To not send DD13 to school - fractured collarbone

[Sunflower99963]

DD13 fractured her collarbone last Monday and returns to school this Monday; she is wearing and sling and given a referral to fracture clinic.

I am thinking to keep her at home one more week; she has to get a train and walk for 15min carrying her backpack, she has to change classrooms in a school with small corredores and 1400 girls. We can potentially drive her in the morning but will be tricky to pick up at 3pm due to work commitments

I would be grateful for advice from people with similar experience. I think another week will give her more time to heal and
it won’t be that sore anymore.

I would certainly, and possibly contact the school to see if she can leave lessons 5 min early/arrive 5min late to avoid the hustle and bustle of changeovers

Why would you want her to fall further behind? She is perfectly able to be in school.

I don't think she should be carrying a back pack. Can you take her the first day then can she leave most of her books there? Or is there an after school homework club do she can do her work then you collect her later?
My son broke his collar bone it took a long time to heal and carrying a backpack seems counterproductive.

Thank you, will contact school to see what arrangements can be made.

In this situation my school would allow the pupil to leave lessons 5 minutes early with a friend to carry their bag for them,

Speak to school they will allow her to leave lessons 5 mins early so she doesn't get jostled in the corridors.

Backpack clearly not possible, you can buy crates on wheels or a small wheelie suitcase or shopping trolley.

She'll need adjustments but school is very possible

The school should give her a 10 minute early pass. Students who have broken bones we tend to give them a pass so they leave 10 minutes early which gives them time to get to the next class/break

getting to and from school itself might be more challenging but once at school it should be okay

I'd definitely give her one more week off. I broke mine and the pain was excruciating, I ended up prolonging the healing because I was doing every day stuff and lifting DD which doctors said not to for at least 6 weeks, but I had to. Even sitting still was painful when medications were wearing off, I was in a sling too. I couldn't even push DDS wheelchair, the pain was awful. I ended up with damaged shoulders because I didn't listen to doctors and thought I'd be fine .

Getting trains and walking carrying a bag is going to prolong her healing, be painful and could possibly do more damage.

You could ask the school to send her some work she could do at home .

I can't express enough to you the pain that's involved with this. Giving her one more week will help with the healing and ensure that she will be able to return to normal activities sooner rather than later.

one more week would really help with her healing. Schools have a really unhealthy obsession with attendance.

In the case of fractures, the school should complete a risk assessment with the parent before agreeing to the child returning. I have done these previously. In this situation, we would not want the child to return so early and would organise work to be sent home / posted online.

The School should be able to make allowances to keep her safe. She should be allowed to leave her things at school and personally I would insist that she has permission to do no homework unless it can be set online so she doesn’t need to carry books around.

I'd play it by ear until I've spoken with the school to find out what they can put in place.
If it's another week off, she's previously had good attendance and you're confident she'll catch up then I'd choose that.
I've sent work home for students in similar situations.

just as @noblegiraffe we would make arrangements to help. Leave 5 minutes early with a buddy to carry her bag. Were a rugby school so have had quite a few of these over the years. Unless a severe break they wouldn't be off more than a week.

Where have you got that she's behind? Odd assumption to make

Carrying her bag is a big no with a broken collarbone OP (and as lovely as it would be for her to pull a wheelie suitcase or shopping trolley, no teenager I know would be seen dead doing that!)

I'd call school Monday and see what they suggest

My 14 year old daughter broke her collarbone and was back after a few days. Her bag was left at school at their agreement and she left class five mins before to get to the next one. There was no issues. I guess it depends how bad the break is but my daughters healed really quickly and she was pain free within a couple of weeks.

As a teacher, I knew a number of children attending with legs in plaster, on crutches, arms in slings, etc.

Just talk to the school about adjustments.

DS2 dislocated his shoulder and broke it in 3 places playing rugby for the school on a Thursday evening. He had the Friday off because we spent most of the day at the hospital but was back at school on the Monday. He was Year 11, though, so couldn’t afford time off.

I’d arrange to take and pick up daily, I take teams calls on hands free when driving if I’ve got meetings (daughter has an illness so we take and pick up)

Yeah, I was at school with broken collarbones after 2/3 days. As was the rest of my family (contact sport family!).

as others say, just call the school
to discuss.

Lots of people can't just leave work several hours early, though. I've never worked a job where I could just change my hours like that.

Op suggested it was do-able but not easy. I take it as my lunch break and log back on at home.

Thank you all; have emailed school and will wait to hear from them before I send her. She was in school holidays this week so has not missed anything yet.

She has already got a week to catch up on. Mystified why the OP would want to hold her back further when she can go back and there are ways to ensure that she has assistance at school such as friends carrying her back, being allowed to leave early to avoid corridors. I simply don't understand the mentality of having extra time off when it is not medically needed.

How's your DD feeling about going back to school?

I’m a student welfare assistant. In our school we would put the following in place.

Leaving lessons 5 minutes early to allow for transition between classes without crowds. You could also liaise with pastoral team for a slightly later start/earlier finish this week re the travel to and from issues.

Non-prescription medication consent form that you can complete so we can give your child pain relief in school to your schedule without calling you all the time. In the case of breaks we often are asked to give alternating paracetamol/ibuprofen at two hourly intervals for the first few days back.

Medical pass - to facilitate the above.

A ‘buddy’ to carry bags for injured student.

It’s entirely your choice but unless it’s a particularly complicated fracture or she’s in pain to the extent that she’s on prescription pain relief that’s impacting her ability to function, I’m inclined to think she doesn’t need to be off school for the entire week - maybe just Monday to give the pastoral and welfare teams a chance to put everything in place.