I always keep my dc off school with a sore throat

[Responsiveness]

Just reading latest government guidance regarding attendance- parents are being told to send children in even with a cough, cold symptoms or sore throat ? (But not to send with any symptoms of scarlet fever or chicken pox yet often a sore throat is a symptom of both these illnesses 🤦‍♀️)

I always keep mine off with sore throats ? They can be really painful even without a fever. I will continue to do so as well!

I can understand sending a child in with a tickly cough or runny nose etc but sore throats can be horrible not to mention for some dc with SEN especially ASD the sensory aspect of something like a sore throat and how it impacts eating and drinking / sound of voice/ the cold air in winter making it feel raw etc (my ds has ASD and has these issues every time)

AIBU to think that this latest advice isn’t going to help anyone ? It will just be kids in school feeling too unwell and distracted to learn or spreading germs !

How often are all three of your children like this? There are seasonal bugs but honestly so all three of them have multiple serious sore throats throughout the year?

I don’t tend to keep my children off school with a sore throat because generally it doesn’t seem to warrant an entire day at home and secondly we both work so they have to genuinely be unwell for us to need to take a day.

Another one who would send theirs in unless a temp or D&V
I get really annoyed at parents who send kids in when they’ve been throwing up. I dropped DS off one morning and one of the other mom’s merrily handed her small child over and said “he’s been sick this morning so just call me if he gets worse” and practically legged it. Stupid Twat.

They are ill a lot. Attendance levels are 78% 89% and 93%

Its not just sore throats although those are the most frequent cause , it’s fevers , ear infections , d and v (had that 3 times last year 😭)

In general, I’d send mine in. Otherwise we’d have had them off since October and they’d still be off now. We managed to catch cold after cold this winter. I try to demonstrate carrying on because it’s difficult to do adult life without managing minor ailments. Even if off work, there’s still all the house stuff to do, child care if you have children, if those stopped every time a cold happened it would be a nightmare. However, it depends, if there was an ENT issue, it would make sense to need to keep them off.

I do also think some people see minor pain as serious though. I’m married to one of those people. (To be fair to him, he had cancer as a young teenager, so there are reasons.) It’s can then be quite difficult to work out when there are serious problems because the response is the same for both.

I think you need to get your children checked out, sore throat’s shouldn’t incapacitate them as much as they do

Send them in if they're capable of going and learning. Don't if they're not.

Yes, because of course they're going to be allowed to suck throat sweets during lessons.

There seems to be a growing trend of people who can’t possibly come into the office with a sore throat/cold/stomach ache/constant sneezing and coughing because they might give to other people, but should be happy to send their kids to school! As a teacher-if children have got nasty colds, sore throats and are teary or coughing/sneezing all over the place, then I’d rather they had a day or two at home to recover rather than infecting the rest of the class and all the adults.

My kids can stay home from school if they're ill - but not just for symptoms of a mild cold eg cough, sore throat etc. But some kids would be really ill with the same bug so it's up to you as a parent where your boundaries are as you know what's likely to develop in your own child.

I do think some people have a very low threshold though for sickness. I know lots of (mostly younger) adults that will stay home from work with mild illness and not put any efforts into trying to carry on. I don't really want my kids to grow up thinking that you need to stay home every time you cough.

By the time mine are in school they’re distracted and fine. Calpol and soothers, numbing spray if really bad. They always come bouncing home feeling much better.

Daily dd2 was saying she felt ill before Christmas for about the last 3 weeks of term. She was tired with multiple late nights for dance shows/panto performances etc. but, in the world of theatre the show must go on so having a sore throat and not going to school would have meant she couldn’t be in the show. We got early nights when we could and drank warm milk with syrup to soothe. My dc are all at secondary but they have a great work ethic and resilience - life skills. I’m not sure keeping them home for every sore throat is helping them long run. (I say this as a teen who suffered tonsillitis a lot. I went to school and would have been really stressed staying home and missing lessons/getting behind - huge mh impact imo).

Yep, wasn’t a problem at my dcs’ school last term 🤷🏻‍♀️ they’re usually strict. So long as dc asked the teacher, all was fine.

Would you be happy if your DCs teacher was off school for a sore throat?

Guessing you do not work either.

