Primary schools are facing calls to stop hatching chicks to teach children about biology after the practice was branded 'cruel and archaic' by charities.
The RSCPA and PETA have called for an end to the activity which sees schools rear baby chickens from eggs within the classroom. It comes as protesters called on the 'outstanding' rated Hamilton Primary School in Colchester, Essex, to halt their upcoming hatching scheme.
Staff had told parents the activity was above board, but a former midday assistant at the school, Kate Baines, 36, felt they had overlooked a raft of 'moral' concerns. She said: "Morally we know that we don't need to be using these animals as commodities, so we know better and should do better. You can take children to sanctuaries, and there are internet resources... In 2024, there is no such need for live animals.
"They are not realising that these are sentient beings and we shouldn't be using them as live classroom education tools." She added: "It's not that I have anything against the school only that they have outdated views." Schools that participate in hatching schemes are usually supplied with 'embryo eggs' and incubators from private firms, which specialise in offering the service.
And over a period of roughly two weeks, young primary school students get to see the chicks hatch from their shells and briefly develop. The activity usually takes place at a time when the kids are learning about biological processes in the national curriculum. But Kate said it was wrong for the baby chicks to be kept "in a little box, in a very loud classroom" while outside their natural environment.
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Kate Baines (Kate Baines/SWNS)And while she acknowledged that assessments were carried out, she said there was still "a health risk" to children while using chick hatcheries. Kate said she had spoken with Hamilton Primary School's head teacher, Nick Hutchings, and submitted letters with other locals who were opposed to the practice. And her views were backed up by the RSPCA, which said classrooms could be "frightening" places for animals to be reared and called for an end to the practice.
Their spokesperson said: "We think it's really important for children to learn about animals and understand why schools and nurseries may look to hatching chicks or ducks to help young people understand compassion and learn about the natural world. But schools can be noisy and frightening for animals, and because the school day is relatively short and the eggs may hatch at any time, it could be difficult to monitor the welfare of the animals, and seek veterinary advice if they fall ill.
"It's also not as easy as people may think to find an appropriate home for the animals once they are fully grown... We believe that animal welfare can be taught in other ways." PETA's vice president of programmes, Elisa Allen, went further, saying it was "misleading" to brand the much-loved activity as "educational".
She said: "Teaching kids that chicks are novelties to be watched in an artificial environment for a short time and then disposed of as if they were yesterday's newspaper is a lesson in insensitivity to which no thoughtful educator should expose children. In nature, these sensitive, delicate animals are incubated by their mother who rotates her eggs up to 30 times a day to maintain the proper temperature, moisture level, and positioning and communicates with her babies in the shell so that they know her voice when they emerge.
"Hatched in an incubator, chicks can become deformed because their organs often stick to the sides of their shells when the eggs are not turned properly. And are the children told honestly that, after the stress of being hatched amid bright lights and concrete, these chicks will be summarily dispatched to a farm and slaughtered a few weeks later?
"Such displays are ignorant, archaic, and cruel, and it's misleading for them to be presented as educational." However, Hamilton Primary School said it would continue with its proposed hatching scheme, understood to start next week, in defiance of the warnings.
Its statement read: "Hamilton Primary School is aware that some of its community would prefer that we did not host a chick-hatching programme to help our children learn about looking after animals. The school has provided notification of the project to enable the community to understand why we plan to undertake this activity.
"We are using a company who clearly state what happens to the chicks after the project is completed and all children will be supervised during the time that the chicks are in the class. All health and safety concerns are covered through an appropriate risk assessment."
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