School apologises after ‘prison food’ Christmas lunch goes viral on social media

The school offered a refund when photos of the meal went viral on social media

A school in West Sussex has apologised after images of an unappetising Christmas lunch went viral on social media.

Steyning Grammar School and Sixth Form College said it would refund the cost of the meal as parents complained that the food was not worth the £ 3.50 they had been charged.

The students were served a white bap topped with a slice of turkey and a single pig-in-blanket, along with a rectangle of stuffing and a shop-bought mince pie.

Ciaran Walsh, whose two daughters attend the school, took to Twitter to share a photograph of the meal taken by his eldest daughter. In his tweet to Bohunt Education Trust, which runs the school, he wrote: “Thanks for the Christmas lunch served to our kids at Steyning Grammar yesterday, really filled them with festive cheer!”

Mr Walsh, 46, said his daughter only ate the mince pie.

“The impression I got was that most of this stuff went in the bin. For most of the kids, there was this sense of disbelief that that’s what they got," he was quoted by The Guardian as saying.

He added: “You want your kids to have the best and Christmas is a time when a special meal is part of that, and this wasn’t special in the right way."

Another parent, Melanie Leogue, told the Mid Sussex Times that the children "had nothing last year and it's a shame the school did not make more of an effort for them as they have had it so tough".

People commenting online slammed the school and compared the festive meal to “disgusting prison-style looking food”.

The school initially defended the meal claiming “the overall feedback from students was that they really enjoyed it". But later, once Mr Walsh’s Twitter post went viral, the school said it would “unreservedly apologise for this situation” and offered a refund.

"As you might be aware, the Christmas lunch menu yesterday was not of the standard that we would want or expect at SGS. Due to a combination of unforeseen supply chain issues and Covid related staffing shortages, our planned offer was affected at very short notice," associate headteacher Natasha Nicol said in a letter to parents.

Among those responding to the image were Conservative MP Will Quince, who said of the quality of food: “This is clearly not acceptable.

“We expect all schools, including academies, to comply with our mandatory School Food Standards that promote a healthy, balanced diet – not just at Christmas but all year,” he wrote on Twitter.