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.

No milk in tea or coffee? No butter? No cheese in meals, especially for vegetarians? Any sandwiches bought at the air port and brought on board to be checked?

Dairy shouldn’t be banned and neither should nuts as banning either lulls children and staff into a false sense of security and also misinforms staff and children re allergens ie that only nut allergies or banned foods can be fatal. Hence Benedict’s law not requiring or recommending that schools be nut free- which you keep ignoring.

What utter rubbish
That person will have this allergy for life, which means there will be certain things in life he can’t do and places he perhaps can’t go. Life can’t and shouldn’t bend round him.

It was a bit stupid to plant a nut tree within the grounds of a school only 5 years ago... No one thought about but free schools?!
They can't force you to do the work for free, but it should be removed. It's putting a child's life on danger.

Yet many experts like the ones quoted above seem to think that's not the case. I am not an expert but would assume organisations like that are. I haven't got time to scroll back and get the names.

Also, in over 30 years working in schools, I never came across a child with allergies this bad. I'm not suggesting that they dont exist just that there tend not to be multiple children in each school as some are implying so planting nut trees wouldn't have seemed problematic 5 or 6 years ago if no-one at the school had experience of it.

In any case I would not argue about whether it was necessary to remove the trees or not just that elderly volunteers cannot be compelled to do the work.

Just goes to show how off tangent the narrative around allergies is in this country, diary is the biggest killer allergy wise. Not nuts. Not seeds

Yet most people do not know this. No where bans dairy. In fact another poster up thread says that you 'cant remove everything ie milk, but that you should remove nuts'

Why cant you remove milk (theoretically, Im not suggesting this at all as I dont even believe in removing nuts from environments)

It doesn’t happen though, my child had taken food from home throughout her entire school time as the school were not able to guarantee dairy free meals and no cross contact with dairy. She’s not on free school meals but even if she was it makes no difference, multiple children are told they cannot be catered for.

I’m saying it can’t be banned. I’m not asking for it to be banned. I am saying we should be following the professional advice from the anaphylaxis trust and manage allergies safely WITHOUT banning them. This includes nuts. I am raising the stark contrast between people saying ban all nuts and cut down the trees when those same people wouldn’t support a dairy ban yet it’s a far more dangerous allergy. Any bans are simply a false sense of security, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to completely ban allergen.

Yep. The irony that children who are at the highest risk, those with dairy allergies, are put at risk additionally because the protein and iron that they require has to come from other sources, aka nuts usually and in nut free schools they cant access that, but are put at risk by children who have nut allergies consuiming dairy. Incredible.

Incorrect.

Exactly the point I’m trying to make. My daughter is allergic to cows milk, and other things but only anaphylactic to cows milk, a huge part of her diet is nut based as she can’t have dairy, her school proposed going nut free, yet never proposed going dairy free due to her allergy, and I objected on the grounds that she would barely be able to eat anything. Thankfully they backed down when shown the research by the anaphylaxis trust that don’t support banning allergens in school.

Yep, and you see this on all sorts of threads abnout nuts, usually about flights, with the sneer 'cant you live without nuts for a few hours/a meal'

Well no, it makes up the large majority of my diet and to get my protein and macros and micros in, I balance it out very carefully. There isnt a day, and barely a meal goes by without it being nut based.

I certainly dont wash my hands after and I dont wash my hands before leaving the house either. I do when I get home.

Compared to the tree the pupil will be at that school a mere fraction of time. Pupil with allergy should keep his arse away from said tree, and adhere to management plan. Parents are being unreasonable.

As the mum to a child who had multiple life-threatening allergies I would never ask something to be removed from other pupils but I would expect a robust plan to be in place. Yes it's scary when your kid has allergies but you can't micromanage the world so you need to teach your child to be safe and the adults around them need to manage the risks when they are in there care. Thorough hand washing, not sharing food, wearing gloves etc if possible.

I think it's a ridiculous request from the parent and the school. If they were that concerned they shouldn't have picked a school with access to nut trees.

I had to fight to get meals for my son but you can get them. I got in contact with head of ops at the catering company and suddenly everything that wasn't available was suddenly able to happen. He was then offered at least 2 choices of meals a day.

You shouldn't have to fight for your kid to be fed

Nut tree or no nut tree in the school grounds, you can't guarantee the outside space to be free of nuts. Surely there are nut trees in the local area and squirrels and mice etc. often take nuts and bury them in the grass? People put nuts out for the birds in their gardens who will then take them and drop them all over the place. It's stupid to think removing a tree from the school playground will make it nut free!

We should go as far as we can in places that children are required by law to attend and their worried parents cannot be there to keep them safe. School is not “the whole world”. Clearly we need to do everything on our power to make schools safe for all children. To mitigate any risks as best we can. Your trees are not important. The risk to the child might be tiny, but why take it at all whilst they’re at school? Their parents will obviously spend every moment whilst they’re out and about with them keeping them away from not trees, but cannot do that at school.
And chances are there’s more than one child with a nut allergy or there coujd likely be more joining in the coming years.
Obviously you’re not obliged to remove the trees - tell the school they can do it/pay someone. But please don’t whine about it.

The child will never be able to go outside poor thing, there are at least 4 nut trees on my walk to the local shop! I think this must just be over zealous surely how can the whole world be swept clean. Would they demand a walnut tree removed on an Italian holiday? The world is insane.

I'm a teacher. Just done my compulsory anaphylaxis training. It doesn't even recommend schools go nut free. Quite the opposite in fact as it gives a false sense of security. The school can't make the world nut free.

My DS is allergic to nuts and there were two other nut-allergic pupils just in his class. Overall, 3% of children are allergic to nuts, so roughly one in 33 or one per class. It seems like complete idiocy to plant nut trees in a school, even though the chances of a reaction are relatively low. It’s a risk that didn’t need to be taken.

Does anyone know whether anybody has ever died from anaphylaxis due to coming into proximity with a nut tree outdoors in the UK?

I am genuinely interested to see the evidence of a nut allergy being triggered by proximity to a nut tree as I have never heard of that and have several friends with children with severe nut allergies….
Have the school really checked it all out?

NO way should you accede to this request OP.

I think you can probably write to the school and explain you are unable to facilitate this and they will have to pay a tree surgeon to cut down the trees.

I'm sure someone has mentioned it but Benedicts law is quite strict and whilst it doesnt say schools have to remove nut trees maybe have a discussion whether it would be possible to fence off the nut trees, presumably the child has a pretty serious allergy.

There is a child in my son's year group with a very severe milk allergy and during their time in EYFS they weren't allowed their free milk, the teachers are not allowed any drinks containing milk in the classrooms either. After lunch everyone is strictly supervised washing their hands and face to ensure they minimise any contamination. It is a tiny price to pay to ensure this child can safely attend school and not have a fatal anaphalactic reaction

My opinion, as someone with a child with an epipen, is that this is quite extreme. The child is more in danger from someone bringing in a Nutella sandwich, or a snack with some kind of hazelnut spread (a surprising number of prepackaged snacks) than from a tree with nuts in shells. I work in a school and it is amazing the number of people who do not realise Nutella and Nutella store brand spreads are nut-based and send their children in with them.

We are a nut-free school, but I think that parents also need to be strongly educating their own nut allergic children to avoid anything that isn't their own food. It's a false sense of security believing that you won't ever have nuts around you in your nut-free school.