News daily Metro reported that Aureus School, in Didcot, Oxfordshire, also said all pupils and staff must eat together in the canteen, and are not allowed to bring their own lunch.
On the school’s website, it states: “What we eat is a key influencer on our performance.” Reiterating the Halal kitchen policy, the document states this is to “celebrate the diversity of our country’s culture” despite banning all non-religious meat.
British schoolchildren at Aureus will only have the option of halal, executive head teacher Hannah Wilson said, because “food education closes the poverty gap and delicious, nutritious should be a universal entitlement”.
Wilson, herself obese, explained that halal meat would contribute to health and food education. “With all of the headlines about food banks and obesity, we are preparing our students for healthy lifestyles in the future.”
A white British father, who wanted to remain anonymous, called the rules “draconian”. He said the school held extreme views. “We are thinking of taking her [our daughter] out of the school – it’s getting silly and more like a dictatorship. Their views are quite extreme.
“It’s about choice. It’s supposed to be an inclusive school but they are only catering for one particular religion.”
He said the school’s announcement suggested that pupils did not otherwise get a sit-down meal at home, and only ate unhealthy food, calling it “absolutely insulting”.
According to the father, he had tried to get the religious rules changed since September but had been unsuccessful.
In 2013 a Government-backed report compiled by the founders of restaurant chain Leon encouraged headteachers to ban packed lunches.
Heavily involved in Leon, is co-investor David Dimbleby, the veteran BBC newscaster, leading the government-commissioned enquiry into school food. Both were awarded the MBE for services rendered.
South African businessman Vivian Imerman, 62, is currently in charge of London investment operation Vasari, “which has a holding in Leon, the restaurant chain co-founded by David Dimbleby’s son Henry”.
One of Britain’s foremost veterinarians told The Week that white Britons were inadvertently eating meat from animals slaughtered while they are still conscious, or halal meat.
Lord Trees, a former president of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, said that with the sharp rise in the number of sheep and poultry being killed in accordance with halal practice, means this meat has entered the “standard” food chain.
He has called for an urgent change in the law in the House of Lords. “Does the minister agree with me that in that aspect of animal welfare we are going backwards?”
According to Al Jazeera eight of the 10 largest suppliers of global halal meat are non-Muslim majority countries, with Brazil, Australia and India in the top three.