To think this is NOT good enough?! I am furious!!

[Peanutsaga]

NC’d So dd (8) has a nut allergy and has an epipen that she brings to school. Long story short, a girl in her class brought in a cereal type bar into school with her lunch but it had peanuts and other nuts in it as well as chocolate chips (you know the ones!)
Dd informed me that she saw said girl with the bar and then avoided her for the rest of the day and she could even smell the peanuts. I called into the school to let them know that this had happened but in short I was told, that the school had informed the parents of the no nut policy and sent it out via letter and newsletter, and that there wasn’t much else they can do as they cannot police the lunch boxes every morning. Is that it? I feel really let down and nervous about dd at school now!!

Do you really not understand that people can DIE just from being in the same room as someone who has just eaten nuts? So of your child was affected like this you'd really just leave them in a room knowing that he could have a reaction and die any minute? Don't be so ridiculous. so what would you suggest? That the OP’s child or those with severe allergies to anything (because it is not just nuts which carry potential anaphylactic allergies) should be banned from all public places in case someone has eaten nuts there at some point?

As a teacher perhaps you ought to go and read up on the official guidance which advises exactly the opposite to what you’re suggesting.

Allergies are difficult, and she will need to avoid takeaway and restuarant food when she is older.
Seriously, as people make mistakes.
My child, now an adult tells people, and is still served her allergen sometimes, they have to be so careful.

It is difficult, and it’s good that your child is vigilant.
But other people do make mistakes, and I would forget that nuts might be in biscuits, cereal bars etc, as I don’t need to look out for those.

And the fact that the child survived shows they are not perhaps as in need of special treatment. Sometimes the parents get addicted to the attention.

Sometimes we call their bluff and say the child can't attend that school or activity. Follows usually is a report stating a 2 or 3 grade allergy.

It’s impossible to monitor.
School I used to work in wanted to ban all nuts from the premises.
I asked if we were now expected to stand outside the door with hand held vacs to vacuum everyone that walked into the building, and also have hand-wash facilities outside.
Would someone also have to check the lunches of every single adult in the building?

I do understand what it’s like to have allergies, I have some myself, one includes contact not just ingesting. I can educate about allergies, but ultimately it’s down to me to try and deal with.

The only place that comes with a safe zone guarantee is your own home. And even then mistakes can happen.

OP, bluntly, other parents don't care about your DD. They care about their DC and what is best for them. Our school is supposedly nut free but has just sent a reminder out to parents that nutella contains, you know, nuts and please don't send nutella products (presuming the branded bars and dipper things) for your child's snack. I know we fell foul of this when I got my son a coco bar from Aldi that was primarily dates, but also cashew if you read down through the ingredients. I didn't buy it again but some parents will not read labels and just buy what is best for their little darling. "Red chair" has parents like that.

You are doing well with your DD in that she had the thought of mind to handle this herself. Keep working on this with her, so she's sorted for the school bus at secondary etc. but the school should be doing more to notify parents. Some schools do remove "unsuitable" items from lunchboxes, usually chocolate and crisps, so I'm notclear why they can't remove nut based items if they become aware of them. You can smell peanuts, they have a strong smell.

Your daughter seemed to handle it very well and seems very aware of managing risks. School do their bit too.
There will always be risks for your daughter so far you have managed to help her cope well, don't start micromanaging other people's lives and being over the top it will spoil the good work you've done. Just keep teaching your daughter to be aware and how to manage her allergy and the daily risks that come.

Also I think it’s easy for people to jump on the “ban all nuts” virtue signalling bandwagon because nuts are relatively easy to ban by comparison to other products.

But e.g. dairy can contain just as strong a reaction and yet if someone was suggesting that all dairy products be banned there would be an outcry of “but everyone needs dairy/you can’t ban that/it’s not fair etc.”

But because it’s nuts it’s easy to not bring in nut bars or peanut butter sandwiches.

