9-Year-Old Who Changed School Lunches Silenced By Politicians

The wired article makes it sound like the girl was a political activist trying to force a change in the school lunch program. But if you read her blog, the photos of lunches look pretty good and her "reviews" are mostly positive. It almost struck me that people with agendas are projecting onto this girl's blog, which doesn't seem to be intended to be controversial at all, rather just a chronicle of her lunches - including how many mouthfuls of food each meal contains as well as the color of the wristband needed to get your lunch that particular day! I don't know why the school shut her down, it certainly was not a negative reflection on their lunch program at all.<p>This did make me remember my school lunch days - basically tv dinners served in aluminum foil tins. I would have loved to have these lunches instead of the crap we had to eat!<p>Here's one of her typical reviews "Today's Shepherd's Pie was really nice. The mash on top was really creamy and the mince was in lovely gravy. I wonder where their meat comes from. The salad was lovely and crunchy. The cake looked really difficult to serve because the icing was so sticky. I saved my melon until last and it was a great way to end my lunch. Food-o-meter - 9/10, Mouthfuls - 32"

Argyll and Bute council have a website. It appears to be down at the moment. (<a href="http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/" rel="nofollow">http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/</a>)<p>I wanted to know how many CCTV cameras they have. We in the UK are a heavily monitored population (here's a frustratingly thin article with a few details, hinting at a rich data set that is not made available. (<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8159141.stm" rel="nofollow">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8159141.stm</a>) ) It's bizarre that her tax money (as a child she doesn't pay much, but she will pay VAT on a few items and her parents certainly pay taxes) is used to provide state surveillance and to prevent her photographic record of her dinners.<p>There are many reasons to prevent children taking phones and cameras to school. This reason is a really really stupid reason.<p>How wrong-headed it is to take active measures against a child who is showing an interest in writing; civics; nutrition; and so on.<p>EDIT: The father has appeared on BBC Radio 4's "Today" news programme. (about 7:20 for anyone 'listening again'.) He has said that the school has been very supportive, and that the decision was taken by the council. He sounds pretty balanced about it. We crush the joy of learning out of children.

Everyone seems to assume that the local council actually have the right to forbid a child taking photographs of her own property (in this case her lunch that she has just bought). Is that really so?<p>Even if the school should have some capability to issue its own strange rules and by-laws, contrary to the common law applying outside, should this not be up to the Governors Board?<p>We all far too readily acquiesce, at our own cost, to arbitrary orders by 'authorities', assuming that they have powers over our lives which often they don't have or should not have.

Maybe she could <i>draw</i> lunches ... then take photos of drawings and post them. There would be a short caption under each photo, saying that the actual photos are not available due to the council policy.<p>Win-win: keep on doing what you love <i>and</i> learn to draw!

Unbanned?<p>Latest statement from the school.<p><a href="http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/news/2012/jun/statement-school-meals-argyll-and-bute-council?utm_source=feedburner&#38;utm_medium=twitter&#38;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ArgyllAndButeCouncilNewsFeed+%28Argyll+and+Bute+Council+News+Feed%29" rel="nofollow">http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/news/2012/jun/statement-school...</a><p><i>Statement on school meals from Argyll and Bute Council Published Date: 15 Jun 2012 - 10:53 Updated: 14:19 - 15 June 2012<p>Statement from Cllr Roddy McCuish, Leader of Argyll and Bute Council<p>"There is no place for censorship in this Council and never will be whilst I am leader. I have advised senior officers that this Administration intends to clarify the Council's policy position in regard to taking photos in schools. I have therefore requested senior officials to consider immediately withdrawing the ban on pictures from the school dining hall until a report can be considered by Elected Members. This will allow the continuation of the "Neverseconds" blog written by an enterprising and imaginative pupil, Martha Payne which has also raised lots of money for charity.<p>But we all must also accept that there is absolutely no place for the type of inaccurate and abusive attack on our catering and dining hall staff, such as we saw in one newspaper yesterday which considerably inflamed the situation. That, of course, was not the fault of the blog, but of the paper.<p>We need to find a united way forward so I am going to bring together our catering staff, the pupils, councillors and council officials - to ensure that the council continues to provide healthy, nutrious and attractive school meals. That "School Meals Summit" will take place later this summer.<p>I will also meet Martha and her father as soon as I can, along with our lead councillor on Education, Michael Breslin to seek her continued engagement, along with lots of other pupils, in helping the council to get this issue right. By so doing Martha Payne and her friends will have had a strong and lasting influence not just on school meals, but on the whole of Argyll &#38; Bute."</i>

Argyll and Bute Council have reversed their decision.<p><a href="http://audioboo.fm/boos/847428-argyll-and-bute-council-reverse-neverseconds-camera-ban#TWEET160064" rel="nofollow">http://audioboo.fm/boos/847428-argyll-and-bute-council-rever...</a><p>(Around 1:30)<p>Also in good news, her charity appeal has gone from just under £3,000 this morning to over £20,000 (against a target of £7,000).

I understand that having pictures of the food is probably going to get the point across even more, but I don't understand why she didn't just continue to blog about the horrible lunches and put a sketch or something. Imagine if she has just kept on blogging without the pictures like nothing ever happened. That would have sent a pretty powerful message to those people that <i>tried</i> to shut her up.

Update:<p>"A council has overturned a ban which prevented British schoolgirl Martha Payne from posting pictures of her school dinners on her blog Neverseconds."<p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9333975/Victory-for-Martha-Payne-as-Argyll-and-Bute-council-backs-down-on-school-dinner-blog-ban.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9333975/V...</a>

Legally, isn't school property, public property? That means, that she is therefore allowed to take pictures in public places, right?

