To feel really upset that a mum sent her child to school ill again

[Yesitismeagain]

I work in a primary school. One boy (age 9) cried today because he felt so unwell. He was ill yesterday (temperature and feeling ill with it) and his parents were called early, but they didn't come till normal pick up.

Today he was back in, but was obviously very unwell from the start. The school phoned by 9.30am to come and get him. He was crying, shivering and just lying on the floor in the 'sick room' (a small room off the office).

By 2pm a parent still hadn't arrived. The office were told that the neither parent could come as they work.

Is it just me that this is neglect?

I do think that teachers and many other public sector workers have it better than some people in the private sector when it comes to employment rights

Ive done both, and that is certainly my experience - and don't get me started on the lack of employment rights when you're self employed!

Since the austerity measures, I think the public sector is becoming less tolerant than before; lack of attendance, for whatever reason, is now a big issue, and so parents can't (as one poster upthread suggested) take a sick day to cover their ill child at home.

I am comparing it because schools were much more understanding regarding parents picking children up in those days perhaps because teachers were in the same situation themselves (they risked their jobs if they left due to a family emergency). Now that teachers jobs are more secure it seems some don't get the fact that it is not the same for everyone.

That's utter bollocks again. I've already said I was teaching in the 70s. That's when the HT threatened parents with social services, as I've already mentioned. We expected parents to do the right thing then as now.

Teachers' jobs were far more secure then. We all had permanent contracts. Today many teachers are on temporary contracts. Almost unheard of in the'70s. And if children were ill teachers went to them then as they do now.

I was a teacher in the 1970s. I was not in the least understanding if a parents expected me to nurse their sick child while trying to teach 34 others. And neither would teachers be so today. It's arrogant and neglectful to dump or leave a sick child with a teacher trying to educate other children.

You were different to the teachers at my mothers school (thankfully) although perhaps they were biased because my mother was also a teacher. Considering that a lot of people didn't have phones and nobody had mobile phones I doubt that there was quite the same expectation that parents would be able to immediately collect children if they were ill though.

So are we thinking along these lines...

Put your job first, the need for income (2 incomes I'm op case) is greater than the wellbeing of the child

Teachers should be expected to look after the sick child whilst
simultaneously doing their JOB, since the parents' jobs come before the teacher

School is viewed as childcare, emergency childcare and welfare provision, medical assistance

Claim that their job is much more important than other parents' jobs, who also make sacrifices to accommodate their (sick)children

It is fine that a child with a contagious illness will pass it on to many others, whose parents will also have the dilemma, work or seeing as said parent is the only person in The world who has to weigh up a situation and judge the risks

It's ok to Spend so much time on the job and up your own arse so much so that people will get sick of you and refuse to pick up your child because you can't take responsibility...

That children who are ill enough to end up in hospital are lucky ??? Pardon?

Teachers are the to EDUCATE your child! End of story! Take some effing responsibility! Care for your child!

Summed up my thinking there fredfred - I think I must live in a parallel universe from most people.

Considering that a lot of people didn't have phones good point, mary - what did schools do if they had no means of contacting the parents, except by post or in person at the school gate? Send a telegram? Carrier pigeon?

The world is a very different place now, and I suspect there are fewer DCs left for hours at school in distress through illness than there was 40 years ago.

Much as we'd like the word to be a perfect place, it isn't - but immediately berating a parent who is more likely than not doing the best they can in the circumstances is a very intolerant attitude. ......"Walk a mile" and all that!

That's utter bollocks again. I've already said I was teaching in the 70s. That's when the HT threatened parents with social services, as I've already mentioned. We expected parents to do the right thing then as now.

Teachers' jobs were far more secure then. We all had permanent contracts. Today many teachers are on temporary contracts. Almost unheard of in the'70s. And if children were ill teachers went to them then as they do now.

I think that you are talking utter bollocks. Were you are parent as well as a teacher in the 1970s? You didn't have the right to take emergency leave to look after children as teachers do today. And considering that many parents couldn't be contacted that easily if their child was ill there wasn't the same expectation that they would go home immediately which is probably why schools had sick bays.

fredfred you have summed up all my thoughts perfectly.

Op yanbu but I am surprised at the school tbh. When my dds school has rung me to say she is unwell they are very firm and say you have to collect her within 30mins. There is 4 people on the contact list and I guess they would work their way through that list until someone came and would be within their rights to contact social services if no one showed up.

That is ridiculous. Some people work more than a 30 minute drive away (as do all their friends and relatives). In fact at my older daughters school many of them live over 30 minutes away so even if the parent was at home they wouldn't be able to get there that quickly.

That children who are ill enough to end up in hospital are lucky ??? Pardon?

Misquoting to prove a point is usually the sign of a weak argument.

I said that there are some parents whose circumstances are such that they view a hospital admission with mixed emotions - they are acutely aware of the shortcomings of their own home, and are relieved that their child is warm, fed and cared for. Personally, I think it's disgraceful that any parent finds themselves in that situation, but it does happen.

Have you ever been in a situation where your DC has a streaming cold/cough or fever but you can't afford tissues/toilet roll to wipe the snot/phlem from their face and hands? No warm water to wash them? No way of cleaning the vomit/shit off their clothes?