I don't have a list of set things I keep DC off for (I mean, obviously vomiting or diarrhoea I would keep them home). I judge it on how they actually are. A cold can sometimes be mild, but can also sometimes make you feel like absolute shit. The first school DD1 went to had a blanket "send them in if they have a cold" rule but I had no intention of abiding by it. I never actually had to keep her off, but if I'd judged her too ill for school, she'd have been staying off regardless of policy.

God I’d never be at work if I had to keep my kids or myself off for a sore throat 😂

You know your children best, if they are unwell with it keep them home. Ignore the judgey comments from others here!

I think I am lucky that DS6 is rarely ill, and if he is - he is ill enough to keep him off. Either D&V or a temp. But circumstances dictate too - I wfh so if he was really ill without those things I would consider keeping him off. Parents that need to go to a place of work to earn may not do.
Im sure I remember when I was at school that attendance wasn’t such an issue. I’m sure they’d have investigated if it was really low but all this ‘needs to be 98%’ or whatever is a bit shit

@Responsiveness The sore throats your DC get seem unusual. I cannot recall my DC ever having them, not even once. Do you know why they are getting them? Is it under investigation? might there be an allergic reaction to something in the house? do they get itchy eyes or runny nose, or any other symtoms?

Chloroseptic was great when I used it - does it work for your family? and a really good scarf/snood to breath through always helped in winter

you must have a cushy flexible job if you are allowed that much time off to be with them when they are ‘ill but not that ill’ x3.

DS goes in unless he has D&V (thank god only had it once), or a high temp. And even with the high temperature, there have been times when he has been bouncing around the house fit as a fiddle with a temp of 38, and I have wondered whether to just give him some Calpol and send him in. The pandemic was a bloody nightmare, having to keep him home for ten days, 9 of which he looked healthier than me.

He used to get quite ill with viruses as a toddler (he used to be really lethargic when he had a high temperature), but since starting school he honestly doesn’t really get sick, and when he does he only has very mild symptoms. So obviously I don’t keep him off. And honestly I think he has a better time going to school and playing with his friends than he would sat on the sofa “being ill” for the day.

DH, on the other hand, gets the dressing gown of doom out every time he gets a sniffle.

My DS gets bad sore throats often but he is usually well in himself and is not too affected by it.
*editing to say so of course I send him in.

Sometimes it will hurt more at night and so he will have calpol or ibuprofen, but I find he is distracted at school and comes home not mentioning it. He is being investigated for adhd and asd and I am reluctant to put him at any further disadvantage by taking him out of school unnecessarily.

His tonsils get pretty inflamed but it is not a reflection of the severity or infectiousness of the disease, just his body’s reaction to it. We all have different immune systems with slightly different responses.

It would be bonkers to say every time he had a sore throat it could be chicken pox or scarlet fever, those things are likely to only happen once in the whole of childhood!

He did recently have proper tonsillitis, was poorly, tired, off his food and had a fever of 39.9. I did of course have him straight down to the doctor who promptly prescribed antibiotics and I had him off school for a week. Luckily for us, these days, proper tonsillitis is a once or twice per year event.

I have got pretty good at keeping track of these things and taking photos. So attached is 1) normal “sore throat” and 2) tonsillitis which made him ill.(hopefully they load in correct order but you will be able to see the difference.)

@Responsiveness definitely think you should speak to GP if they are unwell enough often enough to have such low attendance.

I am NOT an advocate of 100% attendance at all costs but I do know that in all the years I've been parenting only once has one child fell below 90% and that was when he had whooping cough which exasperated his asthma and he missed a lot of school.

Depends how sore, surely.

DS's sore throats invariably quickly turn into tonsilitis, and I can see that he genuinely feels absolutely rotten. No.way he's going to school.

DD gets the odd sore throat where her voice goes a bit husky, she has a bit of a moan, but is generally ok after a strepsil. She goes in.

"If I thought my mum would keep me off every time I had a bad sore throat I suspect my sore throats would entirely coincidentally become very bad."

Yup

Bloody hell 78% attendance is appalling. Thats the equivalent of more than a day off every single week all year. You definitely to see a doctor - its absolutely not normal for a child to be off school ill so much.

The rule in our house was that if you were well enough to get up, get dressed and eat breakfast you went to school. Admittedly DS did once get up, get dressed and faint and DD did have to be brought home by Zoe Teacher and put to bed (I was also a teacher) but generally it worked and they got an education.