Helping school with allergy policy?

[Weta]

We live in Luxembourg and 6yo DS1 (anaphylactic to dairy) goes to a very large European School. We have had a number of concerns about their handling of his allergy. I posted a few times about problems with an overnight school trip, plus there seem to be issues with communication - I don't think the supply teachers receive any info about his allergy (yet they supervise lunch at the canteen) and his ethics teacher let him lick icing off biscuits the kids were decorating (DS1 thought this was ok because he knew the icing was just sugar and water, and didn't think about it touching the biscuit).

We have raised some of these concerns and have now been invited to discuss the school's allergy policy with a reflection group set up to review safety policies (consisting of the school nurses and the psychologist I think).

I'd really appreciate any advice you can give me about suggestions I could make... I would like to ask that parents of anaphylactic children be given first refusal to go on school trips as parent helpers, and also thought about the teachers having a plastic sheet in the classroom with a photo of the child and the basic rules and symptoms for them. Any other ideas?

Our school has a sheet on the door of every classroom with a photo of children with allergies, also in the staffroom, after school club etc. I think we were "lucky" to have one Mum who had a particularly allergic child who became a dinner supervisor and then a classroom assistant so she could keep a close eye on her child. We also ban any egg cartons, milk cartons, yogart cartons from the junk modeling areas. Egg and spoon races are done with an orange.

Thanks, that's interesting you have it on the door.

Actually I do have another question - my other concern is that I am keen for DS1 to be able to be involved in school activities as far as possible, but often we are not informed what is happening until it is too late. Eg the biscuit decorating - we could have provided special biscuits and dairy-free smarties for him to use. Any ideas on how to get that across?

Oh thanks, I did have a look at their website the other day but didn't spot that, so will have a more detailed look.

our primary had pictures in the staff room. Other schools have them on or in the register, which seems a better idea to me as it's harder for supply staff to miss. Some schools have colour coded trays in the canteen for those with food allergies. Treat boxes are useful if the school ever give out sweets.

When it comes to participation in activities I'm afraid the best solution is to make friends with as many people at school as possible. Make sure that their epipen training is up to date and if possible go along and get the class teacher to stick an out-of-date epipen into an orange or apple. Nothing like seeing the needle to drive the message home.

Food Allergy Mums are working on a document for schools for the LEA - would you like a copy? It's draft but really details:

send a request into:
www.foodallergymums.com/
and we'll whizz a copy to you
tx

Interesting point about the door idea... school is absolutely huge so I think staffroom would be too anonymous, but I think if the teacher could leave it on the desk or in the register and maybe have a standard note for any supply teachers, that would do the trick.

Topiarygal thanks for offer but am just off to the meeting now so won't have time! but thanks for the tips...

They do already have a basic protocol in place (looked after by the nurses, who keep all the medication), but the problems seem to be in communicating with/between teachers and making sure he can do an alternative activity or that activities can be modified (for which they need to inform us in advance).

Weta, I know you have had your meeting but could you have a box of stuff at school, plastic wrapped biscuits, cakes, chocolate drops, sweets that would probably cover most eventualities for food related activities?

MistyB DS does have a box of cakes with his class teacher and cakes and sweets with the French teacher, but the problem we had was in the ethics class, which is just once a week and we had never met the teacher or even been given her name (and apparently she had forgotten about his allergy).

The school is very big and communication is quite difficult (so if there was a box it would only be available to one teacher), but at the meeting today one of the suggestions was to give parents a list of all the teachers their child will be having during the year (except supply teachers obviously), with contact details so that parents can arrange to meet them to discuss any health issues.

The meeting was good, and I've suggested that the nurses could prepare a brief explanation for teachers with some guidance on handling allergies eg informing parents in advance if they're doing cooking so that we can provide alternatives, having a treat box in the main class and the second-language class, etc. I was keen to have something official from the nurses so that the teacher realises it's not just parental paranoia! After our recent troubles with school trip, I've also asked if parents of very allergic children can have priority as parent helpers.

Could your son have his 'treat box' in his school bag? That way it doesn't matter who is teaching him?

We have egg free biscuits/sweets in a school bag.