Parents have called for meat to be put back on the menu at a ‘vegetarian’ primary school where main meals include cheese and onion rolls and Quorn.
More than 100 people have signed a petition to reinstate meat offerings at Sharow School in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, which advertises itself as vegetarian.
According to current government guidance, schools should provide a portion of meat or poultry ‘on three or more days each week’ and oily fish should be served ‘once or more every three weeks’.
The only current non-vegetarian offerings at Sharrow are fish fingers, which are served every Friday, or tuna mayonnaise which is offered with a jacket potato every three weeks.
Main meals every other day feature options like cheese and onion rolls, wholemeal margherita pizzas and Quorn alternatives to mixed grills and burgers.
Emre Heald, 22, whose little sister attends the school, launched the petition to change the menu and accused the school of putting children’s health at risk.
He said: ‘My sister was coming home and saying the meat in the school wasn’t real.
‘Me and my mum were like “what do you mean the meat’s not real?” and she said “it doesn’t taste like meat, it’s not real”.’
‘After that my mum complained to the school and she was told that the school menu met the criteria – which it didn’t. Other complaints from other parents were also dismissed.’
Mr Heald says pupils have even asked him to go and buy food for them, adding: ‘A lot of the kids in the school were getting really bad stomachs, and one of the kids was going to the doctor having a bad stomach that we know.
‘He said to my mum that he thinks it’s the school meals.
‘I think it’s important, in my area some kids were asking me to buy them rice and chicken from the shop, they weren’t even asking for sweets.
‘A lot of the kids are so poor they don’t get any meals after that two meals a day at school.’
A parent of a pupil at the school, who asked not to be named, said her daughter had been waking up with stomach aches ever since the menu was changed.
The mother said: ‘I only let her have a jacket potato at school. She was having stomach ache every day, she was getting really sick.
‘Brains need fat to run, you need to eat animal fat – it’s as simple as that, I don’t care what anybody else says.
‘To remove that and just give them sugar and wheat, it’s abhorrent in my opinion.’
Campaign groups have said some schools are resorting to cutting meat from menus as part of cost-cutting measures.
At Sharrow School, 48 per cent of students are eligible for free school meals.
The current government funding rate for free school meals in England is just £2.61 per meal.
LACA, a group representing the school food industry, has called for the rate to increase to £3.16 per meal – with a recent poll by the body finding that over half of schools it surveyed had reduced meats with cheaper protein sources to cut costs.
Sharrow School said no one was available for comment when approached by .