I guarantee that most parents of nut free schools don’t micro-check every packet they use though as long as nuts isn’t a main ingredient. So even in nut free schools I imagine there are still a lot of potential nut products and traces present.

Other than issuing a reminder note to the class, there’s not much the school can do.
Your daughter handled it well, kept herself safe, and is fine. Good on her.

Yanbu. The school should do more. We have children in our school with nut and egg allergies and we have to be really careful. No cakes as they have egg, check for other words for eggs in ingredients etc. If anyone makes a mistake the food is not eaten and given back at the end of the day. Then everyone gets a reminder email.

It's not like normal life in shops etc. Children are being supervised in schools. They aren't adults and it is not possible to ensure they are protected or don't bring in an allergen without supervision. Parents are not able to ensure a safe environment as they aren't there. It's the schools responsibility to keep children with allergies safe.

It would be reasonable to expect the school to contact the parent concerned and issue a reminder to children in assembly. If it has been some time since a letter to all parents on this subject was sent, then that should be reissued. All these are fairly low cost, low effort measures that might help the OP to feel reassured.

In an foggy haze of post natal depression I sent ds in with peanut better sandwiches for 3 weeks as he needed to put on weight and completely forgot about nut free zone at school. Wasnt until a teacher kindly took me to one side and explained that I remembered

It’s not about others not caring necessarily.
If we have properly controlled bans for allergies then it would have to include all allergies.

Eggs, seeds, fish, wheat etc can also require epi pens.

If we started having fully controlled bans, you would struggle to find things to eat.
.

I have DC with allergies, but not to nuts. Their school has a "no nuts" policy which is flouted daily by many kids - it annoys me partially because we always are scrupulous about abiding by the policy, meaning my kids have even less range in their already reduced options for packed lunch, and also because parents of kids with nut allergies will be assuming it's a safe zone when it's really not.

As PPs have said, there's a growing school of thought that making schools nominally "nut free" is a rubbish idea, because there's no way the school can police it thoroughly enough, but also means they won't have safety measures in place for the child because there are supposedly no nuts around.

I'd have a big chat with the head about whether, if they're not able to police snacks and lunch boxes effectively, they're actually fulfilling their duty of care. The school might be better moving to a system of risk assessment and management.

For eg, fruit only for snack times, and then seating at lunchtime in a way that creates a bit of a cordon sanitaire for your DD (mine both had a space either side of them but a friend opposite, and a dedicated tray for their lunchbox so that they were not risking hands on table where there were food residues, etc. When they were little, they also had a dedicated TA either seated with them or hovering nearby. And then the school could enforce monitored handwashing by everyone before going out to play. They may also need to look at how furniture is wiped down.

I know it's horrible to lose your safe space for her - I can really understand that - but actually I think it's more dangerous for.her this.way than with school, you and her managing it as a team. My youngest is also 8, and is able to manage his exposure risks pretty effectively by himself - and he has five different allergies.

Parents who ignore the no nuts rules make my blood boil, but your next step is to ask the school to be proactive in working out how to meet their duty of care to keep her safe, rather than just saying "no nuts but oh we can't police it".

Big hug - not easy helping them navigate the world and keeping them safe x

Yabu - there is absolutely no allergy free zone.

My DS has multiple food and natural allergies, the best thing you can do is make your child aware of her allergies and the precautions she needs to take.

My DS has an anaphylactic allergies to dairy, citrus, and casein.... (digest and touch) also all dogs hay, grass and dust mite (airborne)

I cannot ban people from having His allergens around him, as he is surrounded by his allergens... we educate and teach him as much as we possible can so he can manage his allergies.

I’ve never understood the “ban nuts” (unless it’s an airborn allergy) as you don’t ban any other food group, it’s giving children and adults a false sense of security... even the leading allergist disagree with this way of practise.

