Christmas party food and fizzy drinks were banned at a primary school determined to stick to its healthy lifestyle message to children and their parents.

Cakes, crisps, biscuits and Coca-Cola were not allowed to be brought in by the 400-plus children at Charlton Manor primary school on Friday (December 18), the last day of school before the Christmas holiday.

“We do have food on our Christmas party day, it’s called school dinners,” said Headteacher Tim Baker. “As a school, we do not encourage unhealthy eating. There’s no point in having this message throughout the year and then allowing it to be ignored for one day, we’ve got to stick to what we believe in.”

Mr Baker was grilled by his own school news team, who asked him if the ban was fair. He told the 10 and 11-year-olds: “Is it fair that I’m preventing children from over-indulging in food that is going to affect their health later in life, including obesity and type 2 diabetes? I think it’s not only fair but crucial.

“We know children are likely to eat lots of unhealthy food, chocolate, biscuits, crisps and fizzy drinks during the two weeks of Christmas but what I’m saying is we do not need it during school time.

“We’ve had only two or three parents asking why the children can’t have unhealthy food and why we are stopping the parties. We’re certainly not stopping the parties, we’re just stopping the unhealthy food. Far more parents tell me they did not want their children to be eating unhealthily and they used to worry about the amount of junk food their child consumed at school parties.”

Pupils, who were allowed to wear Christmas themed jumpers if they donated to the Text Santa Charity, took part in games and activities in the morning session and enjoyed a whole-school Pantomime in the afternoon.

Charlton Manor has a national reputation for its emphasis on healthy lifestyles, they recently featured in Jamie Oliver’s documentary ‘Sugar Rush’ as the leading school in teaching food education and healthy approaches. Their two full-time professional chefs deliver many aspects of the curriculum through cookery and the school, in Indus Road, holds an annual Food Education Conference that attracts celebrity chefs, schools and health professionals from all over the country.

Flavio Hernandez, who creates the Food for Life Gold Standard school meals, was voted schools’ chef of the year in a regional competition after just one year in the job at Charlton Manor.

“The purpose of a school is to educate children for the future and our teachers do this very well as our results show, we deliver the curriculum using creativity, new technologies, cookery and by learning about healthy lifestyles,” said Mr Baker.

“I’m trying to stop our children relating unhealthy food with good times and fun. I’m trying to get across to them that parties don’t have to have chocolate, fizzy drinks and fatty foods to make them fun – we certainly achieved that this year and I think other schools will start to follow our lead on this.”

Mr Baker agreed that parents had been generous in providing party food in recent years, but added: “We’re not going to celebrate Christmas here through unhealthy food and drinks because I don’t think that is what school should be about.

“We’ve all had a fantastic day of fun, games and Panto, and we’ve also had healthy nutritious food in the form of our school dinners.”