Rawmarsh School, in South Yorkshire, has become a reluctant focal point for the national debate on healthy eating since it emerged that two mothers were passing chips, burgers and fizzy drinks to children through the school railings.

For the past two weeks, Julie Critchlow and Sam Walker have been taking orders for up to 60 meals in defiance of the school’s decision to ban pupils from leaving the premises during the lunch break.

A temporary truce was called yesterday after the mothers visited the school, near Rotherham, spoke briefly to senior staff and agreed to return for a meeting to discuss their concerns later in the week.

On each side, the battle lines are firmly drawn. Mrs Critchlow and Mrs Walker have cast themselves as standard-bearers for freedom of choice in an age of food fascism. Their bête noire is Jamie Oliver, whose high-profile television campaign to improve the quality of food served in school canteens has resulted, they claim, in their children being forced to eat “disgusting, over-priced, low-fat rubbish”.

John Lambert, the school’s headmaster, yesterday issued a strong defence of its healthy-eating policy and insisted that there would be no going back on a strategy designed “to improve the wellbeing of our young people”.

The controversy has aroused strong emotions in the community. Petitions have been circulating and Neil Beaumont, the owner of Chubby’s, a local sandwich shop that has been supplying the rebel mums, disclosed yesterday that one of his staff had been verbally abused. Mr Beaumont, 34, charges £1.10 for a bacon sandwich and has no regrets about his decision to take orders from Mrs Critchlow and Mrs Walker.

“If they don’t want their children to eat school dinners, that’s up to them,” he said, before claiming that one supermarket had lost up to £1,000 a week since the school barred pupils from eating outside.

Mr Beaumont said he could accept that some local residents were unimpressed by the mothers’ decision to stand each day in the grounds of the cemetery which adjoins the school to take and deliver orders for pupils. But he added that this did not justify the actions of one woman who pulled her car alongside a female member of his staff before accusing her of “taking blood money” and “demanding to know how she could sleep at night”.

He said: “It’s all got out of hand. There’s people dying on the front line in Iraq, yet people are going crazy because of two ladies passing sandwiches through the school railings.”

Mr Lambert, whose 1,100-strong school has specialist status as a sports college, chose his words carefully yesterday when he was asked for his views on the mothers’ determination to continue their junk food service.

“I think the parents have stated a case, although I would have preferred it if they had stated it in a different way. There is no room for compromise here. The stance they have taken is not one the school can accept,” he said.

“We know from evidence nationally that eating proper food at lunchtime makes a difference to learning and success. It is my belief that, whatever their intentions, they are potentially undermining the success of their own children and also undermining the success of other parents’ children.”

At 12.50pm yesterday, the school canteen, its carpet and walls decorated in pastel shades of green and lilac, was packed with hungry 11-year-olds who seemed to have no problem with the fare on offer.

For £1.70, children were able to choose from a range of “meal deal” items, including ratatouille pancakes, jacket potatoes, pizza slices with salad and wholemeal sandwiches.

Enticing posters promoted different food sections. There was “classic cuisine”, “chef’s choice” and “4NRG”. Drinks ranged from fruit juice and milk to bottled water and among the puddings were fresh fruit salad, melon and yoghurt. Health-obsessed to the point of puritanism it was not. One option was a mixed grill — bacon, sausage, burger, poached egg and baked beans — which would not have looked out of place on the menu at Chubby’s.

Carl Mason, 11, was sitting with three friends at one of the tables. The quartet said that they ate in the canteen every day — packed lunches are the official alternative — and declared the food was “very nice”. “It keeps you healthy and helps your brain,” explained one of the boys, before Carl gave his verdict on the mothers’ school railings deliveries.

“I think it’s silly. The lunches here are perfectly fine. If they don’t like them, the pupils can always just bring in a sandwich. They’re just making a big fuss.”

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