To despise school policy of going in when sick

[Thankyouschool]

So once again we’re just over 2 weeks in to the new school term and DS has brought a mutant cold virus home.

Its wiped out the entire house. His two brothers are ill so is DH and so am I. DH has started a new job so is struggling on but luckily WFH. I’ve come into work & locked myself away trying not to infect my colleagues. I am so ill with streaming noise and eyes I’ve had to lie down in the work toilet. My head is banging & I can’t stop coughing.

All because the DS secondary school he attends tells everyone they must go in even if they feel unwell. The recent government campaign promoting everyone going in even with heavy colds doesn’t help “you might feel better when you get there” the poster shrieks with a young school girl with a streaming cold on the ad.

I thought after Covid we’d get better at telling people to stay home with infectious diseases but apparently not.

I am so so angry.

As a previous poster said how does sending a sick child into school help? They will be too unwell to learn and just spreading their germs.

Children get on average about 8 colds a year. If they missed two or three days for each, they would lose the equivalent of a month's worth of school days. Its a huge amount of learning.

Most children are not "too unwell to learn" with a cold.

With many bugs/viruses children have spread them to peers before all their symptoms have full appeared, so exclusion does little to limit the spread.

You HAD to go in. So, they HAVE to go in too. Why can't you see it's the same thing?

I think we need to man/woman up a bit to be honest. Covid taught us that children are disadvantaged if they miss too much school, so of course they’re going to try and fix that issue.

The show must go on, kiddos.

I had the school attendance officer on the phone demanding I sent DD1 in with a vomiting bug last year. I was like, "no, I'm not in the business of unnecessarily infecting teachers leading to staff absence and even more lost learning"... more talking down to me and I lost my patience with them, told them that if they were medically qualified fine, but otherwise I was going to take responsibility as a parent and if they had issues with a child who had previously had 100% attendance being off puking... ring social services.

My kids are very high attenders - I'm not prepared to be grilled when they ARE ill.

I shovelled DS1 off to school on Tuesday even though he was complaining of not feeling well, because very often he comes home later and can't seem to remember he was supposed to be unwell. Hmm. But this time I got a phone call from the school nurse telling me he was very unwell and asking if I could pick him up. Oops. He's been off ever since. Two Covid tests have been negative (his brother is immunosuppressed so we like to keep track.) He doesn't have a fever, but he's clearly not well enough to be in school. I felt bad for sending him in but the nurse said she'd have done the same!

I imagine it's quite disruptive for teachers to have an unwell child at school: crying, hacking cough or the dreaded vomiting. My DC had a friend throw-up in the classroom - covered two desks, the worsheets and another child's shoes! Created chaos and derailed the whole morning.

I agree with you. All this hand ringing about what the school thinks and says is something I find a bit odd.

DS primary school tried to tell parents that kids should be sent in and they'd make the decision whether they were too ill to be there! I was very clear with the Head that I'm his mother and I'll be making that decision. If parents stand up to this nonsense the schools will soon pack it in irrespective of whether it's pushed by Ofsted or DfE.

I agree that some parents are far too soft - DS had to be properly ill for me to let him stay home. But if I thought so then that was final - the schools view of the matter was irrelevant.

I agree OP. It's so weird how we have gone backwards since 2018. Policies pretending it's in kids best interests to make their friends and teachers sick or be punished for falling ill after sitting in a germ pit all day is fucked up. The level of illness in schools needs to be addressed - but we need kids and education to be valued (with actions, not meaningless words) for that to happen. Teacher absence has also increased.

Out of work sickness in general is rocketing - instead of addressing the cause, it's implied people are milking it. Same for schools.

Well I’ve seen then. For long standing medical conditions which cause repeated absence. Heck I’ve had one for my self before

DD1 is off today with a cold. It's an absolute shitter of a cold (I've had it linger for 3 weeks cos my sinuses are like a luxury hotel for any germs who refuse to fucking leave) and I was absolutely in tears trying to work through it at its peak (just WFH doing reports - nothing majorly effortful or client-facing).

Surprisingly no phone call from attendance - I've found that if you give them details they'll ring you to hassle you about how you need to bring them in - but if I just say "X is unwell and won't be in" - much less likely.

But you are doing the same as the selfish parent by going into work if you are as sick as you describe!
You will pass on this illness to your colleagues & families.

You can't have it both ways! Anyone who needs to lie down on the bathroom floor while at work/school should be at home!!

The school policy is ridiculous and if my 4 kids are too poorly to go into school then that is my decision as there parent to make, regardless what the school says.

Most of the time the school seems to think you have gone on a cheeky holiday abroad, which is most irritating.

Even if you take meds it dose not stop you spreading the infection to others, when you go to the toilet or the shops any one that walks passed you could catch it depending on their immune system.

Schools are under massive pressure to improve attendance, and lots of kids fake illness to stay home.
This is the policy you end up with.

Plenty of people took the view with COVID that illness is part of life just get on with it, trust your immune system etc.

it is literally government policy that everyone gets reinfected with illness repeatedly to maintain "hybrid" immunity.

Yeah we don’t have all of these attendence policies in Ireland. If the kiss’s are sick then they are sick and you keep them home, no one bats an eye. Funnily enough my dc haven’t had a sick day yet this year…and I can’t remember the last time they were ill. This getting colds etc from my kids is pretty much alien to me…