Leaving them at school for a couple of hours longer so the school meet their child's basic needs is sometimes a conscious choice, but in most cases, the parents try their best. Isn't that what we all do?

I was a bit surprised, on Friday I took my little boy to nursery, which is part of a school. He seemed a bit peaky but was okay in himself, I told his teachers to call me straight away if he got any worse. He did and was vomiting, but they didn't even call me, which to be honest I was a bit miffed about. But it has made me a bit about all these claims that schools have absolutely no provision for sick children.

I think that you are talking utter bollocks. Were you are parent as well as a teacher in the 1970s? You didn't have the right to take emergency leave to look after children as teachers do today. And considering that many parents couldn't be contacted that easily if their child was ill there wasn't the same expectation that they would go home immediately which is probably why schools had sick bays.

You really aren't reading what people are saying, are you? Yes, I was a parent in the 1970s. I was the child of teachers in the 1950s and60s. When I was ill one of my parents took time off school to look after me.

I don't know anyone who didn't have a house phone in the 1970s or any place of work that didn't have a phone. It wasn't the dark ages.

And, for the last time, most schools didn't have sick bays. FFS stop pretending they did. They just didn't. Some schools had a "sick room" where children waited to be collected. There were no school nurses in any school I attended or taught in.

Girlie

Your school might say that but there is no way to enforce it unless you are in a private school and that's in your t & c's

Do sick children stay in the class and distract the teacher? In my school they sit in the office.

I think the 70s was the decade that saw the rapid increase in the number of houses that had phones, MythicalKing - I suspect that, by the end of that decade, a landline was the norm in the majority of houses.

But I remember moving to a small Shropshire village in 1972, and ours was one of only three houses in the village with a phone - and we were on a party line with another family, so if they were on the phone, we couldn't make or receive calls!

I guess that houses in towns and cities got phones earlier than rural areas, because of the distances involved. But I also remember moving into a student house in Stoke on Trent in the early 90s that didn't have a landline - it literally did not have a phone wire connecting the house to the main phone line in the street - I had to pay to have the house connected to the phone network.

It's one of those things that makes the dses look at me as if I grew up in the Dark Ages, when I tell them about it!

You really aren't reading what people are saying, are you? Yes, I was a parent in the 1970s. I was the child of teachers in the 1950s and60s. When I was ill one of my parents took time off school to look after me.

Why do you think that I'm not reading what you are saying? I just don't agree with you. There was certainly no universal right for teachers to pick up children if they were ill as there is today. That is a fact. And although you and your parents were able to take time off in and emergency other teachers including my mother couldn't. Her HT made it quite clear that children being sick wasn't her problem. I know this because she has told me and I also remember that my dad always took time off in an emergency rather than her.

As for not knowing anyone who didn't have a phone, you obviously only mixed with better off people as certainly some of my friends didn't have one.
As for sick rooms, I went to six schools in my childhood and they all had one so not rare as they apparently are today (according to some posters).

And also even if people did have a phone if they weren't at home (e.g. shopping or somewhere else) there was no way of contacting them.

I don't know anyone who didn't have a house phone in the 1970s or any place of work that didn't have a phone. It wasn't the dark ages.

That says a lot about the household income you had and the relative "wealth" of the families you were friends with.

Like genius, I can remember which houses in the village were "posh enough" to have telephones. They had colour tVs, too!

Maybe it's you whose not reading what people are saying, which is that your experiences are not universal? Some schools did have sick rooms; my school had a full time, qualified nurse, a medical couch with curtains - I remember the fuss the parents and teachers created when she was made to leave, and how I was taken to see her at her new job in the local Drs Surgery.

"Hopefully HTs will begin to deregister children whose parents are irresponsible."

This will never happen because school is compulsory.

But it's not compulsory to go to that particular school. I strongly suspect that if parents found themselves in the situation that that school place is withdrawn and they have to send their child to the school 20 miles away which is the only one with a spare place, they would suddenly find themselves able to make adequate child care arrangements.

Arghhh - we probably were thought to be posh - dad was a teacher, mum had been a teacher until she had dsis and me, and we spoke BBC English, read lots and did well in school. No wonder I got so horribly bullied.

We didn't have a colour tv though - mum claimed they gave her migraines. So we had black and white long after colour TV became the norm. And even when RadioRentals stopped stocking black and white TVs and they had to get a colour one, mum turned the colour right down, so it was pretty much a black and white TV.

clam I can see your point. I would have no-one to act as back-up and the chances are I'd be well over an hour away from school. I don't expect you to be nurse to my child but similarly I wouldn't be able to be there immediately and that's that.

I would leave my job without waiting to handover/get permission/so on if it was an emergency, regardless of my responsibilities to anyone or to the profession. My children are more important to me that anyone else.

School is NOT compulsory in the UK.

On gov.co.uk
If your child gets sick at school
By law the school have to provide a space for
Treatment of sick or injured pupils
First aid or medical examinations
This is usually 2 separate rooms both with toilet and sink.

But it's not compulsory to go to that particular school. I strongly suspect that if parents found themselves in the situation that that school place is withdrawn and they have to send their child to the school 20 miles away which is the only one with a spare place, they would suddenly find themselves able to make adequate child care arrangements.

Yes of course that would really be in the best interests of the child to expel them from school because their parents didn't pick them up when they were ill.