my childs school neglected to tell me my 5 year old child had an asthma attack.

Im am so frustrated with my childs school, at home time i was informed by a pupil that my child had stopped breathing during dinner time. i went to reception straight away who had no record of this happening, the lunchtime superviser came and spoke with me saying that she had no recolection of this happening either, nor did his classroom teacher. my daughter then came out of school and told me which dinner lady had treated my son she had given him his inhaler and not told any other member of staff, or thought to inform me that my son had been struggling to breath, the next day i went to see the headteacher to complain, he simply shrugged his shoulders and said he has so many pupils with asthma that parents cant be informed every time their child has to use an inhaler. I need to take this further but i am not sure who can help me any advice would be very helpfull.

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What would worry me more is that no one else had seemed to notice other than the dinner lady, who thankfully did notice and was able to help your son. So I would complain about no one else noticing that your son was struggling. Do school have a copy of his asthma plan? If so I would ask why this wasn't followed and it was left to a dinner lady to notice that your child required treatment.

Yes the dinner lady should have informed the lunchtime supervisor about what happened, but perhaps she was unaware of procedure that should be followed in such situations, so its important to inform all staff that if meds are required then someone has to be told about it and then someone must keep a close check on him for the rest of the day incase his asthma worsens again. You also need to be informed.

As far as I'm aware (where I work anyway) dinner ladies are not used to supervise the children during lunch times, they are purely there to provide lunch to the pupils and schools privide other staff to supervise the children. (as how can someone serve up lunch and supervise kids at the same time). Though things may be diff at your kids' school and they may use dinnerladies to supervise the children too.

Does your son carry his inhaler with him? Is that how the dinner lady was able to treat him?

At 5 he is still very young (same age as little nutter) and is not able to manage his own asthma.

I would ask them if they have an asthma policy and if you could have a copy of it. Then you can take things from there.

Not sure on what else you could do, but insist that you need to be informed if your son needs to use his inhaler as it could be a sign of his asthma deteriorating and something you need to monitor closely.

Hope he is feeling better now. Its such a worry trusting other people to care for your child.

Even more so in a school where no one has noticed that he is ill!

sorry if i have gone on a little bit, hope i have made sense

take care

little nutter x

P.S perhaps if school decide to be awkward about it you could get a new asthma plan written up and have 'parent must be informed when inhaler has been used' included in it, so then they have it in writing that u need to be told.

Also where I work we have to log when a child is given meds, so that a record is kept, its not too much to ask is it?

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The dinner lady did not even notice that he was having an attack, it was a friends daughter who found him, lucky for me and my son her moms a nurse and she reconised that he was upset and struggling to breath, she took him to the dinner lady and told her he had asthma the dinner lady gave him his inhaler which is kept in the office, she said she had seen he was upset, but ashummed that it was because he was hungry? This dinner lady is supposed to be first aid trained!

He had another attack later that night.

I have lost all faith in the school, they dont have a Asthma policey i asked when he was diagnosed, i did write and my own care plan for him, but they obviousely dident see the need to stick to it.

The headmaster will not even admit that a mistake has been made, nothing was logged.

The head said he has asthma himself and its not that seriouse. His attitude stinks, My son was in hospital for 4 nights earlier this year reciving back 2 back nebulizers for the first 36hours due to a servere asthma attack. I have only just stablised him on his preventor, getting him down to 1 or 2 relivers a week which is a massive inprovement, But now i wondering if this has happened at school before and no one has informed me?? i am going to take him home school dinners untill i can sort something out.

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I would ask for an official asthma care plan from hospital or GP, surprised that he doesn't already have one. Then the school may feel more obliged to stick to it if its signed by a medical proffesional and take his asthma more seriously!

You know the ones with the red amber green and symptoms plus action to be taken written down, thats what our school has for little nutter, they are thankfully very helpful and always phone whenever he needs his inhaler or piriton or anything.

what a worry!

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I'm really sorry to hear about your horrible experience with school. A similar thing happened to us with our 6 year old. The school missed her having an attack even though her friends told her she sounded like she was going to die. I ony found out when I picked her up and she was hardly getting any air in and finding it difficult to talk. She had been getting worse since lunchtime but the teachers told her she would be fine. She was admitted to hospital and took a long time to recover. I went to see the headteacher who tried to tell me it came on suddenly but as I knew this was a lie I found it impossible to move on from the experience as they failed my child which made me angry and unable to trust them again.

I contacted the school nurse to discuss how I was scared to send her back to school and she said that every time a child is admitted to hospital she gets paperwork about it and that she would use this to go in and insist on giving all staff including lunchtime staff up to date training on dealing with asthma.

I would do everything you can not only to make sure your little one is safe while at school but also to help you to feel you can trust them as it was horrible looking forward to my little one leaving such a nice school because I lost my respect and trust in them.

On a positive note, when she started juniors I explained what happened and they have been brilliant.

Hope you are able to work things out

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its hard to find a balance in schools and there is no way the head should of spoken to you like that, its lucky your son has such caring friends that were looking out for him you should get in touch with the head again and then go to the board of governors if you have no luck and find out if you have a school nurse in your area the head teacher needs to pulled up on how serious asthma is.

we've just moved and changed schools and i had a meeting with the head and my son's new teacher lucky for us the teachers are all aware of Asthma and have guidelines to follow, but in my son's last school i had to get in touch with county school nurse and ask her to get the school to be more aware of asthma, i was so worried that my oldest daughter would carry a spare inhaler in her bag just in case (she's 15 now but with 3 younger siblings with Asthma she's good at spotting the signs + symptoms)

i hope you get the issue sorted its not good to have a school that doesn't take asthma seriously

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Sorry to hear about your son, perhaps offschool or equivilant like offsted etc ought to hear how lax the headteacher has been and then they might pull their socks up about asthma. Don't they realise how life threatening it can be. My niece has asthma and very bad as a child, but i must say the schools were very good about it. I am so surprised the education authority have not educated the teachers in this as they seem to educated them in other stuff that somtimes is not really relevant

good luck

[Moos_mumma]

We had an occasion where our daughter needed her reliever at lunch time and after I phoned giving them instructions to do this they decided she didn’t need it and didn’t let her have it. I was furious so know how u feel. I lost my trust in the school that day and contacted my daughters asthma nurse who was fantastic. She took an announced trip to the school and seriously let them have it explaining the seriousness and since then they have been much better. I would certainly take the matter further