15178/3GAZETTE & HERALD: SIX-year-old John Godridge was forced to go without his favourite yoghurt two days in a row when his school ran out of spoons.

John returned to his home in Dickens Avenue on Monday and Tuesday quite upset because Corsham Regis Primary School didn't have enough spoons to go round, meaning he couldn't eat his yoghurt.

Dad Steve wrote to headmistress Lindsay Wood, but she explained pupils having school dinners had a priority on spoons and they simply ran out.

Mr Godridge, 43, said: "I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I thought that couldn't be right.

"John was upset because he had been told that as he had taken a packed lunch that day, he was not allowed the use of a school spoon to eat his favourite yoghurt.

"I assured him that he must be mistaken, but he was adamant that it was now a school rule."

Mrs Wood said: "It is absolutely not a school rule that people with packed lunches can't use the school spoons.

"The children who have school dinners are first priority.

"If there is a spoon available then the children with packed lunch will be given a spoon but on this occasion we had more than the expected number taking the school dinner option and we ran out of spoons.

"We've been promoting hot dinners and on that day we didn't have enough spoons and we would have to wait until one was washed up. It's very unfortunate the child did not bring a spoon from home that day."

Mr Godridge said John has school dinners three or four times a week but sometimes he likes to have a packed lunch. "If he doesn't have a school dinner one day then surely the spoon he would be using is still at the school," added Mr Godridge.

"It's a bit sad and silly but I pay my taxes for things like that. It's bad enough these days that you've got to pay for schoolbooks, let alone take in your own spoons."

Mrs Wood said the school ordered another 60 spoons from catering company Sodexho, which provides the cutlery, at the beginning of January. We recommend that children with a packed lunch bring a plastic spoon so they don't lose the very decent cutlery from home and as some of our spoons are pudding spoons they don't fit in yoghurt pots anyway," she said.