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.

We have been through this already. I linked this paper and these graphs upthread but here they are again.

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n251

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/372/bmj.n251/F7.large.jpg

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/372/bmj.n251/F8.large.jpg

Look at the separate nut categories as shown in the graph, and add the percentages together. It’s higher than dairy.

I’m in no way trying to downplay the seriousness of dairy allergies in children, just trying to correct your misunderstanding that nuts aren’t as dangerous.

@Mangoripplesfrom your graphs, dairy allergies are more serious in children than tree nut allergies (even if all the unidentified nuts were tree nuts).
Peanut reactions are irrelevant to the comparison here.
Schools absolutely do let children run about with dairy. My DS’s school invited an ice cream van into the playground at the end of each term “as a treat” and kids were running about dropping ice cream everywhere.

I’m not actually trying for a competition of which is worse, just trying to refute pp’s statement that “dairy allergy is a far more serious and widespread problem” than nut allergy.
They both need to be taken seriously, as do all allergies.

My DS’s school invited an ice cream van into the playground at the end of each term “as a treat” and kids were running about dropping ice cream everywhere.
Believe me, if I were a parent at the school I’d be objecting to that. School management organisations sometimes just don’t think, probably because they’re usually not living with allergies on a day to day basis as parents are.

I think the same thing has happened here. The school just didn’t think until a parent of a nut allergic child brought the issue to their attention.

Are you saying that there is a child with a dairy allergy in your child’s school and the school invited an ice cream truck on site and let the children run riot everywhere with dairy?!?

My child has a severe dairy allergy and the school signed off on the PTA dishing out chocolate bars to every child at a disco and proudly told everyone this was to ensure any food was "nut free". Wtf. I did point out the flaw and they changed their plan but it shows the level of ignorance and misunderstanding

The point is when you face the same battle over and over to get other allergies taken seriously then it really brings home how problematic nut bans are because they have created a false dichotomy in the minds of so many.

That’s definitely true and I agree with you 100% @Ooohaaahjustalittlebit.

Not so much an issue for schools maybe, but banning dairy in nurseries and childcare facilities would be much more problematic at a practical level than banning nuts.
Nuts are easy in comparison.

That’s on your school then more than the pta.
pta members do not do training like schools do. The school should have spoken to you first and come up with an alternative. Like you said it’s ignorance and misunderstanding , in fact it’s blissful ignorance.

Would you not agree that a nut ban reduces an allergy parents anxiety just a little bit?
I wouldn’t want to deprive anyone of a little bit less allergy anxiety. The parent and child will still be villigent no matter what.

If you are facing constant battles with your school about your child’s allergy then that’s not acceptable and I would suggest taking it as high as you can and shouting about it as loud as you can. There are or will be soon legal rules and repercussions in place so they will find it harder to not comply.
I do understand this is not easy though and it is never ending.

Peanuts are not nuts.

@Perspectives123 DS is an adult now, the ice cream van incidents were years ago, but was just one of the glaring examples of how they went above and beyond for nut allergies (though nobody had a severe nut allergy) but were totally blasé about milk as an allergen.
Along with the sentiment “at least it’s only milk, could have been a serious allergy like nuts”, despite him having several reactions in school just from skin contact with milk.

We’re talking about nut bans in schools.
That always includes peanuts as well as tree nuts, you know it does.

But you can't add them in with tree nuts to prove your point about the greater risk of nuts than dairy in a school proposing to remove hazel trees, because peanuts aren't nuts.

That would be like adding an allergy to soya milk into the dairy figures, it's nonsense.

I’m anaphylactic to tree nuts. In the UK the most obvious ‘native’ nut are hazel/cob nuts and walnuts. In their still on the tree or bush , on the ground or newly harvested they are wet nuts. They only become hard nuts when correctly dried out.
The pollen, sap, bark etc can and do prove to be as much of a hazard as the nuts themselves as I have discovered to my cost.

I think the trust and the school are in the wrong and acting negligently. Your best bet would be to walk away and let them sort the hazard out themselves.

That’s just plain ignorance on their part and I would not have been happy that he was excluded like that due to something out of his control. I would hope in this day and age there is more awareness that an allergen is an allergen and that is that. Schools are always going to differ though as you will have amazing teachers who go above and beyond annd want to learn about it and others who are not.
I will say I never heard of a true dairy allergy requiring epi pens until 4 years ago. I always knew about nut allergies and I believe that is because of awareness. As we can see from this thread dairy allergy awareness is on the rise so I hope in time people are more knowledgeable.

