If a teacher sends ill child to the office they should call parent, not inspect their lunchbox

[FamiliarSting]

My daughter is 7 and has just started in year 3.
On Friday morning she was feeling a bit ill, temperature of 38 ish, so I gave her some calpol and sent her in, telling her to see how she goes and to tell the teacher if she was still feeling unwell.

When she got home on Friday afternoon she was much worse, temperature of 39.6, she said she’d been feeling awful all day. She told her teacher in the morning, who apparently told her to see how she feels later (fair enough), she still felt bad in the afternoon so her teacher sent her to the office. I’m not certain what happened next, but the deputy head teacher was involved, she apparently asked to see my daughter’s packed lunch, to check how much food she had eaten, and from this concluded she was not unwell enough to go home, or even for me to be called.

I am very annoyed. I am not sure what time she was sent to the office, but it was before PE and assembly, so she then spent at least another hour minimum in school feeling very unwell. If the deputy had time to go and inspect her lunchbox surely there was time to call me? What does how much she ate have to do with anything? And how was she even able to tell how much she’d eaten as she didn’t see it when it was full. For the record she ate a cheese sandwich made with one slice of bread, and some strawberries and blueberries. I didn’t give her much that day so all that was left were a few crisps that I put in a box and some nuts.

I don’t know what to do now, but I’ve lost confidence that school will contact me if there is a problem or my children are feeling unwell. Is it because she’s in year 3 now? Even so, surely if the class teacher decides she seems ill enough to send her to the office they should contact me?
Would I be unreasonable to not let it go and to talk to the school about it? But what do I even say to get my point across without seeming arsy or becoming ‘that parent’.
Her attendance at school has been good the past 2 years (they sent a snotty letter home when she was in reception as she was ill a lot)

I don’t want a confrontation but I want to be reassured that if she’s feeling really bad they’ll call me.

pepperpot99
I'm guessing the OP sent her dd in because she didn't want to take a day off work. Teachers are free childcare/doctors aren't they? hmm

And if your dd is sick, it's pretty selfish to sent her in so she can infect all the other children. But you didn't care about that did you OP

Nope, I work at home, I didn't send her in partly because from past experience she perks up easily, but mostly to avoid a patronising letter from the school about attendance.

I wouldn't mind if the policy was to keep all kids off at the first sign of anything contagious, but unfortunately, that's not how it is.

You're giving out that the teacher did exactly the same as you did...you sent a sick kid to school, she left a sick kid in school.
She has an excuse, she doesn't know your kid, has lots more to be doing, and didn't know she was already in.
Whats your excuse?

Op you are taking the piss, bigtime.
Your child felt ill and had a fever Of course she felt better after taking a painkiller/antipyretic.It provides temporary relief from the symtoms of illness.
How did you think it was going to treat the underlying illness? How did you think it was going to stop her infecting all the other children and teachers?

My friends ds used to suffer from regular high temperatures. She mostly kept him off. If your DD gets these temperatures that frequently, i would send her in with a note if she's generally well, that is. Then inform the office you will to school yourself at lunchtime and administer a second dose. Dds school lets parents do this. If the school refuse, then they're not cooperating and I would make it clear that her attendance will suffer. In writing.

And to the posters, who say she's infecting children. I think this isn't that likely unless ops DD is visibly unwell. Some children often have high temperatures.

If your DD gets these temperatures that frequently, i would send her in with a note if she's generally well, that is.

Irrelevant post. The OP said her DD felt ill!!

Thanks for that judgmental comment a7mints. I was talking about the future. Not everyone wants to bitch about the past. I think op has had enough responses about what happened last week. Some of us like to plan for the future.

'Nope, I work at home, I didn't send her in partly because from past experience she perks up easily, but mostly to avoid a patronising letter from the school about attendance.'

Let them send a silly letter. Far better than allowing a sick child to suffer in school and infect other pupils and teachers.

Odfod, every individual has a normal temperature within that range. When you get an ear thermometer they advise you to measure each person's normal temperature so that you know what is normal and what is raised for each family member. My dD would have an ear temp about 36.5 normally and at 38 she absolutely has an elevated temperature and I would give her paracetamol or ibuprofen - she has a history of soaring temperatures and febrile convulsions and it is very hard to get it back down once it gets up towards 40.

They have to send those letters so that they can prove to Ofsted that they are tackling attendance problems.

They know the kids who are genuinely ill as much as the parents do. They also know that the letters are just jumping through government hoops, but they have to do it. It's annoying for them too.

