48 hour exclusion rule

[Samsond]

Ok I know IANBU here but I want to moan anyway.
WHY? Do some parents think the 48 hour isolation rule for D & V doesn't apply to them / their kids??
A child threw up in my DCs class yesterday. Whilst running to the door so managed to pass quite a few pupils close by whilst actually vomiting. (Poor kid)
She then told the teacher she'd been sick the day before and in the night but her parents thought she was feeling better so sent her in.
She has now directly exposed about a third of the class to her gastro bug as well as humiliated herself. I have emetophobia which was caused by throwing up on front of the class when I was 11 so I really feel for this poor girl and am very anxiously monitoring my DC for signs of nausea now.
Why are some people so fucking selfish???

But you do care more about other families than your own? Really?

Because the workplace doesn't boast that same value system and taking time out to care for your kid can impact your career trajectory whether it's legally supposed to or not.

If the child was vomitting in the night, they should not be at school the next day - I would have thought this was obvious

Oh come on.. that’s no where near the same as the contents of someone’s stomach.
Don't be ridiculous

@BananaSplitsss respiratory infection can lead to pneumonia, sickness bugs are generally very time limited. I would take noro over flu any day.

Our secondary academy group doesn’t have the 48 hr policy, insists you send them back as soon as they are well enough to be in! Sick in a morning, please send them in at lunch if they feel ok.

The school has a rule of 48 hours for D & v and the kid had been ill the day before and in the night. So the parents were not scared of getting in trouble with the school and it absolutely wasn't a case that eg she was coughing and threw up. It was pretty obviously a big of some sort. Poor kid

I hate this attitude.

“Johnny was sick all night… but that’s okay, he was just tired or ate too much for dinner. He can go to school “

Of course some children are sick for medical reasons but often in schools there are children who can become extremely unwell , even hospitalised if they were to catch a vomiting bug. Nine times out of ten, a child that is vomiting who is of school age, will be suffering from a very contagious gastrointestinal infection, hence the 48 rule.

Appreciate people need to work. We all do. But firstly rules are rules . It is 48 hours for a reason and we need to be responsible parents and adhere to that. Never mind ensuring the welfare of our children who are suffering from the illness in the first place.

I think it is only utterly irresponsible, entitled, ignorant and extremely selfish that people do this.

It completely boils my piss.

*people that

If you follow the 48 rule then you do!!

Doh ..

The child in the OP threw up at night, and then again during the school day. I think it's probably unlikely that at breakfast she was feeling great, but her parents sent her in anyway.

And throwing up once and then being fine doesn't mean it's not a bug. Both my DDs have done that, and then DH was the same a day or so later, so it was definitely something contagious.

Oh god, I've been that parent! It was the first week of reception and at the introduction meeting the head had given us this very strict talking to about attendance and said "they want them in school regardless of illness".

DD woke up in the night coughingand was sick once. In the morning she was absolutely fine in herself. As I took her off to school I remember saying to DH how weird it was the school didn't have the 48 hr policy on sickness like nursery and I really didn't want to get in trouble for poor attendance from day 1 so she'd better go in.

Mid morning I get a call from school saying she'd told them she'd been sick in the night and I had to collect her immediately. I challenged them on it and apparently the head meant "everything except being sick". I felt like a total idiot 😂

What a batshit thing for the head to say. "We want them in school regardless of illness" is just so obviously not true. Even aside from the fact they have the 48 rule for D&V that they clearly enforce, they also wouldn't allow a child in with chickenpox, probably impetigo, possibly things where antibiotics are needed (often childcare & schools have a rule about children needing to be on antibiotics for 24 hours before they can go back, for scarlet fever for example).

I have discovered since this incident that they are bricking it about poor attendance post-covid. If you a call in sick more than once in a term you get a phone call from the office to remind you how important attendance is and how's there's very little need for them to be off sick.

That said, I told this story to my best friend and she laughed and called me twat and said I should've known that 48 hr rule was a thing everywhere!

Which of those do you feel is a reasonable excuse????

She wasn't travel sick in bed ....presumably doesn't have an allergy and that's not sick twice ...what do you think causes vomiting

I wonder if they moan when the teachers are falling like flies and the supply teachers can't cope....do the parents go to work with a sick bowl and just carry on vomiting while working? Most people get holiday pay but don't want to use it for this.

She told the teacher she had been sick twice in the previous 24 hours though

I do stick to the 48 hour rule as far as possible but I can understand why people don’t. I’ve been in the zero hours job situation over Covid where I missed so much work from kids having to isolate that i stopped being offered shifts and ultimately was forced out of my job over it.

I’m now self employed and in December my kids were off school sick so much that I didn’t meet the minimum income floor for uc and was heavily penalised for it as UC don’t take child illness into account. In the past I’ve been penalised by UC for several months in a row because my dd was in hospital with her asthma so much. So when one of my kids is in any way well enough to go to school I will send them, especially if it’s a virus as I know that dd will likely be in hospital with the same virus the following week!

I'd happily keep to the 48 hour rule.
I have done for primary.
Please tell that to the School Attendance Officer in secondaries.
They harumph if you keep them off 24 following D+V, let alone 48.

Unless there's something here you're not telling us, this is a massive assumption you're making. Kids vom for all sorts of reasons apart from tummy bugs. My DD voms when she smells something bad. Or sees someone else vomming.
You have emetophobia, so clearly thinking about a child being sick near yours is a big issue for you. But it's your issue.
Of course they shouldn't have sent her in if they expected a tummy bug, but life is rarely that simple.

But the rule is 48 hours after the last episode of vomiting or diarrhea, there is no mention of "unless they've smelt something bad (twice in this case!) so it was because of that". I mean I'm sure they'd make an exception if say a kid regularly had migraines with sickness or something but generally the rule doesn't discriminate. So I'd say that makes it more than my issue.

Unless there's something here you're not telling us, this is a massive assumption you're making. Kids vom for all sorts of reasons apart from tummy bugs.

This child threw up the previous day, and overnight though, and presumably was feeling a bit rough in the morning since they then went on to throw up at school. So a sickness bug was definitely the most likely cause, and the parents should have known that.

If your child throws up multiple times not from travel sickness and not from an underlying medical condition, you're taking the piss if you try and pretend it's not far more likely to be a bug.
And I'm assuming this child doesn't have an underlying condition that the parents are aware of, because she was sent home. There is a child at my DD's school who is sick fairly regularly but isn't sent home because the school are aware of a health issue that causes it.

CrispsandCheeseSandwich
I've heard some tales from friends of heads who've said ridiculous things about genuinely unwell children.
My feelings are always the same about headteachers like that: they'd rather have a go at the decent parents and try to intimidate them to get their children in regardless of illness than deal with the real attendance cases in the school. It's low hanging fruit to try it on with agreeable families and much harder to engage with the families who persistently don't engage with school.

I've always erred on common sense when sending mine in or keeping them off. I don't want to be responsible for putting other families in awkward situations and I'm also not going to be sending my poorly children into school when they need a day resting with a parent.

I worked in a private nursery that needed to close because parents wouldn't follow the 48 hour rules and all the staff came down with it. Because of when I started being sick then finished being sick followed by 48 hours, I lost 3 days pay before SSP kicked in on the 4th day. Ironically the parents who were the worst offenders were the first to moan but they all started following the rules. The nursery while closed got a deep clean from the cleaning staff.

We had to juggle life and work if the children were sick, but that's life.