I wasn’t trying to do that.

These were your posts that I was replying to by posting the graph.

“It's already been explained many times in the thread that dairy allergy is a far more serious and widespread problem and recognising that they shouldn't share another child's Laughing Cow triangle or yoghurt pot is an essential part of bringing up children with allergies.
Dairy is not banned from school.”

and then

“Dairy IS a more widespread problem which causes more deaths and is therefore more serious.
But we don't keep dairy out of schools.”

I was talking about nut vs dairy bans in schools as, I thought, were you.

But any reduction in their anxiety is at the cost of increased anxiety for children/parents of children with anaphylaxis to other foods. Because even on this thread you can see from countless comments that people don't understand that there isn't a hierarchy of allergens.

Edited because I meant to quote @Perspectives123 ...
When my son was diagnosed with cows milk anaphylaxis 15 years ago it was already pretty common. Common enough that you could expect one or two children in every year group in a 2 form entry school to have cows milk anaphylaxis. We certainly knew quite a few other children who did.

Of course countless people assumed, and some still do, that it wasnt a real allergy and that I was being dramatic. But they didn't sit in the ambulances with me when he fought for his life.

Cows milk allergy is an allergy to the cows milk protein
A milk intolerance is an inability to tolerate the lactose (sugar) in the milk

Likewise my son was anaphylactic to wheat protein. Which is totally different to being unable to tolerate gluten

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree! I don’t believe I have seen where anyone said one trumps the other in terms of seriousness only that one allergen may be easier to avoid/ban.

You can’t expect people with no allergies to be as aware as allergy parents/kids.
Understanding comes with awareness, knowledge and advocacy on behalf of the child.

Anyone that thinks one is not as serious as the other is obviously not an allergy parent.

Also I think it’s good to note for knowledge purposes that all kids are different, react different, allergens can be serious if airborne, contact reaction or injested. They can even react different to the same exposure depending on how their immune system is that day! It’s a minefield and not a one shoe fits all topic.

I think this thread highlights there is desperate need for a campaign teaching about anaphylatic allergies, including (but not limited to)

• the fact that you can be allergic to anything
• how to recognise anaphylaxis
• how to treat it
• crosd contamination
• ingestion, touch and airbourne risks

@MangoripplesSo why not fence this part of the grounds off? They are not in a school “yard” or even a playground. The op said they are adjacent to a football pitch. Why cannot one dc be told to stay away from this area? Usually a football pitch is not a general play area. It’s for football. Those with allergies do have to take some care themselves but these trees could easily be fenced off as they are presumably growing in grass. The worried parent needs to know where any fallers in terms of nuts lie beneath the trees but this is very easy to deal with and avoid.

What’s to stop the dc picking nuts from other trees if they don’t know they are not allowed to?

I’ve answered this question (also posed by you) upthread.

I’ll just copy what I wrote then as the answer is the same:
The allergic child will be careful, the others might not be. You can get a reaction from skin contact and these reactions are sometimes systemic (anaphylactic).
In other words the child doesn’t have to eat the nut for it to be a problem. Residue transferred from a friend could be enough to cause a reaction.
A bit horrible to lock one child out in any case, don’t you think?

Not certain if you mean fencing the orchard off for everyone this time, but, if so, that rather defeats the purpose of having the area at all.

@Mangoripples It’s possible to fence the area off!! It really is. Then no one is near any nuts! Why should a community orchard trees be felled? What if dc gets near a nut tree overhanging the street? Or in a garden? It’s possible to fence them off and maybe install a gate for adults to enjoy the garden? It’s impossible to avoid every tiny risk. Did the parent not know there were nut trees there? They enrolled dc at a school with the trees! Why? Did the parent do a risk assessment ?

@MeetMeOnTheCorner
My understanding is that it’s a school orchard rather than a community one.
The OP says
local people planted an orchard in the grounds of a school, for the school.

Oh wow you learn something new everyday I had no idea it was that common 15 years ago.
I’ve always thought wheat must also be a nightmare to navigate, it’s in everything like dairy.
Has your son managed to outgrow any of his allergies if you don’t mind me asking?