To wonder why schools don't make an effort to stop the spread of germs

[TeenTitans]

It's just accepted that kids spread germs to each other. Why? Why isn't anything done to reduce it? Hand sanitizer in classrooms the way they have it in hospital would be a good start. Ensure the kids gel their hands coming into classrooms. No outdoor coats indoors. Proper antiseptic hospital cleaning of the bathrooms at the end of the day.

It just seems bizarre that the attitude is that's just how it is when there are ways of addressing it. Immunocomprosinsed people exist and this is a real problem

I wouid definitely ban attendance awards!

Ok well it's unfortunate for you and your dd and I do feel for you but for the vast majority of people what currently happens is just fine and even beneficial.

Not sure having coats off in my school would do any good. No more unhygienic than the uniform and clothing they wear everyday? Coats are taken off when they get home but most kids I know keep uniform on and go out to play/ doss in the house.

I work in a pupil referral unit and some kids rock up in the same clothes all week! It’s their own hygiene that matters and this starts at home- I see kids in and out of the toilet and they don’t bother washing their hands, even though we have signs up and good old-fashioned hand soap.

Hygiene should be taught at home.

The company I work for pays no sick.pay for the first year. People are frowned upon for taking sick days due to ongoing staff shortages.
There are signs up related to hand washing
Antibacterial hand wash is provided
Every year flu & other bugs are passed round
N
Illnesses are not going to stop being spread around

Soap and tissues. Hardly a budget breaker.

No. But getting them to use it is another matter entirely.

I work in a secondary school, yr 10 students were complaining to me the other day that the toilets are horrible because other students don't even bother to flush, they don't wash their hands when they leave the toilet either. We provide soap and hand gel in the toilets, the students mess around with them and empty them out as soon as they are filled, we provided hard soap and they messed with it and threw it in the bin.

On the other hand, we have students constantly using hand gel in lessons and developing obsessive need to clean their hands which isn't good for them either.
If children aged between 11-16 cant manage basic hygiene what hope have primary schools got.

Ok well it's unfortunate for you and your dd and I do feel for you but for the vast majority of people what currently happens is just fine and even beneficial.

For shame! Can you not be even a little compassionate?

CraftyGin

Soap and tissues. Hardly a budget breaker.

they have been provided in all of the toilets in every school I have ever worked in.

I know open plan school toilet areas are not 100% popular on MN but it does enable any teacher passing to yell “Hands!” at the grotty little herberts about to swerve the basins (And cuts down on the more flagrant vandalism which is nice). Soap and water are much more effective and healthy than anti-bac gel.

How are you going to stop them from licking the ground/ each other when teachers aren't looking?

Aswell as sharing drinks bottle.

Couldn’t they just have a basin in the classroom? That’s what happened in my primary school. It was large and metal and we washed hand and paint pots etc in it, emptied and refilled water bottles and watered pot plants. Three children fit in front at a time.

You can't blame parents using schools as childcare for illness being spread in schools. That just sounds like a dig at working parents.

I'd say most people would prefer to keep their child home if s/he seemed unwell, but schools attendance policies are really incredibly strict. The message from schools is very much "attendance is priority" - awards for 100% attendance, threatening letters if you drop below a certain %...

It's bloody difficult to know the right thing to do if your child's ill (with a more "minor" illness especially such as a cough & cold). You can't win either way so I just keep mine off if I think they'd be more comfortable at home and trust my own judgment over a percentage target.

All the coats hung up outside and toilet hygiene means nothing when you look at a bunch of five year olds and at least three of them have luminescent green gunge emerging from their noses onto their lips. The prospect of having to deal with them licking it was the one thing that put me off working in Primary (several did that when I was volunteering whilst frantically reaching into my pocket for tissues - how I didn't puke all over the place baffles me, as it's the one thing that has always made me feel awful since I was a kid).

Children are cute, noisy and virulent little vectors of infection.

We have hand sanitiser in my school, it's really good at getting pen off tables, can't say I use it for much else.

When it really matters my school are good, there was a child in school with hand,foot and mouth when I was pregnant, they sent me home straight away, made me and other pregnant people take 2 days off and the cleaners did a "deep" clean.

The best thing to stop germs spreading in school is to remove the attendance % schools are whipped with by the government, and let children stay at home when they are ill to recuperate properly

I don’t think this is the issue. What really gets parents is the need to work - the worry about what will happen if they have to be absent due to a sick child. It is an inevitable result of stricter benefit rules meaning sanctions for UC claimants in particular mean people need to keep their jobs on a by hook or by crook basis. As a more mobile society generally, people have families away from their own family and can’t count on family for support with sick children. Even if family support is near, we are working later and later - including into retirement - to pay our way. I am looking forward to grandchildren but know ahead of time that I will never be able to stop working to help out my children with childcare - I just won’t have the pension.

Most of the bugs going round schools are airborne viruses like colds, so anti-bacterial hand-rub isn't going to help!

@strawberrisc

I think you need to buy a huge bubble and homeschool.

How is this helpful in any way? The OP has said that her DC is immunocompromised, as is my DD. Do you think this is a joke or something she should be mocked for?

What part of your child could KILL mine if you send him/her into school ill or don't teach good personal hygiene don't you understand?!

Parents should make sure their teenagers know why it is so important to wash their hands after going to the toilet.
The number of kids who think that a squirt of sanitizer is fine instead of as well as washing is just ridiculously high. Stop blaming schools all the time.

What part of your child could KILL mine if you send him/her into school ill or don't teach good personal hygiene don't you understand?!

But here is the problem. There will always be someone who sends their child in ill, doesn’t teach them to wash their hands, doesn’t bother themselves. You can legislate against bad parenting. Otherwise nits wouldn’t be a problem. Most parents check and treat but it only takes one not to bother for it to be a problem.
There is always one who doesn’t bother.

You ‘can’t legislate’ that should say.

Chemicals, chemicals and more chemicals. Teach kids to wash their hands with hot, soapy water before eating. And as for the rest of it, kids needs to build up their immunity and not be sanitised to death. ( I don’t mean vaccines obvs, those are essential) ...

My son is immune suppressed.

I’m concerned about him going to secondary school in September as they are so strict about attendance pressuring parents to send in children even if they are unwell. I’m going to send him in with hand gel but don’t expect others to use it.