Article from the South Wales Echo

Calls to ban children from leaving schools at lunchtime by Cardiff West MP and schools minister for England, Kevin Brennan, have provoked mixed reactions.

Urging schools to consider a ban in order to stop children buying chips, fizzy drinks and other unhealthy food in their lunch breaks has provoked both support and concern from many sides.

Though intended to help increase uptake of healthy school lunches and improve behaviour and community relationships, teachers organisations have expressed concern that "lock-in's" may breach pupil's civil liberties. 

Parents were more generally in favour of the idea - encouraging the uptake of healthier meals provided in schools and also on safety gounds by ensuring that their children were within the more secure school grounds at lunchtimes.

In both England and Wales it is up to individual schools to decide whether they allow children out at lunchtime.In practice, many strongly encourage students to stay in school but do not have strict rules to keep kids in.

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What do you think? Is the idea a good one? Is it better to leave it up to individual schools or to have a blanket policy across all schools?