I was appalled. By this story, of alleged discrimination by a school against a 7 yr old girl with diabetes.

[PaulB]

google.co.uk/amp/www.mirror...

[shaws Administrator]

It is appalling PaulB. She is different from her other pupils already by having an autoimmune disease. So the school is ridiculous to count a hospital or doctor's appointment as 'missing' school.

[Haze1975]

I don’t think that’s fare on the little one.

[Treepie]

Clearly the Head has never been ill,the Governors need to step in.

[bluebug]

If her parents are able to argue that her type 1 diabetes is a disability then the school will fall foul of the education provisions of the Equality Act 2010, which replaces the DDA 1995 as amended.

Unfortunately the main problem they are likely have is getting doctors to agree to label the condition as a disability as frequently doctors do not like labelling kids as having a disability if it is something they can overcome with medication, physio etc to live a nearly normal life.

[Hidden]

I think having the girl unnecessarily labelled as disabled would create more problems than it solved for her; but in any case the whole concept is ill-thought through and contradictory to start with. The school says 100% attendance is important because there's more to school than lessons (yes demonstrably, things like inequality, staff idiocy, unfairness .... ) yet any child that seeks to develop beyond those lessons by say, sitting music exams etc outside school, is being penalised. What a contradiction. I don't think that her diabetes is even the real core issue here, because any/every child having even a single Drs appointment in school time is going to be marked down, and that is nonsensical. Has the Headteacher ever tried making a Drs appointment within even two or three weeks of needing one, never mind specifying that it needs to be after school! I recently had to accept a 7.20 am appt at the surgery furthest away from me, in order to be seen. Sadly autocratic and irrational decision-making such as this is not a rarity in our schools nowadays, but I do hope that parent action can get the whole thing reviewed and amended - no child should have to suffer punitive measures because they already have the misfortune to have a health condition.