"Veritas Ex Gustu" ... but who knows Latin?<p>I love her light-heartedness and wish I still had mine. And does anyone else think of Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" when reading the title of her blog ("Never Seconds")? I keep hearing "Please sir, I want some more" in my head.<p>I'm certainly glad to have kids like this in the world ... she's made more of a difference already than most of us will in our life-times. She's just passed the 35,000 pound mark for donations to Mary's Meals, feeding 3500 children for a year. Wow!

Why doesn't the school just start its own meal photo blog. That would actually be a great way to publish the daily menu. Photos instead of just text.<p>If they think the girl is deliberately presenting unappealing selections, they should present some more appealing ones as a counterpoint.

There's an interesting analysis here of the local council and the problems they've had with social networks before:<p><a href="http://edinburgheye.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/school-dinners-spygate/" rel="nofollow">http://edinburgheye.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/school-dinners-...</a>

This will not end well for the council.

What would happen if she just carried on doing it?

Honestly, that food looks quite a bit better than my school offered. There are some nutritionally-very-questionable combinations occasionally, but by and large they seem among the more reasonable options I tend to see.<p>Which, yes, is terrifying. More focus on the crap we feed our kids is fantastic.

Martha wins!<p>Follow the same link above and you'll see there are updates to Wired's original article. Thank you Argyll and Bute Council ... and you've shown the kids that it's okay to admit you were wrong and to take action to rectify what you've done.

Honestly, this was the sort of response I was expecting the first time that this story was posted -- not the Cinderella story of a positive change within two weeks. I guess the bureaucracy over there took a while to boot..

There should be some law that should state that if you can be at some place you can have a camera and take photos from that place of whatever you like and no one should be able to forbid you that or require a fee.

<i>NeverSeconds blogger Martha Payne school dinner photo ban overturned</i><p>Looks like the ban has been overturned.<p>A victory for free speech and common sense!

Perhaps they think it will be difficult to "raise" the chocolate ration to 20 grams per week if the kids are taking pictures of it every day?

And the response from Argyll and Bute<p><a href="http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/news/2012/jun/statement-school-meals-argyll-and-bute-council" rel="nofollow">http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/news/2012/jun/statement-school...</a><p><i>Argyll and Bute Council wholly refutes the unwarranted attacks on its schools catering service which culminated in national press headlines which have led catering staff to fear for their jobs. The Council has directly avoided any criticism of anyone involved in the ‘never seconds’ blog for obvious reasons despite a strongly held view that the information presented in it misrepresented the options and choices available to pupils however this escalation means we had to act to protect staff from the distress and harm it was causing. In particular, the photographic images uploaded appear to only represent a fraction of the choices available to pupils, so a decision has been made by the council to stop photos being taken in the school canteen.<p>There have been discussions between senior council staff and Martha’s father however, despite an acknowledgement that the media coverage has produced these unwarranted attacks, he intimated that he would continue with the blog.<p>The council has had no complaints for the last two years about the quality of school meals other than one from the Payne family received on 6 June and there have been no changes to the service on offer since the introduction of the blog.<p>Pupils have a daily choice of two meals from a menu which is designed with pupils, parents and teachers. Our summer menu is about to be launched and includes main course choices like meat or vegetarian lasagne served with carrots and garlic bread or chicken pie with puff pastry, mashed potato and mixed vegetables.<p>Pupils can choose from at least two meals every day. They pay £2 for two courses and this could be a starter and a main or a main and a desert. Each meal comes with milk or water. Pupils can have as much salad and bread as they want. Salad, vegetables, fruit, yoghurt and cheese options are available every day. These are standing options and are not a result of any changes in response to the blog site.<p>As part of the curriculum for excellence, pupils in all our schools are regularly taught about healthy eating and at lunch breaks staff encourage pupils to make good choices from what is on offer. We use a system called ‘Nutmeg’ to make sure everything is nutritionally balanced. Our staff also get nutrition awareness training so they know how to provide a good healthy meal. There is portion sized guidance which we adhere to and it is matched to the age of the child so they get the right amount of food. Second portions would mean too many calories for pupils.<p>In Lochgilphead Primary School we are piloting a new pre-ordering scheme which is designed to encourage class discussion around meal choices and also improves the accuracy of meal choices. The pupils use a touch screen to select their lunch option and the data is downloaded in the kitchen so they know how many portions of each meal are required. As they place their order, the pupils are given a coloured band which relates to their meal choice that day. They wear it during the morning, and at lunchtime they hand it to the catering assistant, who will give them the corresponding meal.<p>The council’s focus is now on supporting the school in the education of young people in Argyll and Bute</i>

It almost certainly wasn't 'politicians' - just overzealous local council officers.<p>And instead of using a poor secondary source, why not link to Veg's blog post - <a href="http://neverseconds.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/goodbye.html" rel="nofollow">http://neverseconds.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/goodbye.html</a>?

Seems that the politicians didn't want people telling them how to do their job, especially if it's a 9-year old doing it.

So much for that whole "you can do anything you set your mind to" bullshit they spout in most public schools (I'm assuming Scotland is the same way as in the US).<p>Funny how the powerholders are all talk until somebody puts their money where their mouth is (no pun intended). Here's to you, assholes in charge.

Martha Payne for Prime Minister!

If I were in her shoes, they wouldn't have heard the last of me by a longshot. I'd start pulling out hidden cameras, and when they caught on to that I'd show my lunch around to everyone in the school during lunch...one of whom has a hidden camera and will photograph the lunch.<p>Once they start taking disciplinary action is when I get others to start blogs and post pictures. If for no other reason than because I'd have a damn good time doing it.