Chicken pox and school

[Bobbycat121]

My son has cp. I noticed them on monday so informed
the school. Today I got a call from the achool saying he has a school trip tomorrow if I want him to attend. im very surprised as I thought they were meant to stay off till they are gone? He is well within hiself but still has a few spots (not scabbed over) the school is very hot on attendance.

I don't think he should be going. I am surprised they are willing to infect the other 30 kids - although they say they are most infectious just befre spots appear so maybe that is their thinking?

Yeah u are ment to wait until everyone of the spots has scabbed over, that is strange the school saying that,im keep him off.

I was very surprised, my sister heard it aswell. they said the trip was free of charge and to bring a pack lunch!

I think they probably did it in case he was fine by now and you were keeping him off for the whole week rather than going back on a Thursday/Friday...the school trip might tempt you back in!

DS has chicken pox ATM and he'd be alright tomorrow (last of the spots scabbed over today) but i'm letting him have the day off rather than go in just for Friday...private nursery so not quite like missing school.

Are you sure they aren’t just asking so they have the correct numbers, staff, coaches etc? Maybe they need to confirm numbers and don’t need the few extras??

It might not be attendance

I dont mind sending him if hes ok to go? he would love to go but I thought it was too soon? tomorrow is day 4 and hes fine as in not ill otgerwise, they wont be going by coach they travel by train and staff would be the same as its a class of 30 so one extra child wouldnt change the amount of staff that would be going.

If they have not all scabbed then he is still contagious. I wouldn't send him

He should not be going on public transport if he has chicken pox

Exclusion period has been changed (again) to 5 days from onset of rash. It used to be until the last spot has scanned over but changed a couple of years ago. So, if he went down with it say Sunday he would be on 5 days tomorrow so could go back in on Friday. I always tell parents the minimum exclusion but leave it up to them when to send them back as some children are iller (is that a word?) than others.

She saw them on Monday so he should be off until next week

thinking about it she didnt actually ask if they had scabbed over or anything at all about it. She just said there was a school trip if I wanted him to go 🤔 I would have thought 3 days off wouldnt be enough for cp and I also thought it was about whether they pass it on to others not if they are unwell, if they are still contagious they shouldnt be at school surely? She didnt seem to care, I thought it was weird that they called.

Also he is 7.

I work in a school and we had to do similar last week. We had approx 12 chn off across the year group with chicken pox and we needed to know who was likely to be back to finalise correct ratios etc so we did phone parents to ask if child would be in school. It certainly wasn't to encourage chn back who shouldn't have been! We just needed to know if we could release any staff back to the school who were supposed to be accompanying us on the trip and give the venue a better idea of numbers.

I'm your son's case, there might have been more children in the year group off too and so it would have made a difference to staffing. Sometimes one child can make a difference to staff ratios. If the ratio is one to 5 and your child meant 26 would be going that means an extra staff member is required. If your child would still be absent, extra staff member not needed.

Thanks for clearing that up. He didnt go in the end because they definitely werent scabbed over so I kept him off.