Nightmare lunch box type ban at school

[lunchme]

DS is 7 and attends a special school.

They have a new pupil coming in and the new list of banned foods are things containing -

Peanuts
Cashews
Sesame
Milk
Wheat
Barley
Almond
Pork

They announced this on our class up this afternoon and no further instruction! But they insist on DS having packed lunch and not school dinners since he likes lunches better because he's seen other kids having crisps etc

My DS has an allergy of sesame and his other classmate was peanuts. The other allergies are all from one child

This isn't to slag off a poor child. I just wish they'd give more notice than a Thursday afternoon

Yes, if they had allergies this severe.

We had a child at nursery with a list like that, plus citrus and chocolate.
It was v v worrying and the child was a nervous wreck as well.
We actually didn’t believe it was true. We didn’t know what to do as we can’t tell a parent we don’t believe them.
We thought we ought to ask for a drs letter but it wasn’t in our policies as it hadn’t occurred before.

My son has an egg allergy and his allergy consultant gave us an allergy action plan to give to nursery, which we did so willingly even though nursery didn't actually ask for one.

It just seems like common sense that if you've got an allergy you'd discuss what to look out for and how to react.

Bit daft if nurseries aren't allowed to ask if there's an allergy action plan in place.

I don’t see that being realistic.
I understand having to keep the child concerned safe, but I wouldn’t trust that a whole school of parents would manage to avoid that many different items- especially given some of them are what largely constitutes most lunch boxes.

so I don’t see it working A) because it is hard to restrict other peoples diets that much (I am assuming a special school will have children with limited diets) and B) I don’t think it would be possible/realistic parents would follow those rules anyway

I would go back and say sorry that’s far to restrictive, in effect stopping bread for sandwiches, and some fillings

i would say my son is going to be bringing xx sandwiches in and if that is going to cause a problem them the school need to come up with a solution which means your child is not penalised and you look forward to hearing what they suggest. (And if it’s going to cost extra that they will be paying)

I get allergies are dangerous, but aren’t nuts the only ones that could be airborne ?

This is totally disproportionate. My dd went to infant school with a child with a lot of serious allergies including milk, wheat, nuts etc. She ate her lunch separately with a TA and they had strict rules about no touching or sharing other people's food. Also from the age of 4 this child knew she was never allowed to eat any food apart from what was given to her by her parents. Severe allergies are unfortunate and difficult but it is up to the family and child themselves to manage them, not to demand the whole world change around them.

Nuts absolutely but the rest of those allergens aren’t usually airborne are they?!

I’m coeliac and there are many kids at my school who are coeliac and I don’t think they eat separately.

The problem is that it's a special school though. For grown ups in the workplace or most NT kids you can just switch to a dairy free yoghurt, say. But kids with autism likely won't accept that, they need the strawberry petit filous in the Peppa containers, or whatever.

Looking at that list I would expect all tree nuts to be included plus soy, oats and rye. The list is not that of a coeliac.

It is not a reasonable list.

Unfortunately if you have an airborne allergy, you get used to eating away from other people.

I thought pork was something that's never been a known allergen in anyone?

Not necessarily! So many things have wheat in them.

Pork allergies are interesting and can be linked to cat allergies
www.nyallergy.com/pork-allergy/#:~:text=A%20pork%20allergy%20is%20an,reacts%20with%20albumin%20in%20pork.

Wheat - is an issue bread and pasta rules out - I'd be querying that.

People can be allergic to anything by an airborne wheat allergy would be really rare. I know people with milk allergies - it's a nightmare because dried milk turns up in very unexpected foods.

The nuts and sesame I can and have done. Milk is it just milk or milk products so are yogurt and cheeses out or dried milk in sandwich meats needing to be avoided as well. Pork - could probably do but no harm or cheese would be hard. Wheat and barley products would be really hard hard.

I'd get clarification and if not forth coming then I'd say he'll have to be dinners.

I just looked at this sitE REACIPIES FOR KIDS WITH ALLERGIES
It allows you to filter out all the foods the OP has to avoid.

I'm wracking my brains for what you can put in a lunch box and so far I have:

• fruit
• veg
• chicken
• tuna/salmon
• rice
• hummus
• corn tortillas
• potato salad
• crisps

Can't do bread/wraps/crackers/biscuits due to the wheat

Can't do yoghurt, cheese, chocolate spread or bar due to the milk

No nuts

No pork

The school can provide all parents with gluten free bread if they want to Insist on banning wheat.

it sounds like they’ve made a mistake in what they’ve shared. The nuts and milk might be allergy and wheat only affect the child if ingested and pork be cultural?

@Jimmyneutronsforehead I agree with you. Why can’t we see the allergy action plan is my question too.
But the parent gave a very definite list and it is very difficult to challenge.

What actually happened is we raised it with the senior nursery teacher and she agreed to speak to the parent. The parent then withdrew the child.

This seems a bit OTT!! Can they not just supervise the child with all the allergies?? That way everyone else can have whatever. X

Can't have hummus because of the tahini, it's made from sesame seeds.

I know a severely autistic boy who would not be able to eat at school at all of those things were all removed. I think most pupils at an ordinary school would struggle tbh.
I agree with pps that the nut allergies are something that can be airborne, but I have never heard of this issue with dairy products, or gluten, or meat.
If a child is so allergic to gluten that they can react from breath , then none of the children would be able to eat any of these things for breakfast either, that isn’t manageable with a class full of children. There must be some way round this. Eg allergic child eats first, with a few friends who just have a drink, then the others eat ? Although I really think the only severe allergy in terms of airborne risk is likely to be the nuts.
Really hard to give the others a balanced lunch every day that they will happily eat, if you take out all those things.

Me too. I wouldn’t trust all the parents to stick to this list. I’d want something else in place.

Goodness me…I would struggle to do a pack lunch with those limitations.

No bread? Wheat free bread is stupidly expensive and doesn’t taste very nice.

No yoghurts or cheese? Again lacto free stuff can be bought but really expensive.

wouls be hard

Did you read the bit where I said "I agree that making everyone go gluten free is excessive"?

I was simply correcting your use of "intolerance"

lots of crisps have wheat in them. The flavourings I think.