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?

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.

There are an awful lot of primary schools breaking the law in this county then. Unless they are counting the office or the staffroom, which I suspect they are. Not sure what is meant by treatment, unless they mean the wet paper towel.

Staff rooms are used when medics come to give injections or for hearing and sight tests.

Bit pointless having the emergency contacts at all being as they refused to collect the child for fear of their own DC getting sick.

I feel for the poor boy. He so needed to be at home, feeling ill away from home is the worst thing.

What jobs mean you absolutely cannot collect a poorly child?

That might be law in England but I've taught for nearly a quarter of a century North of the border and I've never seen a sick room and/or school nurse who is in situ 5 days a week. When I was in high school in the 80's we did have both, but now my eldest dcs are at the same school, they just get stuck outside the office with a bowl same as we do in primary.

Arguably parents are putting their child first if they keep their jobs and therefore can provide for their child though. It didn't sound from the OP as if the child needed urgent medical attention and therefore it is an exaggeration to say the parents were jeopardising their health by not picking them up straightaway

But how would the parents know that? They get a call telling them that their child is ill, feverish and sobbing. How do they diagnose over the phone that it's won't jeopardise their health failing to collect them? And even if it won't, what sort of parent is happy to leave their child in that state for 5 hours?

Primary schools (and I'm assuming that's what we're talking about here) have changed dramatically in the last 20-30 years. Every single inch of space is utilised to maximum effect; hardly any school is going to have the luxury of a "sick room with a full time, qualified nurse, a medical couch with curtains." You're talking about your childhood, and while I have no idea how old you are, or where in the country you're talking about, it's clearly some time ago.
That list you quote says to provide "a space." That's the crucial term. In my school, that "space" is three classroom chairs in a side room off the main Reception, which is also the photocopying room and Senco's office. There is a basin in there, and a loo next door and that's it. If a private meeting is going on, then any ill child would be moved to a chair in the draughty reception area. We have no spare staff to watch over a sick child - if an adult is required, it means taking a TA out of class, and all that adult's intervention timetable goes out of the window. Whilst you might think your child isn't ill often, you're disregarding all the other children who also fall ill.
Schools are under so much pressure these days to be all things to all people that it's totally unreasonable to hark back to the supposed halcyon days of the 70s (which were fairly shite in my recollection).

But how would the parents know that? They get a call telling them that their child is ill, feverish and sobbing. How do they diagnose over the phone that it's won't jeopardise their health failing to collect them? And even if it won't, what sort of parent is happy to leave their child in that state for 5 hours?

I would hope that school would inform the parents if the child was seriously ill. The school are responsible for the child until the parent is there and should call an ambulance or doctor if it really is an emergency.

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?

Seriously, how often does that happen? When you can buy a roll of loo paper for under 20p? I know benefits levels are low, but they're not that low. And in any event it is irrelevant to this situation where there were two parents in employment.

Right, Marynary. So in your book it is absolutely fine to shove your ill child through the door and run, telling yourself that maybe your child is seriously ill but that's fine, it'll be the school's job to call an ambulance if things develop to that stage. I'm sorry, but you baffle me.

I haven't read the whole thread, but this comment:

A child's perspective doesn't understand travel time, the mortgage, the council tax bill ...

is one of the saddest I've ever read, a demonstrates just low down the priorty list some children really are.

"Call a doctor?" What doctor? And even supposing you could get through to the right GP practice at the right time of day for their receptionists, what are you expecting that doctor to do? Abandon he appointment 'Peak Practice,' you know!

Oops! What happened there?
Should have said..... Abandon her appointments and jump in the car and rush to the school? This isn't Peak Practice.

clam Not sure if you were talking to me but if you are you are a bit confused. I actually said that sick rooms were not rare in the 1970s but they are today. I also did not quote the list (that person who did didn't mention the 1970s).

Education is compulsory and local authorities who remove a child from a school cannot compel that child's parents to home educate or seek private education. Therefore any solutions about deregistering a child are unworkable.

Ici, how many "strikes" do parents get before they are out, in your system?

For some children, the grim description upthread of a chair in the office, with a bowl or bucket at their feet to vomit into and some blue-roll to wipe their mouths, is still a significant improvement on their home environment.

