Ms Aidine O'Reilly:

I thank Deputy Mitchell for her compliment about Super Troopers. I agree with her that it has always been in the plan to have a junior, intermediate and senior journal. Unfortunately, the budget is not there at the moment but it is definitely something where we have tons of ideas about what we could do for fifth and sixth class that would be more age-appropriate. In the teachers' guidelines, we ask teachers to pitch up the senior materials but it something about which we would agree with the Deputy.

As a former teacher, I think there would be push back on the idea of an annual weighing, measurement of BMI and a waist check of children. It would have to be done very sensitively because most children know they are overweight. Most adults would know they are also overweight. First of all, it is awkward to bring this knowledge to a parent's attention. Often, a teacher is met with "so what?" and "what now?" so that is an issue. It would need to be done sensitively and be very normative and very much part of the school framework so that this is just something every school does, nobody is being singled out and there is no need for any child to feel uncomfortable, worry about it weeks or days beforehand and be embarrassed in front of their peers.