"Halal only," said badges on their uniforms. Three Muslim children went to Woodside Academy in Bradford, West Yorkshire, with the stickers, after the school served Khadija Khan, five, non-halal food multiple times. Her mother, Henna Khan, 29, said she taped the badges on their uniforms.

She is ready to do it "for as long as it takes," according to Daily Mail. "I really didn't know what to do anymore," she said. Khadija, five, her eldest child, had been served the non-halal food eight or nine times, even though they have been attending school only for a year. Henna said that they were not the only ones who were served wrong food. There were many others. She wondered how the children would react to allergies. Only with the labels on their uniforms would they be able to avoid non-halal meals, she confirmed.

Henna Khan said that the daughter was often given ham and crackers in the classroom and sent home with a bag of jelly sweets, whose gelatin component is banned according to halal. The parents were indignant because the children--- Khadija, and her siblings Mohammed Talib, four, and Tayyeba Khan, three---were too small to discriminate between the two types of food, so they tended to put their faith in the school. Being an institution that is run independently, food is served by Bradford Council, in which meals are prepared in different ways according to faith.

School staff members are always told to be careful about the kind of food they prepare and serve for children. Henna Khan asserted that whenever they complained about it to the school, they were informed that the school would look into it, yet it repeated the errors. Henna wondered whether the slight was deliberate, but it made things stressful for the family as they had shifted into the area, and she even went to "see the head teacher in tears." She confirmed that there were no other problems with the school. But after repeated mistakes, they lost confidence in the school, and decided to take action on their own after writing to the school and meeting some of the staff members.

Halal is an Islamic practice in which the butcher needs to cut through large arteries in the neck with just one blade, even as another Muslim reads out some religious verses from the Koran. The blood needs to be drained away, as consumption of blood is forbidden under Islamic law. The slaughter should be undertaken while the animal is conscious. In the non-halal method, animals are first stunned, murdered and then chopped up. The immediate death is favoured by animal rights activists, who point out that it is kinder.

The school has apologised to the family, and confirmed that it has started a probe to find out why the errors with the school dinners had taken place. It is in touch with Bradford Council to look into the incident. The school also confirmed that its staff training to prepare halal meat would be improved.