Child injury at school

oh yes, I remember the ‘wet paper towel’… the mother of all cures!!

I was a teacher and a kid fell over during running. Just knew she wasn’t right. Called the actual first aider who said she was fine. I wasn’t happy. Called the parents to collect as I didn’t want responsibility. Turns out she had a fractured collar bone!! Parents spent the night in A&E

got burned before as parent sent their kid into school. He had SEND and behaviour was off the scale. This day he sat in the corner of classroom just crying his head hurt. Mum wouldn’t collect. Turns out he had concussion as he had run into a concrete bollard with mum and banged head. He was then in hospital on machines for a few days as it was bad. Mum tried to blame me!!
she also gave him chocolate after he had thrown a chair at me and fractured my finger! As he wasn’t that bad!

definitely follow up with school as it needs to be reported properly if it is a fracture as an accident at school.

That happened to me when I was 6. I fell in PE and told the teacher I’d hurt my ankle and she just brushed me off and said it would be fine.
I walked on it all day because she’d told me it was fine so I just hobbled about thinking that ‘if an adult says it’s fine it must be’. Mum took one look at my black, swollen ankle after school and took me straight to A+E and it was broken. When mum rang school the next day to tell them I’d broken my ankle and I’d be off for a day while I adjusted to using my crutches, the teacher denied I’d told her.
Ive never forgotten the injustice of it and I remember being shocked that a teacher would lie 😂

A lot of A&E 's will not x-ray a toe because the treatment is exactly the same whether it is broken or not. It gets strapped to the toe next to it. Although I do agree that the school should have probably mentioned it

Nice to see things have improved since I was at primary School… Obviously not!

When I was in year three or four, a piece of equipment in PE got dropped on my foot my toe immediately swelled massively huge amount of bruising lots of pain, no one was called to collect me either and I was also just instructed to sit on the side for the rest of the session. Same as him I had to walk home, my mum had to half carry me, then had to call my grandparents to drive over and take me to the hospital as my dad had the car – all of this could’ve been sorted in a quick phone call from school but instead it took most of the evening to get sorted after school. It was broken and I lost the nail, had to buy me a new pair of trainers as well because my foot wouldn’t fit in any of the shoes that I had- And of course, only one foot fitted in it! 😂

I am really disappointed that this sort of thing is still happening in schools though

It's not good that you weren't informed if it was causing mobility issues. What I will say is I can fully understand (though not excuse) how it might've been an oversight to mention it at pick up (I must admit I am also quite astounded at Y4s still getting an afternoon playtime - sounds idyllic)!

Sadly, my experience of first aid in schools, both as an employee and as a parent is that it's not taken all that seriously and protocol isn't robust. Personally I would mention it and see what the response is before deciding how to progress. I would ignore the comments about hypocrisy. You may well have thought it just a sore knock at pick up and it may well not be a fracture. Doesn't excuse school not writing it down and notifying a parent though.

I'm finding first aid in schools weird at the moment. On the one hand, schools seem pretty keen to cover their backs with certain things and so inform parents on the phone. In other ways, they seem so concerned with attendance that certain things will not get as much attention as I think they deserve... And I do wonder if calling a parent to take the child and have them checked over might be more likely to happen after the afternoon mark. It's all bonkers and I will say, it's making it feel more and more like kids are just numbers by the day... The irony that they're trying to encourage attendance by withdrawing trust, understanding and empathy is not lost on me.

Why did you make him walk home then when he told you? 😖 It doesn't matter if school didn't tell you if he did! Christ.

…you didn’t think it needed medical attention till 15+ hours later, wtf are the school meant to do.

What did the hospital say?

I would have expected an injury form if they’d had to intervene, which telling him to rest is a form of intervention. I wouldn’t have expected a phone call or anything and I wouldn’t expect an injury form if my child has just carried on as normal without requiring any support.

I'm school support staff and all our staff are first aid trained. Did the teacher definitely hear it crack or just him? I agree with a pp who mentioned the amount of children who are constantly saying they need an ice pack, walking about with a put on limp etc.
If I'd heard a crack I be taking the sock off to check but if I didn't I'd probably just be telling him to rest it a bit and keeping an eye out. BUT I would be keeping an eye out. If he was upset or looked distressed, if he was consistently limping etc I'd have referred it to the office. They'd have had a look and decided whether to call. We do log all our first aid incidents but we don't routinely call every parent for every injury. I'd say before you go guns blazing I would find out from him exactly what did happen and how he was behaving at school. But it is hard to tell. I fractured my wrist on yr 6 residential in the 80's and they didn't take me to hospital until 24 hours later when I was still in pain.

