Plans for a school in Brookmans Park to serve alcohol to sixth form pupils have been rejected by Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council. 

Girls-only private school, Queenswood, hoped to introduce an “educational” system of alcoholic drinks vouchers for 16 to 18-year-olds at occasional evening social events.

But, after the application was criticised by a public health official, councillors decided to refuse permission for an amended licence allowing the school to go ahead with its plans. 

Stephanie Hall, head of catering and lettings at the school, told a meeting of the council’s alcohol and regulated entertainment sub-committee on Monday (October 28) that pupils who had permission from parents would be able to drink up to two glasses of beer, cider or wine with a meal at events held around three times a year.

Ceri Stokes, deputy head at the school, explained that other schools had run events with “sociable drinking”, and found it had been “educational”, allowing students to come up with “tactics” on how to say no to drinking. 

She continued: “It won’t be seen as ‘you’re not drinking, why are you not drinking’, because that’s really our purpose, to make it so they’re learning skills.

“We’ve got some girls who have never had to say no and have that kind of situation where you’ve got the back-up phone call … of having a friend ring you and say you’ve got to go now. We’ve got to give them little tools and tricks so they can prepare themselves.”

She said “the whole point of the events” was to help pupils learn how to “say no confidently without worrying about the taboo of it”.

But Aideen Dunne, public health consultant at Hertfordshire County Council, suggested the scheme was social rather than educational and risked “normalising” drinking. 

She said: “This is not an evidence-based approach to harm reduction for young people.

“Any intervention that seeks to normalise alcohol consumption among young people could not be viewed necessarily as in the students’ best interests and I think that’s a really important point. 

"We don’t necessarily need to equip young people with resilience and skills through giving them alcohol. We don’t give them drugs … we teach them on the harms.”

She said there was a “really positive” downwards trend in drinking levels among young people, and suggested there was a “real opportunity” for the school to instead use a social club “to teach young people that they don’t need alcohol to socialise and have fun”. 

Alcoholic drinks at the sessions would have been paid for in advance by parents, and those given permission to drink would have had a wristband with removable tags allowing them to be served one or two drinks.

It is legal for 16 and 17 year olds to drink beer, cider or wine with a meal as long as they are with an adult. But councillors raised concerns about the scheme proposed for Queenswood.

Cllr Duncan Jones said that some parents may have religious reasons for not wanting their child to drink, and may not allow their child to go to meals where alcohol is being served.

Ms Stokes said they would tell students about reasons why “some people don’t drink”, and added: “We’re not going to force the parents to say yes, that’s not our job, but maybe we could invite the parents to see the events to see how constructive it is.”

Cllr Julie Cragg, who chaired the meeting, said “schools can be very catty at times and pupils can get picked on”, and raised fears that pupils who can’t or won’t drink would be bullied. 

But Ms Stokes said the situation had not been “made worse” at other schools she had spoken to with similar schemes, who found that “because it had made it more open, it’s made it more acceptable to say ‘I can’t drink’.

Meanwhile, Cllr Bernard Sarson said it was a “shame” that the school had not presented a proposed alcohol policy along with its application. The school said it would have an alcohol policy in place if permission were granted, but councillors cited the current lack of one as a reason for refusing the application.

Cllr Cragg said the sub-committee was “concerned of the risks to the students and that there wasn’t submitted with the application a visible alcohol policy”. She concluded: “They didn’t feel the measures put forward … were sufficient to negate these concerns.”