to not send my Dd back to school until they address my concerns

[Allisgood1]

I am fuming.

Dd is 7. She is VERY shy and sensitive (and yes, probably very annoying for teachers).

In June she fell off a fence after school and hurt her wrist. The next morning she was fine but she was holding her wrist close to her. DH took her to school and specifically asked that she not do PE as she had a sprained wrist. She did PE. When I picked her up they said "oh she was fine to do it". Dd was still holding her wrist in one position and very tearful. I took her to ooh and she had a broken wrist. Our fault for not realizing but we also hadn't been with her all day.

About two weeks ago she had a filling at the dentist. The next morning she was complaining of pain so we gave her calpol and ibuprofen and sent her to school (with the meds) and told the office to call us if she got any worse. That afternoon when DH picked up her teacher said she shouldn't have been sent in. That evening an ooh dentist diagnosed her with an abcsess. When I emailed the teacher to explain she would likely be late in Monday as we were taking her to the dentist she said that Dd was "unable to concentrate and very tearful on Friday". Wtf wasn't I called then!????

Yesterday was final straw. She was fine going in but had missed two doses of antibiotics because school didn't give them to her at lunch and didn't give them to her at going home time (by the time we realized it was evening). I had a call from the office saying Dd had been for her flu vaccine and the nurse had taken her temp and it was "very high" and the nurse had advised she go home. Dd got home and looked awful. How in the hell did she go all day without anyone noticing "Dd looks unwell".

The school is new and they obviously care about their Ofsted but the neglect in care to protect attendance records has resulted in a loss of trust. I emailed the head and said she won't be coming back until I am able to come in and review their sickness at school policy. Am I overreacting?

Failure to seek medical attention for an injured child is considered neglect by SS. See broken wrist for further details....

Its quite ironic really that the heading of the post is to not send myc hild back to school untill they address my concerns? so you dont mind keeping her off now and her attendance going down now when shes not ill??? yet you send her in when she is ill and yet blame school? that surely is double standards?

Shazza I hadn't even thought of that. Good point!

Bullshit mouldycheese Parents are allowed some leeway to judge if and when medical attention is needed, and breaks can be very difficult to detect straight away. Do you really think every child who falls and hurts themselves should be rushed to A7E straight away 'just incase'?

Actually, last time I was at A&E there was a family who thought that. Their daughter had fallen, hurt wrist, so'd they'd brought it in to be checked. All fine except she spent the 3 or so hours of waiting to be seen time doing cartwheels and handstands in the play area with no apparent pain at all.

Thing is, keeping her off now for no good reason will end up in educatin welfare etc being involved, is that a route you really want to go down op? As the EWO is likely to have the same view as 99% of the posters in this thread.

I have to say mouldycheese that there are parents who abuse the Nhs by taking children every two minuets which is wrong, my next door neighbour for instance, they take theyre children to the doctors for silly things which is a total waste and drain on nhs resources. mind none of them have worked a days work in all theyre lives either! jusy happy to take out the system but not contribute!

Sure there are but a child who can't move their wrist should be taken for medical attention regardless of the fact that other people take their children to the doctorfor no good reason. There is no link between the two. When my daughter may have had a broken foot I didn't neglect to take her just because other people take heir kids too often!

I dont understnad why you didnt take her to the OOH when she hurt her wrist instead of sending her in the next day.

No i agree with that, if a child cannot move theyre wrist then they should be visiting the docs or hospital

Well last time I took my child for an injury when questioned by Dr as to when it happened and explained that day, he said"good, we take a very dim view of parents who leave it before seeking medical attention". Failure to take appropriate medical action is a sign of neglect.

Common sense should prevail in all cases.

YANBU.

I would ahve done exactely the same than you in all those occasions. Like most other parents I know.
it just isn't possible or good to keep children at home 'just in case' but when the teacher has been told of a POTENTIAL issue and they SEE siad issue then yes I expect them to ring me.
Just as they have always done at my primary school.

dc1 once felt off his scooter and scrape his whole face. A&E said all OK, can go back to school.
dc1 went back to school as he wanted to scared everyone in the process but after a couple of hours was clearly not that well. The school rung us AS AGREED TO GETHER IN THE AM.

YANBU.

I would ahve done exactely the same than you in all those occasions. Like most other parents I know.
it just isn't possible or good to keep children at home 'just in case' but when the teacher has been told of a POTENTIAL issue and they SEE siad issue then yes I expect them to ring me.
Just as they have always done at my primary school.

dc1 once felt off his scooter and scrape his whole face. A&E said all OK, can go back to school.
dc1 went back to school as he wanted to scared everyone in the process but after a couple of hours was clearly not that well. The school rung us AS AGREED TO GETHER IN THE AM.

FWIW Allisgood1, if your child requires a dose of prescribed medicine to be administered by the school, you should ask for a split prescription when you go to the pharmacy. That way you have one bottle to leave at school and one bottle to keep at home, so no need to ensure collection of meds at the end of each day or need to drop them off each morning.

In fact, our primary school have in their policies that if you need school to administer a dose you must get a split prescription so one bottle can be kept at school.

mouldy interesting because when dc2 hurt his elbow and was saying he couldnt move it, we went to A&E and were clearly made to feel like we were overreacting. They were expecting us to first dose him up with paracetamol, then wait until the next day or more.

