Tics and Covid-19

[NorthCountryMam]

Hi,

Hope it's ok posting this here, there seems to be more traffic than on the education boards.

I have a child who's in secondary school who unfortunately has a coughing tic. She's been attending school for the last 5 weeks as DH and I have jobs that can't be done from home and despite being old enough to stay home alone her anxiety stops this.
This class(though there's often just her in it) is staffed by different teachers each week and none of them have been her actual teachers which is fine but obviously they don't know her. All of her actual teachers know about her cough, especially the ones who have to teach anything that makes her anxious cos she'll cough all lesson long!
Yesterday I was called to collect her from school as she was coughing, I explained that it's a tic and that she's had it for years. They said they hadn't heard it that week so they had to treat it as a new and persistent cough, I told them that she's been quite relaxed in school so she probably hasn't coughed but something had obviously triggered her anxiety in the morning leading to her coughing.
They said that the policy is that any child with a cough is not allowed to be in school which I completely understood so asked DH to collect her. We booked her a test which after 2 attempts we managed to do, she's just had a negative result back.

Now to my main concern, I spoke to a member of the SLT who didn't really give me a clear answer as to whether she'll be allowed back into school while she's got this cough(she's had it for 3 years so can't see it stopping soon!)
Does anyone know whether they can refuse her entry to school or has anyone else had a similar issue?

Apologies if it's long I just didn't want to miss anything out!

That sounds a difficult situation, but one that is easily rectified. Surely it should be treated the same as a child with asthma with a chronic cough.
Does she have a diagnosis of tic disorder or Tourette’s? If so a copy of diagnosis letter to school? The criteria for covid is a NEW persistent cough and regardless of whether particular members of staff have heard it before it is not a new cough.
Of course it’s a very stressful time for everyone, including teachers, but nonetheless it should be resolved quickly.

Thanks for your reply. No diagnosis as we haven't had any involvement with CAMHS since she was 8, her anxiety has mainly been dealt with by school counsellors and school interventions.

Does your GP know about it? Or can you speak to them? I have cough variant asthma and have mentioned it before going to the dentist and physio (non-UK, they’re open here). I offered to get a letter but they said it was fine. There are many people with persistent coughs - mine has been going for 2 years and sounds like I’ve got a nasty bug, which I don’t - and they can’t exclude us all from society!

A nervous cough/coughing tic is also pretty common in children and I can’t imagine she’d need an anxiety diagnosis. Good luck, I think they’re being ridiculous but hopefully it can be easily sorted with your HCP.

I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic to teachers, I should add, but I think they could use some common sense here. Surely the negative test should mean something!

This is a really tricky one and reminds me of the story recently about the positive cases in New Zealand - where on of the people thought her symptoms were doen to her usual condition. But they weren’t and it was Covid19.

So, the issue here is that although you know your DD has these tics, in theory they could be caused by Covid and school were right to ask her to be tested. But she is negative (athough the teat has a 70% false negative response). Speak to school to see what they advise

Just checking in and wondering did you get things sorted for DD regarding school, OP?