Odfod
you contradict yourself! Your chart shows 38 degrees is not a normal if temp taken orally or under arm

I do think that checking a child's lunch box as a means of checking for illness is rather odd

The problem is that you're very limited on what you actually can do. None of the 33 professional standards for teaching include any element of nursing so teachers have to do their best. Checking lunchboxes is an indicator of a child's appetite over lunch and so can be an indicator of how long they've been ill for. Or not. But there's not actually a lot they can do.

And if you rang parents every time a child said they felt ill, well school would be empty by break time!

Oops sorry folks I just assumed that temp taking was done via ear, as that was what we did in hospital setting

You wouldn't be allowed to do this in school. A lot of school's have a no touch policy. Most schools wouldn't risk doing this in case a parent complained. The most you could do would be to use one of those flexible thermometer strips that you put on the forehead that aren't very good.

Which is why it's a good idea for parents to not assume that teachers are also HCPs. Because they're not.

I work as a school secretary so have the responsibility of ringing parents when their child is unwell and needs to go home. One of the first questions I ask is were they able to eat their breakfast / lunch but I wouldn't check their lunchbox! whether a parent is contacted very much depends on the child, some feel unwell and get quite upset about it so I ring home straight away and others are OK to wait to see how they feel by next break. Imo you should have mentioned to the teacher or rang the school to say she wasn't feeling well and you had given her calpol so they could keep an eye on her. Hope she's feeling better by now.

And no we don't take their temperature.

i dont think checking a lunch box is an accurate measurement of how ill a child is tbh, so i dont think YABU at all!

at my kids school they will take their temp, monitor them for a bit and if they're unwell or out of sorts, call and discuss it with the parent... if they think they need to come home, they tell us, if they think it can be managed, they give us the option, with a view to calling if it gets worse.

i have sent my DD in with a temp before, she had a cold, a cold is not worth a day off, i dosed her with calpol and then went in at lunchtime and gave her another, she was fine, if a little snotty.

With the exception of people who do have a high basal body temperature, 38ºC is not exactly normal, ear or not. It may not require medication, but it's a sign that not everything is ok.
More so, when, as a parent you are familiar with the temperature your child has when normal or in different health conditions.
In those circumstances, I wouldn't send a child to school, where they may struggle to cope let alone learn, or I'd give medication for them to feel better for long enough.

I'm a bit aghast that you treated a fever and sent her in to school anyway, and that other people have done that too. Way to spread the germs around. I'm even more aghast you didn't even tell her teacher that you'd done so. In which case, if they didn't tell you to take them back home with you which I expect they would, then they would know to call you once it wore off.

I work in a school office. If a child is sent to me after lunch feeling sick or hot I immediately ask them "did you eat your lunch?" "Have you got a drink?" "Were you running around on the playground?"

If they answer yes I get them a bucket, sit them quietly in front of the fan and get them a drink of water, telling them I want them to drink all of it.

I keep them with me for at least half an hour. In most cases they are fine afterwards. It's rushing their lunch to go out and play in the sun that raises their temp and makes them feel sick - and often they haven't touched their water bottle all day.

If they are fine I send them back to class for the final hour.

If they still feel ill I call parents and ask them what they want to do.

If I automatically called parents the second a child appears then lots would go home that didn't need to.

In 2 years I have had one parent return a child to school because there was nothing wrong with him, but I've lost count of the amount of kids who suddenly perk up when mum arrives, or who I see later that day playing out at the park - seemingly cured

Well, you shouldn't send a child with a temperature to school even if Calpol brings it down. The teachers/office are in a tricky position of weighing up whether to send a child home, inconvenience the parents etc. Some parents moan that the child was ok when they got them home etc. I should think they checked her lunch box as a very ill child wouldn't be interested in food so given it was near the end of the day they decided to wait. I'm sure your daughter was being observed the whole time and you would have been called if she deteriorated. You sent your child in knowing she was ill, you can't then criticise the school!

Why didn't you keep your DD home for a short while so you could see if she felt better or continued feeling ill after the Calpol had worn off?

Some of you must have kids who go to schools that are very lax with attendance. We regularly get letters that basically say if your child is not vomitting/covered in chicken pox they need to be in

thing is, it is not the school's decision to make.You are the parent- the buck stops with you..The school will act in their own best interests.You have to act in your child's.

OP, usually I read the whole thread but it's late and I'm tired. I just wanted to write a quick message.

I get sending your child in, personally, I wouldn't have but that's because my child's school has a very strict policy "Vomiting / diarrhea - 48 hours, Fever - 24 hours after its cleared".

If I have doubts as to how well my child is, I will send in a letter with her giving instructions on what I want done.

I don't think it matters that SOME kids have 38 as a regular temp. The OP clearly thought the child had a fever and gave calpol to treat it.