I know plenty of other parents who have waited in similar cases only to discover that their dc had a broken bone. One of them had a broken neck (!!) and no one ever told his parents they were neglectful.
The reason is simple, sometime children carry on saying it's hurting but play etc even with a broken bone. Sometimes, children say they can't do a thing when actually there is nothing more than a very light sprained ankle/wrist.
It's not as simple as that.
And sometimes we, as parents, make some errors. We all do. You, me and everyone else.

Yes but why is the error the schools responsibility? Why keep your child off school, not when they are injured, but when they are well. It makes no sense.

WoodHeaven, i was once made to feel extremley small after taking my son to a&e after a bang to the head, he had a massive egg on it too.

You are being completely unreasonable.

On three separate occasions you sent your child to school when she was unwell and in pain, and then blamed the school because they didn't contact you. If you were unable to recognise the symptoms:- broken wrist (you didn't think it necessary to have it checked out?) abscess,(the dentist didn't spot it) and high temperature, in your own child at home, how on earth is a teacher, dealing with twenty-nine other children, supposed to do so? Many children do not like to draw attention to themselves by making a fuss.

Calling home means sending someone with a note to the office, who then interrupt their work to contact a parent, not nearly as straightforward as you would think, then organising collection.

Most medication for children is calculated so that the doses are administered at home; breakfast, after school, bedtime.(information from local chemist, member of the Governing Body.) They should not need to be given at school; if they are, the child is too unwell to be there.

By all means go and discuss the policy with the Headteacher, but do not keep your child away as a threat.

You need to consider your child care arrangements as you are clearly sending your child into school when she needs to be at home; I assume this is because you are working. Don't blame the school.

Most medication for children is calculated so that the doses are administered at home; breakfast, after school, bedtime.(information from local chemist, member of the Governing Body.) They should not need to be given at school; if they are, the child is too unwell to be there.

Sorry but that's just rubbish. On 2 separate occasions my DD has had to have ABs 4x a day for a minor but persistent nasal infection. She wasn't unwell in any way, shape or form (other than a smelly, snotty nose). Keeping her off would have been ridiculous.

OP, I think you're getting an unfair kicking here. There have clearly been faults on both sides but if the school said they'd give ABs then they should have done so. And to all those who think you should have known your DD had a broken wrist I'd just say it's not always as obvious as you'd think. My boss has just found out that the sprained wrist she thought she's had for the last few weeks is, in fact, broken. Neither she nor her doctor spotted that.

On three separate occasions you sent your child to school when she was unwell and in pain, and then blamed the school because they didn't contact you. If you were unable to recognise the symptoms:- broken wrist (you didn't think it necessary to have it checked out?) abscess,(the dentist didn't spot it) and high temperature, in your own child at home, how on earth is a teacher, dealing with twenty-nine other children, supposed to do so? Many children do not like to draw attention to themselves by making a fuss.

This.

Yes, parents make mistakes. Of course they do. But it is extremely unreasonable to blame someone else for thinking exactly what you yourself did.

I suspect you're projecting your own guilty feelings on to the school. By blaming them, you don't have to blame yourself, but ultimately that won't salve your conscience. Just accept that you made a mistake, no long-term harm was done, and move on.

But the OP's condition worsened during the day - so she was wanting the school to act on more information than she'd had at the start of the day.

Our school is really good with medication as long as we fill in the forms, I wouldn't be annoyed if they forgot though as they are busy. I would check DS had brought it home though, not their responsibility.

I sent DS last week when he said he was feeling unwell, he wasn't bed bound, a bit of a sniffle but nothing worse at that time, I couldn't really make a proper decision to keep him home all day at the point. I spoke to the head of junior school, she said don't worry, he can go in, they will give him some calpol if he needs it then call me if he gets worse, which they did. It doesn't seem like a big deal for either party.

Sorry - the OP's dd's condition.

Children can get worse quickly, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a teacher or TA to spot that and call the parent. Occasionally my Dcs have become ill at school, no symptoms before or complaints at home.

I'm not sure which incident it was where the OP's DD had got worse during the day.

If it was the day when she missed one dose of antibiotics, and it was that which made her unwell, then I would have thought it was too soon after the course of antibiotics had started for her to be in school.

(p.s. I know the OP said she missed two but as one of those was at the end of the school day, missing it wouldn't have made her ill earlier on)

i dont get why people are insisting its so difficult for the school to keep an eye on a child they've been told isn't 100%, but not ill enough to keep off.

I got phoned the other day because DD was complaining her undercarriage was sore, i went in, had a look applied some cream and sent her back in.. and SHOCK HORROR, they agreed to phone me again if she carried on feeling unwell!

I've been phoned because DS was complaining of a headache, i've been phoned because they were acting 'out of sorts' and had a mild temperature.

I have never needed to hand over a note, i tell the teachers if i'm taking them in and they're a bit off colour, and wow, i can expect a grown adult to actually listen to me and pay attention to what i'm telling them.

Gee... recently i've even asked them to monitor how much dd is drinking because her drink is coming home as full as i sent it in, and the message is even making it to the dinner ladies

Honestly, it shocks me that people are so accepting of their childrens school neglect and complacency while in loco parentis to the point they tell other people they're expecting too much for some simple common courtesy of expecting their child to be looked after and kept and eye on when told they're not 100% well, but not ill enough to keep off!