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.

Absolute bollocks. Please don’t share information about allergies that’s incorrect!!

I’m watching the replies to this…. No one is going to say “oh, of course we must ban milk because one child is more important than inconvenience”. It’s so shit how much minimising of non nut allergies goes on.

Did you quote me by mistake? I didn't mention nut allergies in that post.

Edit , we cross posted, no worries 😁

Ignore me 😊

Exactly

Not before I had already pressed return on posting my question, and you yourself have pulled me up on a post that had already been changed before you completed yours 😁

Dairy allergies are more severe and milk is wet it literally sticks to everything!

The advice from Allergy UK:

Q: There is a hazelnut tree in the school grounds, but the school will not remove it. How can I keep my child safe?
The tree itself is of little risk. To prevent the risk of exposure to the nuts, the school can canopy the tree so it does not bear fruit. Make sure your child is able to recognise them and is aware to stay away from the tree if needed.

https://www.allergyuk.org/schools/for-parents/faqs-for-parents/

There is probably more helpful info on this site. I’d also peruse the Anaphylaxis UK site.

Did the school see a list of which trees you were planting Op? If they approved the nut trees then they're the people who need to sort this, they can't agree to something then say it's someone elses fault when it becomes a problem.
On a pratical level I could plant a young tree but no way could I dig up a 5_6 year old tree, it would be physically beyond me, so I don't see how 70 to 80 year olds are supposed to manage it.

Hah. Note to self - do a little better 😊

I can totally understand your disappointment and it's a shame the school did not outline this prior to the planting but this is not the same as nut trees in public spaces. This is a school where the allergic child will be all day every day not under supervision of the parents. It must be terrifying to be the parent of a primary aged child with a significant allergy.

Exactly the point I’m making. Not one person would agree dairy should be banned in all schools, planes etc, yet they all agree to ban nuts.

I don’t understand where nuts because the top trump allergy but this thread alone shows how people are so ignorant to other deadly allergies because the whole nut free policies have taught people nuts = bad and everything else is fine!

My child relies on nut milk to substitute what she can’t have, many dairy free alternatives use nuts. Would anyone say it’s reasonable she’s not allowed to eat at school at all because nuts should be banned while she’s surrounded by people eating her allergen.

She was taught from a very young age never accept food from someone, we had testing strips so she learnt how to test everything for the presence of CMP, she was not allowed to eat or drink anything that didn’t come from home. This is how it should be managed because it’s just not realistic to create an allergen free zone.

My child has multiple medical conditions including adrenal insufficiency so she has learnt from a very young age to monitor how she is feeling and report symptoms at all times, she carries a life saving EpiPen and Hydrocortisone injection everywhere she goes. She wears a medial alert bracelet, her phone lock screen lists what to do in an emergency, even her seatbelt cover in the car lists what to do in a crash. This is how to make it as safe as possible, not believing a false sense of security that the place is allergen free.

I agree this is the best tactic. There are some very useful resources on the benedicts blythe foundation website and anaphylaxis uk.

The op can say they dont have capacity to dig up trees as older volunteers, and have the school seen this useful info. It might keep relations positive if op still wants to do the volunteer learning.

Yes kill an established tree because you can’t trust your kids! Sorry I’m a way from you on this - if at 8 they are so daft they won’t refrain from eating poisonous berries they don’t have much hope.

Edit and quote is interesting on this forum. It changes the post that's quoted as well as the original. On other forums the quote stays what it was when the person picked it up to quote it. It saves a lot of problems!

It could be improved if all edits included an ETA (edited to add) unless the edit was just fixing a typo.

I have been told off on another thread for responding to a quote in the same minute it was posted, which the poster amended two minutes later and berated me five minutes later for “misreading her”. Luckily the edit history can be expanded, with time stamps, but I obviously didn’t get an apology 😀

I would tell them if they want the trees removed they must ask the local council to remove them because as volunteers you could not meet the health and safety requirements and professional gardeners would be required .

So they have not paid anything, are not planning to pay anything, and actually at one point asked you to pay them?

I would tell them they own the trees, this nut rule has never been mentioned until now, and they need to find a professional to remove the trees. I would find it very cheeky that they expect more volunteers to do this work due to their error/oversight/changing their mind! When the trees were planted, was it agreed that the volunteer group would look after them forever, or did the school realise trees live for decades?

Sounds a bit odd to have to remove a tree. These trees are everywhere. A severely allergic child needs to understand how to avoid them.

I’d tell the school that you’re volunteers, and got no money to pay anyone to deal with it.

Put the issue back with them.

True, none of my children have allergies thank god but when I was about 6 a kid in my class had a bad reaction at a birthday party. It was horrible. It’s just one of them things where it’s better safe than sorry. You can keep the kid away but there’s cross contamination risks and all that. It’s just not worth it

So schools should be completely dairy free?

It can't be done. We all know that.
Unfortunately, we have to educate children and adults about their milk allergy. A completely dairy-free school is not achievable in any way.

It's not unreasonable to be sad and disheartened, OP. I'd be pretty pissed off at the entitled attitude of the school, as well. I can tell you're not going to do this, but personally, I'd tell the school they have two choices: (1) you can put up a fence around the nut trees and children are to be told they are out of bounds; or (2) the school can pay a tree surgeon to carefully uproot and replant the nut trees, and also buy additional fruit trees to plant in place of the uprooted nut trees.

It's true that people don't value things that are cheap (or free).

A nut free school can’t be done and schools shouldn't be declaring themselves as such. It lulls schools and children into a false sense of security. Instead they should be looking at Benedict’s Law and following that. It does not say schools should be nut free.

Yes I would be. I grew up with a cousin with a dairy and egg allergy and she had several episodes of anaphylaxis, even from getting milk on her hand.