So what did they say at a&e when you took said child?

Yes, strapping it might be appropriate first aid for some broken fingers, but it wasn’t in this situation. If you could have seen the injury you’d understand why.

Providing basic first aid also isn’t where the school’s responsibility ends. They then need to pick up the phone and ring a parent to come and collect the child so that they can be seen by a doctor, not send them back to class. The injury happened at the beginning of the day and the first we knew about it was when I collected the child from school at 6pm. By then it was much more swollen and sore and difficult to sort.

The OPs post asked if she was unreasonable to be annoyed that the school didn’t contact her and I mentioned how rubbish my child’s school was having done the same thing.

Did they offer him a wet paper towel?

When my DD was 8, she jumped off the picnic table in the playground and ‘hurt’ her wrist. Grandad on usual 330 pick up, Teacher just said she’s hurt her wrist and she’s moaning about it all afternoon… Once home, I took one look at her and said we’re heading to hospital. She had broke it. Next day I take her breakfast club, in cast! (She wanted to be in sch)Asked for head to call me, teacher said “well 1st aider said she was ok!”. Head called me at work couldn’t apologise enough. I did read them the riot act, but teachers are over worked, mistakes do happen! DD now 15, still doesn’t forgive said teacher for not believing the pain she was actually in! X

My son broke his wrist and ankle in primary school (on different occasions). Both times I was called straight away to collect him.

They will soon learn when he attends with a plaster cast on Monday! Never ignore a child who could have a potentially broken bone - embarrassing and I would ask a few questions.

@Kiwi09yes but strapping it up is appropriate first aid.

YANBU. School should have told you verbally at pick up and there should have been a written accident slip in his bag.

The finger very obviously needed medical attention. It wasn’t a standard break.

Also not much you can do about a broken toe really. The finger was put in a splint. Unlikely a toe would need an urgent operation.

God who’d be a teacher these days 🙄. Couldn’t get too worked up about a toe. We’ve had a broken finger and a wrist both at school. Wasn’t called either time didn’t occur to me to get all het up about it. Accidents happen.

So was it broken when you went to get it checked OP?

They heard a crack…did an accident happen for it to make a crack? If an accident has happened the teacher would fill in an accident form. If his toe just made a crack, (some do)then you wouldn't fill in a form. As a teacher i would have done my best to catch you at hometime to let you know to keep an eye on it but i don’t have the option to ring parents, i’d have to leave the children which isn't an option

The 25 minute walk home will likely have made it worse... If he was obviously in pain, why didn't you try to get a lift home / call a taxi / ask if you could leave him there whilst you went home to get the car? And then taken him straight to A&E. You could also have asked the teacher there and then what happened. By Monday they will likely have forgotten precisely why they didn't tell you or exactly what happened around the incident.

I am a TA and lunchtime supervisor. There are times when a child falls over and seems ok (no bruises/ cuts and they aren't too upset) so I send them away with a reminder to tell the teacher later if it still hurts, and I wouldn't provide first aid or record the incident. I don't think I've ever missed anything serious which later required hospital treatment but I can see how it happens in a busy environment.

Your DS stayed inside at break time so presumably sat in a classroom for the whole afternoon and could have easily escaped the teacher's attention re the pain getting worse if he didn't tell them he was hurting, or didn't have to put weight on that foot. The teacher may well have intended to say something to you at pick-up, but also had other parents to talk to or other distractions and it slipped their mind / you left before they had a chance to ask you to wait.

In an ideal world they would have called you to pick him up soon after the incident but it's worth staying calm and finding out what happened before getting angry, especially if you as his parent didn't immediately see how serious it was and seek medical attention. You may find they missed a part of the process detailed in their policy, or they may need to change something about their policy if they did as they should but missed something serious. Going in on Monday and demanding immediate access to paperwork and answers will not get you far. By all means calmly email or call and ask if you can see someone at pick up time / someone can call you to discuss the incident once they have had a chance to look into it.