..to consider home education because I'm fed up of being ill?

[schooltripwoes]

Since DC started school (oldest is now Yr4), it feels like it's one illness after another. I was always quite a healthy person and could count on one hand the number of stomach bugs I'd had in my life before eldest DC started school 4 years ago. But now.. we're ill A LOT. We're currently dealing with our 5th bout of the sickness bug this year (each time affecting the whole family), which seems a lot, not to mention the permanent colds that affect DC from October to March each year. I blame the school which has an odd setup of toilets in the classrooms, which can't help infection control. I also HATE their 100% attendance prize policy which IMO encourages kids into school when they're still infectious. DC say that no one washes their hands in the toilets and there's often no soap / paper towels .
Home education is now looking very attractive (slightly lighthearted as I'm not a patient person and not sure I could actually cope with this ).

I al way use hand gel on mine the minute they get out of school. My kids have them in their bags too.
Kids are so tactile, it’s easy to spread germs.

What kind of school has toilets in the classroom?! I hope they have doors

Maybe tackle the school on why they aren’t providing soap/drying facilities. Could your son take a bottle of Purell to school with him. I would also encourage him to wash his hands/get out of school clothes as soon as he gets home.

Make sure you and your kids wash their hands well before they eat or touch their mouths.

how is your food hygiene?
hygiene at home?
handwashing?
laundry?

yabu being fed up with illness. that's not normal and not my experience.
wash bedding/towel often and at high temps (60 degrees), deep clean the kitchen and bathrooms and keep them clean.
disinfect the fridge, light switches, remote control...

Ds and dn have been going to the same schools, same year, different classes for 10 years now. I can probably count on one hand the number of times ds had been off in those 10 years and each time it would have only been a day or two with a croupy cough or sore throat , while dn at the same school has several illnesses every year.

Don't think it's the schools fault really, just some kids are luckier than others when it comes to picking up bugs and/or suffering badly when they do.

hygiene at home?

Might have a point there. SIL is a clean freak and her house always looks like a show home with hard floors and shoes off, while our home is more "lived in" carpeted with a big hairy dog.

We probably have built up good immune systems from my not so clean house!!

I started home ed about a year and a half ago. We literally have had no colds, coughs, sickness or diahorea for any of the kids! We do go to lots of groups and beavers, scouts, swimming, etc so not like we are hermits

@Heismyopendoor Ah ha! I knew that would be the answer! Not sure I'm brave enough though.

@redsummershoes Home hygiene is ok. I'm not a super-clean freak routinely (except hand hygiene / food safety), but if someone is ill I hot wash bedding and underwear, wipe flush and bathroom fixtures with disinfectant etc. But, like I said, we were hardly ever ill until DCs started school.

@NotAnotherUserName5 Yes they have doors. There's an area off the cloakroom space with a couple of loos and a couple of sinks.

The school really need to be encouraging good handwashing techniques, not having soap and towels available is terrible. Hand sanitizer gel isn't that effective against colds and tummy bugs like norovirus as it only kills bacteria and doesn't have any effect on viruses which need to be removed by proper handwashing.