School have said to keep children home if they have a cold

[Oysterbabe]

Email from the school that says there's a lot of illness in the school amongst pupils and staff. They have asked that from now on we do not send children into school if they have coughs, colds, sore throats or sickness. Obviously I wouldn't send them in with sickness, if I kept them home with coughs and colds they'd be pretty much out until spring. AIBU to ignore them? My employer does expect me to actually work sometimes.

That’s not true. They can catch it from other places as well. At the end of the day people have to work. The average person gets three colds a year. The average child more. If you have more than one child that’s even more instances. You cannot be off work that often. You also cannot miss that much education .

@Dotjones

If the last few years have shown anything, it's shown the importance of exposure to viruses

Being exposed to low level cold viruses is a good thing, inconvenient as it may be.

I work in school and we have lost 50% of the children (in a foundation unit) started at 75% of the children in school but more and more have dwindled off as the week went on and us sending more and more home during the week, this is in addition to staff also getting the same bugs as the children! It's been ridiculous!

Ours didn’t go that far, but we were sent a letter saying the next time they were off the attendance officer would be involved. My DD had only been off with a sickness bug and diagnosed covid twice . I followed the rules imposed by the school regarding both and then felt I was in trouble for it. I vowed not to bother following their rules in the future. Schools need to make up their minds.

I would ignore tbh unless my child had a temp and was clearly not able to cope. If a child has a very heavy cold and is going to be moaning all day and sitting in sick bay then no they should not be in school. Bit of a cold - yes go to school.

I like to think I have a pretty good idea of whether my kids are well enough for school. I wouldn't send them with a temp or sickness or if they'd been coughing all night and were exhausted. Otherwise well but with a cold? They're going in. If the school object I'll take it up with the LA.