Our school puts a reminder about the school being nut free every Friday on the newsletter.
The lunchtime supervisors walk round and they would confiscate anything containing nuts if they spotted it, Snickers for example and then send a note home to the parents.

The children with allergies do sit on a separate table as well. They choose a friend to sit with them so they are not isolated.

I think the school response could have been better OP. The could have added that they will send out reminder letters and point out to the other girls parents that the cereal bar was unsuitable.

@ kenandbarbie but where do you draw the line?

Excluding nuts is, on the face of it, fairly easy to manage. But add in other allergens and things become a lot harder.

No eggs so nothing with pastry/no cakes/certain breads/even breadcrumb coated foods as these are dipped in egg first.

No dairy so no butter on sandwiches/no cheese/no yoghurt or milk drinks.

So what do you suggest parents be allowed to feed their children? Dry ham sandwiches? Because even many of the butter alternatives contain nut products so those are out as well. Oh and some breads contain them as well and seeds so white bread only please.....

It’s not realistic to ban allergens, if you ban one you have to ban all of them.

And as hard as it is for a parent to send their child into an environment where they could come into contact with those allergens, the best way to protect that child is to teach them from the youngest age what they can and cannot eat.

We manage it with e.g.certain religions where pork products are excluded, with children who are raised as vegetarian, and neither of those are life-threatening. So why is it such a big leap to assume that such young children can’t learn to be responsible for knowing what allergens they can’t eat.

Another reason why education and not banning.

Some children have problems with certain textures. Or go through a stage of only wanting to eat specific foods. If a child will only eat peanut butter on seeded bread, what could be done?

Isolate one of the children?
How is that fair on that child to isolate and especially for something out of their control? No one asks to be born with an allergy or sensory issues.
Then who is going to staff this?
The lunch people are already dealing with all the others. Adult/child ratios have to be adhered to. Cannot leave the child unattended and a lot of schools have safe guarding policies in place that states unless in open spaces no adult alone with a child, and even more so for certain medical conditions.

Schools simply don’t have the budget to police.

Ok for arguments sake, stick all the peanut allergy kids with each other. But what happens when that child has multiple allergies?

It simply cannot be properly policed.

I don't understand the table thing @RightOnTheEdge. What if you have a dairy allergy, egg allergy, a nut allergy, a citrus allergy and a kiwi allergy (there is one in DTs class), all those kids on that one table can't have any of those things so they have to restrict a potentially restricted diet even further.

Our school does police lunch boxes.

You can't go through life policing everyone so it's best your dd learns early how to handle the risks of life/being out in public for herself as best she can so that it becomes second nature.

You can't expect everyone else to bend to you as there will be countless situations in which your dd will be around others who don't know her situation. She needs to learn to manage these situations if she's to lead a full life.

Even when a school ‘polices’ lunch boxes, they’re still not guaranteeing a nut free environment, they are creating a false security blanket. I don’t work at the moment but when I did, in the morning I might make a cheese sandwich for DD and a pesto and tomato pasta salad for me. Or a mixed nut salad for me and a ham sandwich for her. Same hands. Nut residue all over her food.

It cannot be policed with any guarantee of success, so the safest thing is to make it clear to parents of children with allergies how they must safeguard their child through education.

The school should speak to the parents and the girl.

If the girl had have had the 'wrong' hairstyle, they'd soon be able to put a stop to it.

Of we had gone down the banning route it would have been

Nuts, seeds, eggs, dairy, citrus, kiwi, coconut, wheat, celery, tomatoes, plus others I forgot.

Very quickly you start to run out of stuff you can eat.

And an the dry ham sandwich is a no go as you have to include vegans, vegetarians, Muslims etc in your food policies.

Your daughter already handled the situation. The school cannot police every child so just do as you are doing and tell your child to avoid peanuts/people eating peanuts.
You say she won't have an anaphylaxis reaction by touching someone who ate peanuts so don't over dramatise the situation and make your child afraid of going to school.