School illness rules

[Bazingaaa]

My children's school have changed the rules regarding illnesses, are these now the normal rules for all schools now?

"The 48-hour rule, which required children to stay off from school for 48 hours after symptoms of vomiting or diarrhea has stopped, will no longer be in place."

"Please be reminded that if your child has a high temperature and is well they should still attend school"

Alot of people are now worried about it causing a rise in illnesses in the school.

Aibu for thinking that the rules are absolutely ridiculous especially getting rid of the 48hour rule

Actually I'm going to change my mind on the D and V. The NHS advice is to stay at home for at least 2 days after the last bout:

www.nhs.uk/symptoms/diarrhoea-and-vomiting/

Any school rule is irrelevant. You are the parent and you decide whether, in your opinion your DC is well enough to attend school. Same approach as I’ve always followed.
School aren’t going to turn up on your doorstep demanding your child attends school

Unfortunately they're known for doing door knocks, we had them knock on our door last year she didn't go in for 2 days on the morning of the 2nd day they were knocking on the door

So you tell them that your DC is unwell and not able to attend school. They don’t have right of access into your home.

I think it's fine not to have a hard and fast rule re 48 hrs off for any incident of being sick or having diarrhoea.

I work in schools and staff don't have to follow this rule. It's just when you feel well enough to come back in the only two schools I've worked in where I've had any sickness.

I think you need to use common sense. If you have a child who vomits once after too much cake and excitement at a birthday party for example, you know that's different to a child with norovirus.

I have a child with migraines that make him vomit, he’s always back in the next day. I have made it clear to school that it will be happening and I’ve not been challenged. He has a proper diagnosis and they’ve seen him so poorly with the pain and sickness. I keep them home with d&v but never for not contagious reasons.

If you have a high temperature then you are by definition NOT well. This is absolutely crazy and will just lead to more contagion and worse absenteeism.

UK schools have gone absolutely bonkers about attendance since 2020. The DofE's own data shows that the primary cause of long term absenteeism is sickness and yet they are pushing kids to get sick.

And doing this in the middle of a COVID wave and rising flu is just dumb.

Hand washing isn't going to stop infections spreading as they spread through the air!

I would just ignore this and trust your own judgment. It’s ridiculous and I can’t see many teachers being thrilled at the thought of a kid throwing up the night before being in school the next day. And most kids with temperatures feel rough. No way would I send my child in with a temp. Honestly sometimes it seems like schools think parents shouldn’t be making decisions for their own children!

Bit daft getting rid of the 48 hour rule. My sons are now at college (17 and 20) and they still have this rule

Sure, but the sensible way to handle exceptions like this is to handle them as exactly that - exceptions. So have a general 48 hour rule I place, and for the school to exercise discretion, on a case by case basis, to waive it in limited circumstances, eg cases like this where the vomiting is likely to be as a result of concussion instead of eg Noro (though it should be remembered that having concussion does not mean you automatically can’t catch a vomiting bug at the same time).

Just hand-waving away the rule entirely on a blanket basis is really silly when many times the vomiting child WILL be contagious for a couple of days after the event.

As pp says, it’s important to put the wellbeing of children first and foremost, not send them in sick to avoid pissing off unreasonable employers.

Schools are putting themselves into a dangerous position if they are suggesting they are capable of monitoring a sick child as well as everything else a teacher has to do. Young children particularly keep quiet at school when they feel unwell.

They don't have the knowledge, the training or the time to do this.

Our school say they will monitor sick children, but in reality never send a child home and you end up picking up a sweaty, glassy-eyed child at home time who is fit to drop. And has gained no benefit whatsoever from being in class. Who can learn when they are properly ill? Nobody.

So I have learnt to exercise my own judgement, and if I’m not sure she’ll be ok for the whole day she stays home. I don’t care if school don’t like it, their feelings are their own to manage, it’s not my responsibility to do so.

The school I work in still asks for 48 hours post D and V and will send home any child if they have a temp.

We do do doorstep visits if a child is absent for more than one day and it hasn’t been reported to the school/we can’t get through on the phones. This year early years guidance has been update on the contact needed when a child is absent.

Parents should be very concerned about quite how much schools are interfering in things that are not down to them.

A parent is the right person to make decisions about their children.

If school has concerns around neglect of a child's needs, including school attendance or health needs they can make a safeguarding referral.

Making blanket rules around how parents manage sickness is beyond their remit.

Schools are allowed to check temperatures. We have one of the no touch forehead thermometers which we use if needed, although most of the time you can tell by a hand on the forehead anyway!

Ridiculous! Driven by the obsession with attendance data. 🤦🏻‍♀️
Your child, your rules.

The rule absolutely does exist in some workplaces.

@Sirzy Those non touch thermometers are not accurate and are not always used correctly, increasing further the inaccuracy,

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11046542/

I don’t for a second think it’s going to the worlds most accurate but it’s a handy tool to help with a decision if we phone parents or wait and see a bit longer!

in case you don't want to click the link:

What was found?
Compared with SpotOn, all IR devices showed poor agreement in core-body temperature measurements, with poor accuracy and repeatability of their measurements.
What is the implication for practice now?
Hospitals and other sectors should not rely on IR gun thermometers to accurately screen for core-body temperature; if their use were to continue, ensuring that the device is used 3–5 cm away from a clean, dry forehead should be standard practice.

I am genuinely concerned that children are going to become more unwell whilst no-one notices.

Their symptoms will be suppressed by parents to get them into school, this will work for a while but simply hides symptoms whilst the illness progresses. The child will feel awful but will be ignored and by the time parents pick them up they will be more unwell.

This has implications for serious illnesses being seen in a delayed fashion, which has potential negative outcomes.

For what???? Attendance statistics looking better when nothing is actually being done to improve the attendance of children with serious attendance issues.

If my child is sick then she's got this funny thing where she's absolutely fine before she's sick and then she's sick and then she's absolutely fine after! It's she just needs to get something out!

(Not that she's sick often I should say)

It is rare that she's actually poorly with it. If she's poorly you can obviously tell because she's not fine before or after.

She had one of those times she was sick once but absolutely fine on residential morning. She carried on doing all the activities and was absolutely fine but I couldn't bring her in the next day cos they wouldn't let me. The teacher wouldn't let her eat a proper breakfast she said which annoyed her cos she needed one. I would have let her cos I know and know she would have been fine with one.

I would have brought her in to school on those days after she'd been sick cos she was fine. But couldn't

*Not acceptable at all. Many more children will be getting sick."

Have people not been paying attention the last few years? The government want kids in as much as possible and do not made decisions based on modelling or risk assessments. The COVID rules were made up government ministers without much input from scientists and knowingly intend for pupils to get repeatedly infected with COVID and other viruses and illnesses as part of " hybrid immunity".

Schools only need to abide by education department guidance and complains to Ofsted etc will achieve nothing.

At the end of the day you can keep your child off for illness and have no issues unless attendance drops below certain thresholds.

Terrible!!

I have. An illness that means a sickness but will kill le. My kids don’t to school and are home ed because they were constantly getting sick and the risk was too high for me.