School illness rules

Both schools my children attend still have the 48 hour rule.

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I think the blanket rule was ridiculous particularly when kids can puke for lots of reasons car sickness, too much junk at a party and having them stay for 2 days as a given was nuts. I think parents should be the judge and absolutely in the main don't believe most parents would send genuinely unwell kids to school and if they do, they weren't the type to obey the 48 hour rule anyway.

I agree with you. I kept my youngest off school for a few days recently with an extremely high temperature. Awful, painful sore throat, she couldn’t eat. She is 4 years old, not even statutory school age. Her GP agreed and said I needed to monitor her breathing, temperature and fluid intake very closely, I can do this far better 1:1 in the comfort of our own home.

The school previously made a mistake and under dosed my eldest with a medicine needed to be given in school, so that’s made me even more distrustful that these things are not done properly.

My friend who teaches in another school told me the office stopped her calling a mum about her child being ill because of attendance, told her to leave the child on the beanbag all day. My friend is a very experienced teacher and mum herself, she doesn’t call home lightly, and was completely overridden by the office. I would be extremely unhappy if one of my DCs teachers was prevented from communicating with me about their health. I’d remove them actually.

It existed in my child’s secondary school.

My son's secondary school doesn't have the 48 hour rule, for sickness/diarrhoea - they changed it to 24 hours. However, they do still say if a student has a temperature, then they should stay home until they are better. Personally, I ignore the 24 hour rule, and stick to the 48 hour rule, and I just make that plain when I email the absence staff member! My son's school have never pulled me up on it!

With 3-9 year olds I’d imagine this policy will last until local public health inspectors shut them down for deep cleaning. The first child with noro will take most of the children and staff out.

So many times I had to keep DC off for 2 days when they were absolutely fine and their virus had already likely got to the other kids too (if they are indeed as contagious as often stated).

Secondary school definitely seem a lot less bothered about parents who dont keep them off 2 days. One of the teachers on the absence line encouraged me a few times to send them back after just a day as long as they were better, which they usually were.

Yes, now you mention it, I think all children should be paid a full time working wage for attending school and they also should be teaching the lower years by Y3....😂

When it comes to spreading illnesses, I don't think the rules are usually vastly different for adults and children though. However, whether you SHOULD send your kid into school is up to parents. I just don't think a 48 hr absolute rule for any instances of sickness is necessary. Most parents have some common sense, although after being on Mumsnet for as long as i have, I am beginning to question that a bit 🤔

It’s not insane to follow the NHS guidance. For some illnesses the NHS guidance is surprisingly relaxed eg no need for time off school/nursery for hand foot & mouth. So where they do recommend a set time off, I’d assume there’s a reason.

Are there other rules that apply to staff that you think should apply to the small children? Or does it maybe make sense to treat adult employees different to 5 year olds.

Small children aren’t the best at hand hygiene for starters.

But also, we don’t apply a “this isn’t a thing in workplaces so shouldn’t be a thing in schools” to other things.

Most workplaces don’t require a blazer and tie.
Most workplaces don’t require you to only drink water and nothing else.
Most workplaces don’t make you ask to go to the toilet.
Obviously some workplaces will have rules about things but some workplaces will also have the 48 hr rule for vomiting.

The rules that most workplaces have for adult employees should have no bearing on the rules set for primary school children. I’d have thought that was obvious.

Idiotic. They’ll end up with more sickness absences overall as children will be back and spreading it round.

It should be, but unfortunately it isn't. Sadly, IME it's very common for parents to send in children who are very clearly not well enough to be in school. I can't tell you how many times we've had children vomit or have explosive diarrhoea in school then inform us that they were sick last night but their parents thought they were "fine" to go to school this morning. It's also not at all uncommon for children who have D&V bugs to be 24 hours clear and then start vomiting again.

48 hours is not "insane", it's based on evidence around infection control. Schools are following NHS guidelines, they haven't just plucked a figure out of the air. It's also not about your child being "well enough", it's about trying to minimise the spread of infection. Unfortunately, schools end up closing if vomiting bugs spread out of control, which then inconveniences all parents. I say this as the parent of a child who was quite prone to vomiting once then seeming absolutely fine afterwards, so I know how much of a pain it is having to keep them home for 2 days when they seem ok.

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I can assure you my colleagues and I would dearly love to stop 'interfering' in things that aren't down to us. But since many parents struggle to meet their child's basic needs without the support of school, we don't have much choice. Yes, we can and do make referrals, but the reality is that all but the most serious Child Protection concerns are bounced back to us with the suggestion of "school-led support".

As it happens, the Department of Education and statutory safeguarding guidance makes it clear that monitoring and managing children's attendance (including sickness absence) is very much 'down to us'. We are also expected to follow NHS guidance, and Public Health guidance from the Government when it comes to how infectious illnesses are managed. Hence the 48 hour rule for vomiting and diarrhoea, which the vast majority of UK schools follow and have done for many years. A parent has the right to make decisions about their child but they do not have the right to dictate school policies and procedures. It's incorrect to say that it's "beyond their remit", schools have every right (not to mention a responsibility) to put rules in place to minimise the spread of infectious illness on their own premises.

There is a strong presenteeism culture here - in work and school. It doesn’t matter how much data there is on how much presenteeism costs, how damaging it is to health, productivity or economy, it’s just obsessively destructive and an excuse to ignore underlying issues. It’s pretty ridiculous to expect better outcomes with such drives towards enforced sickness.

48 hours is pretty insane though right? It means if you child vomits once on a Sunday morning, say 10am, they then can’t go back to school til Wednesday.

in reality if they were well, have eaten something and kept it down since they should be in school on Monday morning.

not all vomiting is a contagious bug and having a blanket rule doesn’t sit well with me. If the parent thinks their child is well enough then that should be enough.

A sickness bug would likely send my child to hospital due to his health issue. I'd be furious and looking to change schools.

I would send them the PHE guidance and ask them why they are directly going against NHS published guidance to schools? www.nhs.uk/live-well/is-my-child-too-ill-for-school/

They are nowadays... home visits isn't usual.

I am so happy to leave this school sh*t in a few month and go to a country with less obsession with attending school while being sick

Course it exists in workplaces and secondary schools, do you think we in the NHS carry on regardless? Poor teachers! There are plenty of sickness rules that are open to challenge but D&V is not one of them and 48 hrs should be an enforced minimum .@Bazinga this one is worth complaining about ….we had a primary in our patch that had to shut twice to ALL kids last winter for deep cleaning because of a nasty D&V bug.

It’s awful OP. Schools are increasing treating all children like they are robots who absolutely must not ever be ill/need some time to recover, which is impossible for any human, let alone under 7s with less developed immune systems!

I will continue to keep mine at home for as long as I deem fit when ill. They are my children, that is a decision for me and my DH, not an institution to have the final say on. It is actually very neglectful to send an obviously ill child into school to get more and more run down and infect others. We massively disregard our body’s need for rest in this society unfortunately.

Push back against it!

Surely it doesn’t really matter what the school say. As a parent, you decide if your child is fit for school or not.