at what point do school send them home ill

[mumof2girls2boys]

When does your school send your child home ill. DS2 went to school today tired, 2 lots of swimming and p.e. yesterday. At 12pm I got a call he was very ill and I needed to pick him up straight away. I go pick him up, he looks tired but is moaning a little too much for me. We get to the car and he has lost the ability to walk (very quick downturn in his condition). We get home the t.v. goes on he is in his pjs and then it is whats for lunch? DD2 come play with me. After a while he confesses to having told the school he felt sick and thought he would throw up as that gets you an instant home card and he was too tired to do p.e. again today.

Do all schools send them home as soon as they mention sick? DS2 said that lots of kids in his class know that mention sick and you get to go home!!!

[scurryfunge]

Yes, I had this problem with my DS. He had a few too many days off when he first started secondary as they kept sending him home because of sickness. He wasn't sick, he just didn't like Maths or hadn't done his homework. I took him to the doctor who said there was nothing wrong with him and not to indulge him.

I have the same argument with the school nurse every time he is "ill".

[SandStorm]

If a child comes to me and says they feel sick, we don't automatically ring home. Our first port of call is to sit outside the office with a sick bucket.

Very often I can tell when a child is really sick and when he/she is putting it on but then it's a very small school and I know all the children and most of their foibles.

Hopefully, I've not got it wrong yet, but to be fair to the school they probably err on the side of caution. After all, if they get it wrong it's horrible for everyone - child, classmates and teachers and the poor person (normally me) who has to clear it up.

[mumof2girls2boys]

My mum was the school secretary when I was a child so my kids are trained to be sick in one place and try and catch if possible. Limiting the cleaning up for the person like you SandStorm.

He has only been there half a term but the moaning and saying he couldn't walk gave it away to me, they said he had a temperature he said he put his head on the radiator. Got to give him credit for ingenuity.

Not sure now whether to mention it at school or not, have given him a talking to and he is tired (end of term syndrome). But would hate to think that next time when he is really ill they ignore it as he cried wolf this time.

[Talkinpeace]

OP
In bed. Curtains shut. Lights off. No books. No TV. No computer/console.
Plain food - easy on the poorly tummy - for supper.
Back to bed by 7pm.
Extreme boredom is a great educator.

He won't try it again ;-)

[ThatllDoPig]

Depends on the child. Teachers get to know which ones are always saying they are ill, but aren't really!
My dd did this for a while.
I agree with talkin make it as boring as humanly possible at home and it won't happen again unless they really mean it.

[mumof2girls2boys]

Talkinpeace, the t.v. was only on for the younger one and he was bored as it was cbeebies, he only got lunch as he conned the younger one into giving him some of hers. I am totally with you on the bed,nothing to do strategy just didn't get there as today is wash sheets day so I had to make his bed before he could get in it.

One mention of feeling ill and he confessed straight away.He is a child who always ends up confessing as he can't live with the guilt :)Have given him the lecture and he has realised the error of his ways.

[mumof2girls2boys]

are school allowed to take their temperature? If they had done this they would have realised he didn't have one even though he head was hot

[overmydeadbody]

I'm with SandStorm.

We monitor any child who says they're going to be sick and if they are feverish, limp, look pale and weak and don't perk a
up after ten minutes we send them home.


We'd rather send them home before they puke everywhere, not after.

[overmydeadbody]

The thing is, when stomach bugs are going round our school, we send them home even quicker. We want to minimise cross contaminatinon and the risk of having to clean up sick.

[overmydeadbody]

and yeah, we know the children and know which ones might be trying it on and when they are really not well.

[OhYouSnowySnowyKitten]

dd's school just gives them a sick bowl and they carry on with their work. Unless they do look poorly or are the sort of child who doesnt moan about anything.
Sometimes it backfires

[RupertTheBear]

I am a teacher and can usually tell the genuine illnesses from the fakes - watching them when they don't know you are looking usually gives you a few clues. However I did get it spectacularly wrong not so long ago and ended up with a child being sick all over my shoes. Since then I do tend to send kids to the office at the first mention of sickness, but our secretary is very good at sussing them out too!!

[mole1]

dd2 is at special school and was sent home last week because of a runny nose. They will send a child home at the drop of a hat, but for them the staffing ratios are very important and they want to avoid the staff catching things. Apparently the school was only open last week because so many children were off as well as staff.

[mumof2girls2boys]

Maybe he will grow up to be a great actor, he certainly pulled the wool over schools eyes. I'm pretty sure he hasn't watched Ferris Buellers Day Off to get the hints from :)

[mrz]

If the child is obviously ill I would ask the office to contact home but if in doubt they stay

[nzshar]

DS was off the other week with true illness(sick all through the night, though ok following day) He was allowed to sit on the sofa that day and watch tv all day but that was it! No wii, computer or ds consoles and definitely no getting up and playing about. Within an hour he was bored and told me so. He even said that he was ok to go to school after lunch :) I explained that the school didnt allow him back until at least 24 hours after being sick and as it was friday he wouldn't be back till Monday. I do not think he will 'pretend' sickness ever after that well I hope not anyhow :) Meany mummy I think :) BTW hes 6 lol

[pooka]

I had to collect dd once as she had fallen over and twisted her arm. The school were sure it wasn't badly injured, but she felt faint immediately it happened. She was 6. I had no suspicion that she was milking it.

Other than that, ds1 and dd have never been sent home.

The school always ring if there's been a bumped head and once rang to say that dd had got hot gravy on her arm.

I think actual sickness (like vomiting there) would get them home. I once picked dd up after the Christmas party and she was hot, feeble and seemed really under par. Carried her to the car. She developed full blown flu which took a good week to recover from.

[EvilTwinsAteRudolph]

I teach in a secondary school. A very lovely Yr 7 girl asked today if she could go to see the school nurse as she felt shivery and couldn't get warm. She looked dreadful, so I sent her to the nurse. Nurse took one look at her and phoned Dad. Dad said he was in a meeting at work and couldn't talk. To tell his daughter that he'd pick her up at 3 (end of school) rather than at 4 as he'd planned to, but to just get on with it.

Poor girl.

[stoatsrevenge]

Better safe than sorry at the moment. There are lots of bugs around (9 YR out today!)

You can usually tell from the way a child looks and acts if they are genuinely ill. For instance, the Y2 girl caught pretending that the sick bucket was her piggy snout, was probably not sick enough to go home....

[roadkillbunny]

I have only been called by the school to pick up dd (Y1) once, that was last year, got a call at the start of lunch time saying she was off and was hot (think she had been off sick a day or two earlier but can't recall exactly, I know I wasn't terribly surprised), I said I would come get her straight away but they told me to wait a half hour and let her have her lunch, got to school to find her in the hall polishing off her pudding of ice cream! She was a little flushed but as soon as we were home she was fine.
I know she wasn't playing it as she loves school and the key marker of her feeling really ill is when she doesn't protest if I tell her there will be no school today (she wanted to go back to school 2 days post quite major surgery and was very put out that her consultant had ordered she stay home from school for 12 days due to the risk of infection, she was that determined she wanted to go to school I even phoned the consultant to ask if she could go back early!). I think the only reason school asked me to come get her that time was because there was a bug going round and she had been off a day that week sick, I realised she couldn't have been that ill when they said leave her to eat lunch and it did make me wonder why they were sending her home, surely if she was ill she was ill and should have been picked up right away, couldn't work out the logic of calling me and then when I said I would be there in ten they told me to wait.