School telling us to remove nut trees from community orchard

[Calling]

We are in a local voluntary group and local people planted an orchard in the grounds of a school, for the school.

Now, the school has written to say that we have to remove the nut trees because one pupil has a bad nut allergy.

There are fruit and nut trees, that the local people planted some years ago and we have put a lot of work into weeding and watering. The yield was actually for the kids and we are volunteering with the school with and nature sessions outside.

Before anyone says we are potential child killers, we do understand the importance of safety. There is a management plan in place, but the school has been asked by a parent to remove our trees.
I do feel disheartened - nobody in the school said no to nut trees originally.

So you think a child should be excluded from their class's nature sessions because you think it more important to keep 8 small trees, 7 of which are hazelnuts? Hazel is a widespread and easy to grow species and at 5 years old must still be shrub sized. Even if like a large shrub, they aren't ancient or established trees. If you're upset because the orchard you've worked to establish has to change, can't you reframe your disappointment into an educational opportunity - a project for the children to select replacement trees and plant them? Isn't the entire purpose of the orchard supposed to be educational and a resource for the children? You aren't establishing a commercial orchard. And for those saying a child can't avoid nut trees in parks etc, a child with a nut allergy probably wouldn't be managing and touching those trees in a 'nature session' way. The whole purpose of the school orchard is to create a SAFE space for children to engage with nature and learn by getting involved in it's management. The child should be able to participate safely and the 8 young nut trees should absolutely be replaced. Every child in the school matters.

On school grounds, further than in other places. That's the crux of it - the trees are on school grounds. The trees belong to the school and the school has reassessed the situation.

Do you think all daffodils, snowdrops and tulips should removed from all schools, parks and front gardens too? They are poisonous and can kill any child who decides to pull up and eat a bulb.

And let’s not get started on yew trees, which can be up to a thousand years old - better grub them up. Or laburnum plants in people’s garden, or fox gloves and bluebells in the woods. Much better to destroy nature than teach a child not to pick and eat that pretty red and white toadstool!

Quite honestly Op in your place I'd call a meeting with the school, tell them you're happy to go on looking after the orchard but you don't have the numbers, time or money to move the nut trees, the school needs to pay for that. They don't appreciate your efforts, they even tried to charge you money, so if they approved the nut trees then that's their fault.

The whole situation around allergies in schools is a mess, frankly. My kids’ primary went ‘nut free’ so of course we stopped sending them in with peanut butter sandwiches and so on. But when you have loads of kids bringing their own packed lunches, there is no way you can consider the school to be ‘nut free’. Nobody is inspecting the contents of each lunchbox to establish whether any packaged items have nuts in the ingredient list, including the ones that ‘may contain’ nuts due to cross-contamination, and there is no way to ensure home-made foods have been prepared without nuts and in a nut-free environment. Let alone the parents who don’t understand how to exclude nuts from food because they have no experience, don’t speak English or simply don’t care because it’s not their problem. So for a school to trumpet that they are ‘nut free’ is naive at best and possibly downright irresponsible. Then the kids go off to high school where it’s a free-for-all anyway.

I really feel for the kids with allergies and their parents, it must be terrifying. But at the same time there is only so much a school can do to reasonably control the environment. I can also understand the OP is frustrated, when the chances are that the kids walk through parks and gardens everyday with hazel trees in abundance. My local park has a few walnuts, too. We’re surrounded by potentially dangerous plants and fungi and we all have to learn to manage risk - there is a squirrel that frequently buries peanuts in my garden, for example.
You’re within your rights to tell the school it’s beyond your remit and skills to remove the trees OP, but I guess if you want to try and save the trees and find them a new home, then you’ll need to get involved. I’d feel exactly the same as you do, though. And you’re not a heartless child killer 😁

It means a tree beneficial to pollinators/insects usually. So native UK species are especially good.

In school grounds? That's how far we should go.
Just remove the nut plants and put kids safety first. Whatever risk is in every day life is up to parents to manage when at school they then have a duty of care.

Do you think the school are genuinely fussed, or have they just said it to you so they can tell the parents they’ve passed on the message and it’s not in their hands?

I’d try telling the school it’s not easy to remove a planted tree and that you’re “looking into what can be done” and see if they even bother to mention it again.

You don't think one child is worth 8 trees??

I get the point that you can only control risk to some degree but literally growing nuts on school grounds is clearly avoidable.

Obviously not a London Plane as it supports very little biodiversity. Something that draws birds in for example a crab apple tree.
Most hedge companies can specify wildlife friendly hedging, I don’t think it’s a strange criteria.

No school would plant yew or fox gloves on grounds now. Not confident about laburnum or bluebells.

Parks and domestic gardens are irrelevant.

Trees are nature friendly by definition.

It doesn’t get more nature than trees.

So there should be zero dairy in schools what so ever?

My daughter is allergic to peanuts, cashews and walnuts. She's fine with hazelnuts. Eats a tonne of Nutella but can't even go near crunchy nut cornflakes.

I'd ask which nuts. Also put the trees on market place. Plants do well on there.

What about daffodils?

You need to consult with an allergy consultant. The tree wardens knows nothing about allergies….

Yes and no, some trees are not in their normal environment, and the insects and birds that would live on them are not present, because they are in the wrong country. An oak tree supports hundreds of different highly evolved species in this country, but possibly not in a different country like Dubai.

One, i've personally never seen a school field with tulips, snowdrops or daffodils on it anyway (and we've been through a fair few).
Two, children don't generally pull up bulbs and randomly decide to eat them, because they're not food. Unlike nuts/fruit/veg which are food and a child is much more likely to pick up.

If there were poisonous berries in the grounds would everyone be happy for those to stay?

Kill them with fire in case someone decides to chop them up for their salad.

Bluebells grow everywhere like a weed.

Should we have flying squads of gardeners removing them from everywhere?

Why even plant nut trees, I'm surprised it was ever considered a good idea tbh.

Let's remove all fixtures and fittings in school, ceilings too. They all have the potential to be dangerous after all.

Loads of schools have flower beds in their grounds with daffodils. Why would a child allergic to nuts eat that anymore than another child eating a daffodil?

My DC school has a row of magnificent large horse chestnut trees - should those be cut down for fear a child may munch on a conker?

This is so incredibly harsh and rude. How little empathy do you have to have to not be able to contemplate that this would be anxiety inducing for any parent. Navigating a serious allergy with a child is incredibly hard and the parents are clearly trying to do the best for their kid as any decent parent would do.

Exactly. The general level of hype about nut allergies WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE KIDS, is met with a shrug when a child has a dairy allergy. Which is more common and can also be fatal.