after seeing the news on TV about the boy who had a severe allergic reaction from a sweet given to him at school, I googled the story.
I was shocked at some peoples opinions such as
""NOT the teachers fault. The teacher is there to TEACH not act as a nurse or carer. If the child is so dangerously allergic, the parents should make arrangements for someone to be with him at all times they cannot be.
- Mr. Concerned, Somewhere, 28/1/2011 ""
I have been a teacher for more years than I care to remember. I would NEVER accept responsibility for a child with such a dangerous allergy. My job was to teach children not nurse or care for them. That simply is the job of his carers or family. Prepared food should have been given to him every day. To put photos and information into the classroom is fine, but in most secondary schools, the children move classrooms for different subjects. PLUS such an act puts the responsibility squarely on the teachers shoulders. It is NOT their job quite simply. There are many other serious conditions affecting children who attend schools. Proper arrangements need to be made to care for them. If the child was unable to discern what it was and was not able to eat, it should have had a full time carer with it. Who pays for that? Guess....teachers are not responsible for the ills of the world. It is hard enough just to teach without this sort of worry to compound matters.
- Jack the Jeep, Pattaya Thailand, 28/1/2011 12:54
hmm quite sad really that people feel this way, no wonder many parents have to battle to get their child cared for when in school. Is it too much to ask a school not to have nuts? Or to make sure they are looked after inc when they need medication/supervision if thet become ill e.g with asthma symptoms. I think its time all staff in schools were better educated on how to care for children. Some are very good and do get it right, but soo many are still getting it wrong. There are so many kids with Allergies, Asthma and other conditions that teachers and staff in schools should be well educated on it. We are not expecting them to be nurses or doctors, just to look after our kids and call parents, or medical proffesionals if they do need help.
Couldnt agree more. I have never felt really confident about the 'care' my son received at school. Just a little kindly concern would go a long way. Secondary school has been a nightmare with even the so-called 'Matron' dismissing my worries. Now my son is a teenager he can look out for himself a bit more, but I still worry about him when he goes off in the morning feeling wheezy etc.
I wrote to the head of our LEA following the tragic death of Samuel Linton a few years ago, and got a reply from a Health & Safety official listing all the guidelines schools should follow. I subsequently had a long chat with the official - the message coming across was along the lines 'you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink'.... Not very reassuring.
It is so wrong, that parents who have children, with medical problems, have the extra worry that thier children are not being given the correct care in school.
Parents hand over their children to the school at the begining of the day and expect them to be cared for and treated the same way they would at home. This means ensuring their safety, be it ensuring spilt paint is cleaned up to prevent slips or ensuring a child with an allergy is not given anything with the allergen in!
yeh just a shame some schools only see their duty being to teach the children rather than care for them.
we are lucky that little nutters school is very understanding, he has a severe nut allergy and before he even started they became nut free, and informed all parents.
Of course we have taught him not to accept food or sweets without someone saying it is OK for him to have, but when he goes to school it becomes their duty not to offer him anything that may contain nuts. At 4 he is too young to be able to manage this on his own. As I said tho school are very good with him and will always check with me if they are having any type of food or treats.
When DD2 was a baby, she had bad reactions to wheat and dairy. On the days I was mum-helper at DD1's playgroup, I had no worries leaving baby to sleep or sit in her pram at the side. The Playleaders and the mum's all knew not to give her a biscuit or anything without asking me first. So I felt really sorry for the well-meaning grannie who gave DD2 half a biscuit one day as it was very promptly sicked back up.
She got such a telling off from the Playleaders too, while they cleaned up. I'd offered, but they said it was their fault for not thinking of visitors.
Unfortunately this fails to surprise me. I've met some pretty useless teachers when it comes to health issues, as a child I had a problem with my knees and despite letters from doctors and physio's I was frequently forced to do things that would make the problem worse, lucky for me it wasn't life threatening like anaphylaxis. As a child I also witnessed some very neglectful treatment of a classmate who was having an asthma attack, at the time I was too young to know how it should have been treated but was pretty sure she shouldn't have been ignored in the way that she was. I know that there are some teachers who are brilliant and will do everything they can to help a child with health or any other kind of problems, but they seem to be in the minority (or at least they were when I was at school). It doesn't seem much to ask for teachers to be mindful of what they give to children, to follow any medical advice they have been given and to have a basic knowledge of first aid. It all just seems like common sense to me.
To look at it from the other side, (please don't hate me for it) I do think that the parents of the child should have taught him not to eat anything unless he has been expressly told it does not have nuts in, and that if he (or the person giving it to him) doesn't know he just shouldn't eat it. From working with Brownies (aged 7-10) I'm pretty sure a 7 year old is capable of asking whether there's nuts in the food, so whilst the teacher was at fault (I don't dispute that), I can't help think the story might have had a much happier ending if the child had been taught about the seriousness of his condition. After all who would be blamed if the sweet had come from a friend in the playground?
Oh dear...there are some very insensitive and selfish people in our world. Of course it should be the teacher or whoever the child is with responsibility. What ever happened to kindness, caring and being nice....It has been replaced with pesky health and safety/red tape. In our city a lot of the schools will administer an epipen in the event of a severe allergic reaction but will not assist a child to use an inhaler!!! Indeed in some schools, even when it is PE, all the inhalers are stored in the school office in a huge plastic container. Great so the child gets wheezy on the school playing field, has to wait to be readmitted into school via the buzzer system (all doors are kept locked to monitor all people entering school) Can only get into school if someone is in the office to hear the buzzer and then once there in have to root through huge pile of inhalers to find their own!.
On questioning the teacher justified this by saying that they cannot administer anything other than epipen due to health and safety. Good grief, the world has gone mad. I wish there was a national protocol that could be enforced allowing children to have inhaler with them at all times or at the very least to have instant access to it. It is beyond belief that in this day and age pupils are denied instant and easy access to a life saving reliever. How many children will have to be seriously ill or worse as a result of this policy before action is taken.
I wonder if AUK could take up the baton and fight for this basic right to become available to every child at school. Lone voices are not as effective as a recognised and respected organisation. The local authority are aware of the schools policy, I wonder if this is a nationwide problem? Being a parent is stressful enough without the added worry of access to meds when you can't be physically there.
I'm wondering how many kids would need carers? Asthmatics, diabetics, kids with arthritus (sp?), the list must be enormous. There are a lot of conditions that are usually fine/controlled but have a potential to create an emergency.
I never had any problems when my son was at school, they were very good. I guess I was lucky.
I agree, all they need are some action plans if they want protection. We have first aiders at work for this sort of thing. Why should a school be any different?
It really did not surprise me at all that they were comments written by Daily Mail readers.
It says in the article that there is a a display in the classroom listing allergies and such like with a picture of each child, nut allergies are so common that it would have been a good idea to check the display before giving anything containing nuts to any child. Yes teachers are there to teach but they are also responsible for each child in the classroom and wherever possible to prevent incidents like these, it was a serious lapse in judgement on the supply teacher's part even if legally she might not be accountable, morally I feel she is. These people leaving comments such as these clearly do not understand what it is like to live with a condition like anaphylaxis/severe asthma etc or care for someone who does because if they did I doubt they'd be as quick to defend the teacher's actions or saying these children should be not be mainstream schools etc.
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