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.

That’s actually not true. Severe CMP allergies can be triggered by microscopic amounts, cross contamination and contact. It’s because people somehow believe nut allergies are airborne despite evidence proving this is not the case over and over again.

🤣 yeah cause nut trees are everywhere 🤣

I'd remove the trees and go volunteer elsewhere but I cm do not put up with any rudeness when I am volunteering. Someone should have opened a discussion about the nut tree with you not told you you must remove it like you work for them.

Personally in the schools case I would just chop the trees down. It all sounds like hard work all round. Initiatives that rely on volunteers don’t work in the longer term.

I absolutely despair at this thread. Zero understand of how a nut allergy works or that nut trees are irrelevant to a having a nut allergy 🤦‍♀️

Serious but probably naive question - but what do children with nut allergies do about nut trees and bushes in parks etc? Hazelnuts, cobnuts, walnuts - they are all in our local park. And the squirrels are fed peanuts and race about with those everywhere. Aren't vulnerable children taught to avoid all trees etc?

Could be problematic as op says they run activities for the children over there, so excluding a child wouldn't be inclusive.

They are everywhere! Have you ever been outside? Hazelnut trees, beech trees, horse chestnut trees.

These are nuts in hard shells which would have to be opened with a nutcracker or similar. Children are not going to expose the allergic child just by having been near the trees!! Far more dangerous to allow your child onto public transport at any time in their lives, where they may be sitting next to someone eating a bag of peanuts, or may give their ticket to a ticket collector who's just eaten nuts.

Two things you need to ask and get answers to. Is the child allergic to touching nuts or their ingestion? To which nuts are they allergic? Would that be the allerguly is due to the nut or trees?

If the allergy is esp sensitive and reactions occur from air borne particles, I'd say, sorry we cannot kill the trees and be sure we got any small saplings, so the child cannot come visit. The patents and child need to learn that they have a responsibility to exclude risks its not always for everyone else to do this for them.

Agree with others that the school needs to get the trees professionally removed - or there might be a risk of spreading any allergens or some kind of regrowth if it’s not done thoroughly.

No, but people die from daffodil poisoning

I would remove them. Nut allergies are awful and if the trees are accessible to kids it’s an accident waiting to happen. Imagine how you’d feel if a child died because of the trees.

You decline to remove it. They must arrange it and pay for it. They cannot control what you as volunteers decide to do.

Well I can't speak for every school but at mine and the others I've experience of children aren't given milk to run around with in the playground.

Only reception children get milk anyway, there are at least two adults (sometimes more) to supervise a max 30 children and they're in a small contained area. It's much easier for the adults to ensure any child with an allergy is kept away from the areas the milk is being given. The risk of harm from milk with two adults to 30 children is quite obviously significantly lower than the risk of harm from nuts with a few adults to a couple hundred+ children to supervise in a significantly larger area. Our children are only allowed to bring water in to drink too.

There's also a risk vs benefit argument to be considered. There's lots of benefits to children having milk in school, that's why reception children get it free. There's virtually no benefit to them having access to a nut tree.

Well yes maybe they should be banned then if you believe children are at significant risk. How many children died eating a daffodil bulb at school over I dunno, say the last five/ten years? So we can weigh up the actual risk.

So do all the children wash their hands after having the milk in case they touch the milk allergic child? Also what benefit is there is having cows milk over soy milk? There are plenty of cows milk alternatives that are much healthier, until someone is allergic to that of course and then the children can simply exist on dust!

Well I would have thought that removing nut trees from the grounds of a school where a child and future children with life threatening nut allergies attend, is quite a reasonable step.

You can actually do something to make those children safer, that is surely worth doing.

The parents are not 'entitled ' they have to send their child to school and leave them in the care of people that don't have the same knowledge around their child's allergy. I'm sure they will be well aware of news reports of other children dying at school and I'm sure they have to suffer many opinions from people who think their 'right' to eat nuts or 'enjoy' nut trees is more important than their child's life.

And is no dairy served at lunch I assume since you’re only talking about reception children having free milk? No custard, no cheese, no cakes, no scrabbled egg etc? Because if so that’s significantly more children, not sitting down, with significantly less adults. Remembering that milk allergies affect more children than nut allergies do and milk allergies kill more children than nut allergies do, is there still more benefit than risk?

More children die every year from cows milk allergy than nut allergy. Since you agree that a child life is far more important than someone’s right to enjoy something I assume you’re happy to ban cows milk?

The country's churchyards are full of yew trees, which are highly toxic. Should they all be cut down?

You forgot tree hugger.

Yes they are asked to wash hands afterwards and the tables are wiped down and disinfected. Surely that's just common sense if you have a child with an allergy in the class?

Accessing dairy is an important part of our diet. Accessing a nut tree is not. You can argue both give essential nutrients and they do. However asking several hundred children to only have to dairy free alternatives to milk, cheese, yoghurt or any other dairy product in their lunch is unreasonable. Asking them not to bring nuts into school is not.

Could there not be a wireless fence around the nut trees so that there is no contact with the nuts, or have the trees pruned when flowering?

The kid needs to stay away from the orchard if the allergy is that severe. I wouldn’t be volunteering to remove the trees.