Could my parents have sued my primary school for outing disabilities?

[lilacbreeze]

Edit: I do not plan on suing them lol! I am just curious if this was normal.

Somewhat lighthearted. I was diagnosed with epilepsy when I was about 3. I was on and off medication but I never had a fit at school. When I went to primary school, I was clearly the only one who had epilepsy as my photo was stuck up in the staffroom (with my name written below it in capital letters) and a photo of me on a lanyard hanging up in the classroom along with a boy in the class below who was known to have loads of allergies. I didn’t know this was going to be a thing.

kids were very occasionally in the staffroom (we made pancakes there once) and obviously when we were in people did ask me but I played dumb. The boy who had allergies didn’t have his photo up there afai recall.

The school cook also told her daughter ( who was in my class) I was epileptic as she naturally asked why my photo was on the lanyard in class and the daughter told several people I had epilepsy/epileptic fits (not in front of me). My friend was one of these people and she asked if it was true but I was embarassed so I said no.

i also remember a younger boy about 4 years below me was diagnosed with autism and the teachers came round the classes telling us to mind ourselves around him because he’s autistic. And explained what that meant. They never did this about my epilepsy (to my knowledge) or the boy with allergies.

not sure I found out how the boy had allergies presumably someone in my class told me but unsure if they found out or asked about his photo too.

as a 30 year old I am no longer ashamed of my epilepsy (and was later diagnosed w autism) but it seems very odd looking back.

this was from about 1999-2006. I didn’t go to a special needs school. My parents never said anything to the school but im not sure they knew till I told them after I left.

I think people are being a bit disingenuous here; the OP isn’t complaining about the staff being made aware of her epilepsy, but about the way there was no effort made to keep this information private from other people - eg pupils coming in and out of the staff room where her photo was on display, and the dinner lady telling her daughter about it. Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to be annoyed about, OP.

Honestly, it sounds to me like the OP may actually have benefitted from more talk about her epilepsy. Some sensitive education and not having it as a shameful secret. Regardless, I'm really not sure how having someone lose their job would have helped the situation.

As mentioned the GDPR only dates back to the 1998 data protection act, and was preceded by our own versions as far back as 1984

Initially data protection legislation covered electronic records before covering manual records as well.

The key subject here is confidentiality - the personal information will have been correctly made available for all staff, the breach is by the individual. The school could not have been sued unless it was established that they did not take reasonable care such as informing staff about confidentiality

On a similar matter, a number of years ago I made a prison visit (not visiting a prison but seeing workshop facilities, their products and the prisoners working there)
This included walking through prison staff areas, which included various notice boards and could see safety notices about particular prisoners.

I wasn’t left standing around to study in detail, but also wasn’t prevented from checking them out
This information is essential for the warders to ensure they are always aware of risks, but not for me. A confidentiality measure would have been to cover it when someone else is visiting behind the scene, perhaps nobody considered that or perhaps they did consider covering it but then increasing the risk of staff not conciously checking and failing to see the latest risks

I know they're not, that is why I said some are subtle.
I didn't mean people having seizures look like they're rolling around on the floor either, I was just thinking about how I've seen children play rather than what I see when someone has a seizure. I do see now that could be misinterpreted and am sorry for any offence it could cause.

In all honesty op what to you expect to happen now apart from people either disagreeing or agreeing with you. It’s been 30 years, you need to move on.

I didn’t know this.

Absolutely. I agree with this. My parents made me feel like I should be embarassed

Yes I agree. I didn’t mean to offend so many people on this thread. Thankyou for your kind response

I am probably going to just check out of this thread now and ask MN to delete it

more than happy for people to disagree and politely explain why (or agree) but there has been a few nasty responses both on here and in my DM’s

thankuou for everyone who replied

I actually answered upthread saying it was a good thing that the school did this but you’re fixated on the cook and her daughter to read actual replies telling you it was a very normal thing to do and still is. You appear very sensitive and I don’t think the way it was handled by your parents correctly hence you denying you had it when you were young. Maybe speak to a therapist to get some closure on this as this is something that is still bothering you 30 years later.

I'm sorry that your parents made you feel that way. It sounds like it wasn't handled well at all.

My son did actually go in front of the class to talk about cancer but it was his choice and that's the important part.

I have replied to other people who were polite saying I understand and appreciate knowing why pictures are kept up.

thank you for your previous response. Have a good day.

Was only primary and I can't remember the kids getting bullied or anything. I only had hot dinners on a Friday as was chip day.

My daughter is coeliac, her whole class knows, so they know not to touch her food to avoid cross contamination, to not share their food etc. I have absolutely no issue with this.

It used to be normal to have photos and details up in prominent places, yes. There was a girl in my primary class who was diabetic and there was a sheet with her photo and instructions up by the teacher’s desk.

‘light hearted’ could they be sued 🙄

No they wouldn’t. I was successfully medicated then so I didn’t even have the smaller ones

Yes the fact that there was 0 effort to keep it private annoyed me

Omg a newspaper actually picked up on this and messaged me on here WTF? Thankfully Mumsnet HQ are moving it to the 30 days board as they didn’t want to delete it now even though I asked

I'm so sorry you were made to feel ashamed of epilepsy. I thought that sort of thing was all in the past.

I think if sounds like you are ashamed of your epilepsy and that is the bigger issue here rather than people knowing.

Like another poster, I work in a school and we have posters up in staff areas showing photos of children with medical conditions that are serious. Not all staff have online access (TAs don't) and the information needs to be available for everyone to see. I will add that a couple of staff members also have allergies that could be serious and their names and photos are also listed along with the students.

I think you clearly felt it was something to be ashamed of. Now lots of children are aware of their friends needs - from why they might be in a wheelchair, to also things like behaviour and why they need to give their friends space as they might act out and hit if angry. Often these conversations are led by teachers to a class to keep children safe. Even the importance of not sharing food because of allergies, children might think it is innocent to want to give a friend a crisp and do what I remember as 'swapsies' so to know that it is really important not to do that is essential.

I am not ashamed but I won’t be posting anything else as someone has shared the thread

Well, no. The cook shouldn't have told her daughter, if indeed she DID tell her daughter and it wasn't just a case of little pitchers have big ears. My mum was a primary teacher and I used to overhear conversations at home as a child.

I was at school through the 1980s to mid 1990s. Absolutely feck all was done to support me with my disability until it came to formal exam time during secondary. They wouldn't get away with that nowadays either. It's just one of those things. Standards change (thank God).

Nobody has shared the thread.
The crap papers look through MN every day to find something to write about.