RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: UK's Thriving Black Market Playgrounds  Sun Mar 20, 2011 2:12 am | |
| Has the healthy schools programme created a monster in the playground? Black market trading in sweets, chocolates and fizzy drinks are making enterprising pupils some extra pocket money. Headliners reporters investigate.
Black Market in the Playgrouds
In London’s school playgrounds where teenageers smoke whilst discussing the latest gossip,a few pupils wander around saying just loud enough to hear , “Kit Kat, Mars bars, chocolates,” like fruit and veg traders of the Holloway Market. The black market has officially entered the playgrounds of our secondary schools.
Most schools are starting to try and be part of the healthy schools initiative by taking out tuck shops, vending machines and getting rid of unhealthy food. It seems that the entrepreneur school kid is seeing a gap.
The customers already know the price, 50p for a traditional mainstream chocolate bar and crisps, 20 to 30p for little chocolate bar. The pupils have become accustomed to it, bypassing shops saying “Nah, I’ll buy it at school”, as school ‘shotters’ – a term usually used for drug dealers but in this respect the black market sellers - sell most of their stock cheaper than shops because they buy multi-packs. £100 profit after a week is not unheard of.
Enterprising pupilsHowever, this trade is ultimately against the law. Islington school Mount Carmel RC Technology College’s Vice Principle Miss Haynes said: “If you are a business then you have to register yourself as a business and you have to be paying tax to the Inland Revenue, and I know that people are buying goods, selling them and pocketing the profits and they are doing that on school grounds and basically that is not fair.”
If only these pupils sold so that they could afford to buy school books or contribute to utility bill at home. Mt Carmel’s Vice Principle Miss Haynes said: “The other side of why young people are selling products is because some of them are living in what you could say is poverty and financial hardship, and those people are using that money to support themselves so they can have a social life, pay for a mobile phone or whatever.
"There are some pupils that don’t have well off parents and so are supporting their pocket money through selling within the school. Now being a Business Studies teacher, I do support enterprise in the school however, I see that any money raised should be going onto a charity or going someway to activities in the school and not going towards personal gain.”
In the playgrounds around London pupils see the easy pound signs are start at an early age, and all the information and tips about selling in the playground can be easily found on websites. A Year 11 pupil said: “I started selling in Year 8 because it was easy money, and I continued selling because it helped to pay for my social life.
Money making playgroundsA Year 7 student at Mount Carmel said: “I find it very helpful when my fellow students sell in school because it saves me energy and time from going to the shop and it also helps get to school on time more often because I don’t have to go to the shop.”
Neisha, 17, believes it’s harmless: “I don’t have a problem with selling in schools. It’s an easy way of making money, but you don’t see it when you get to sixth form college maybe it’s the extra freedom you get?”
But there are victims from the fall out of the black market. Mt Carmel’s Vice Principle Miss Haynes said: “Bullying is going on where younger students in year 7 and 8 are being forced to purchase goods by older students and sometimes they are being made to pay more than if they went to a shop.”
One way to stop all of this would be to reintroduce tuck shops in schools, perhaps form part of the GCSE Business Studies course around it, however schools also have a commitment to young people’s health and future.
Mt Carmel’s Vice Principle Miss Haynes said: “Now as a school we are not going to change because we have a responsibility not only to educate our students but to help you become healthy and confident in the future and part of that is by educating you to eat healthier. If you eat healthier you are going to live longer and that is the responsibility of the school.
“We need to have some consultations and see if we can come to a compromises of what we could provide for young people which would prevent them wanting to eat chocolate and sweets and selling those things.”
Sweets, fizzy drinks and chocolates affects concentration, focus and also impacts on long term health such as tooth decay, obesity, diabetes and even skin conditions. Ms Haynes latest strategy in the war against playground black market was to posted a paragraph in the school newsletter warning students about the consequences should they be caught selling. As of today they still carry on regardless, as they itch to feel the jingle of shiny coins in their pockets.
ANCAPS: ANARCHO-CAPITALISTS |
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