The description upthread was of a plastic chair in the office. If that is a significant improvement on the home environment - i.e. if the child has no bed and no room to lie down even if he feels ill - then the remedy is not to assume you can dump the child on the school. The remedy is to go to Citizens Advice and make sure you are getting all the benefits to which you are entitled; and to go to Social Services and ask for one-off grants and referrals to charities who will provide a bed or at least a mattress. Not least because if you're not providing that level of care to your child you may well find Social Services looking into neglect issues.

I'm not at all confused. I directly quoted another poster (peruvian)

"Not least because if you're not providing that level of care to your child you may well find Social Services looking into neglect issues."

Which brings us nicely full circle back to the OP!

Right, Marynary. So in your book it is absolutely fine to shove your ill child through the door and run, telling yourself that maybe your child is seriously ill but that's fine, it'll be the school's job to call an ambulance if things develop to that stage. I'm sorry, but you baffle me.

When did I say it is absolutely fine for a parent to dump a seriously ill child at school? Talk about extrapolating. I said that it is the schools job to call an ambulance in an emergency if the parent isn't there because it is. Therefore the argument that by not turning up the parent is jeopardising the child's health is not correct or at least it shouldn't be.

So whilst critising parents who cant get there the instant child is ill, and putting other vulnerable children at risk, few have a room away from other children/adults even for say the 30min needed.

I am well aware that a school cannot under the current system exclude a child for this reason; I was responding to one poster's erroneous understanding of the law on compulsory education, and postulating a hypothetical situation. But it is not impossible that, for example, free schools and academies - who have rather more freedom of manoeuvre and tend to take a fairly ruthless approach to exclusions - might reach a point with parents who regularly use them for free child care where they do find a reason to exclude a child. In that situation the parent would simply have no choice but to find another school, and the threat would certainly act as a deterrent.

Some of the people on this thread remind me of the mother of a friend of dd's who regularly picked her daughter up late because she said that school hours didn't fit in with her work hours. She refused to make any alternative arrangement because in her view the teachers were still there after school hours and it was their job to give her free child care. The school could point out till they were blue in the face that teachers only stay on because they have other things to do, and if they can't do those things because they were looking after her child, they will have to go home late to their own families: she just ignored it all.

Until the school set up a generally welcomed after school club which charged for people to be left there. At that point they told this mother that, if she was late to collect her child in future, she would be put in that club and they would charge her for it. Suddenly she discovered a way to start collecting her child on time.

"Call a doctor?" What doctor? And even supposing you could get through to the right GP practice at the right time of day for their receptionists, what are you expecting that doctor to do? Abandon he appointment 'Peak Practice,' you know!

I meant call a doctor for advice. If they can't call the child's doctor for advice then why do we have to give details of the doctor on school forms?

Depends what you mean by "seriously ill." I thought we were talking about a child with, say, flu symptoms who was feeling very rough. That's hardly an emergency situation, but at the same time, they need to be at home with a loved one, being looked after and given medication (that the school can't give without prior arrangement).

And no one has said that schools criticise parents who can't get there "the instant" the child is ill. We were discussing a scenario where up to 4 or 5 hours passed. Not the same thing at all.

If you call a doctor for advice about a child with flu-like symptoms and a temperature, they're highly likely to say "send them home to bed and give Calpol." Oh, wait....

I'm not at all confused. I directly quoted another poster (peruvian)

Nope - I didn't post the list either.

My experience in very disadvantaged schools, with families who have a high dependency on Foodbanks, and poorly heated bad furnished homes (working and non-working families) is clearly causing me to project.

If the reality across the country is far rosier than my experience, then that can can only be a good thing!

Depends what you mean by "seriously ill." I thought we were talking about a child with, say, flu symptoms who was feeling very rough. That's hardly an emergency situation, but at the same time, they need to be at home with a loved one, being looked after and given medication (that the school can't give without prior arrangement).

I wasn't talking about a child with flu symptoms because that isn't a situation where the child's health would be jeopardised by not going straight home (or it shouldn't be).

Depends what you mean by "seriously ill." I thought we were talking about a child with, say, flu symptoms who was feeling very rough. That's hardly an emergency situation, but at the same time, they need to be at home with a loved one, being looked after and given medication (that the school can't give without prior arrangement).

I wasn't talking about a child with flu symptoms because that isn't a situation where the child's health would be jeopardised by not going straight home (or it shouldn't be).