Schools should be nurturing compassion and critical thinking – not normalising animal suffering. Yet across the UK, schools are keeping farmed animals like pigs, sheep, cows and chickens to show children “where meat comes from” – only to send these animals to slaughter. This causes deep distress to children, fosters confusion about our relationship with animals and promotes harmful misinformation about farming.
The reality is that 85 per cent of UK farmed animals are confined to factory farms – nothing like the idealised image shown in schools. Meanwhile, meat and dairy consumption is linked to serious diseases, and animal farming is a major driver of climate change and wildlife loss.
Encouraging children to befriend animals only to betray that bond is cruel – and it teaches the wrong lessons.
Please sign our petition calling on the Secretary of State for Education to ban this outdated, harmful practice. Let’s teach children kindness, not cruelty.
Your voice matters. Let’s take action for health and informed choice.
