bag, picnic lunches in classrooms. These consist of healthy choices, devised with our caterers. "
