AIBU to complain after my child ate poisonous items at school twice?

[LOTR21]

My child has autism and attends an SEN school. Last year and this year it has been the same layout - 4 adults to the class, 6 children (including mine).

Earlier on in the year, school called and said she had eaten something poisonous at school. She has been back a day, and they rang again to say the same thing had happened again. Last time we had to sit in hospital for 6 hours for observations, looking like it’s going the same way again today.

They know my child has a tendency to do this, but they are clearly not being watched closely enough when outside and these things are around.

AIBU to put in a complaint to school, and who to - the headteacher or head of year?

Just want to add, that if I had taken my child to hospital with two cases of poisoning over a few months that had happened at home, they would have been reporting me to social services, yet there seems to be no consequences because it’s happening at school instead and the school aren’t being reprimanded for it.

I would ask to see their risk asseememts of this and refuse to send my child back until they treated it seriously. Was it actually poisonous or something classed as not edible?

It was types of fungi in the gardens and now a bulb (the bulb is almost certainly poisonous when ingested)

So the school has poisonous fungi growing in their grounds and haven't removed it despite a child eating some? I'd cause a major fuss. It's not just your child, all children are at risk! Sorry it's happened to them though.

Other than blocking your child away from this area (which doesn’t seem fair to your child) what would you like them to do ? I agree it’s not on at all

How could it possibly be unreasonable to complain about this in the strongest terms? Twice your child has been hospitalised under their care for very similar reasons.

I appreciate that schools have a tough gig but that’s really serious and hopefully the hospital would refer to the correct authorities ( H&S?) but certainly complain in writing to the head and request an immediate meeting.

I hope your child is ok.

I’d expect them to have dealt with the poisonous fungi (if they can’t get rid of it, that area needs to be fenced off). Was the bulb today? Did school know it was there or was it a freak thing (eg child brought it from home and dropped it in the playground)?

Short of him having a 1-1 or never being allowed near that area not much else they can do about a child that eats everything they can. 4 adults to 6 children is already a very high ratio.

The students shouldn’t have access to anything toxic - the plants should be removed or fenced off.

@snoreluca repeating the same thing multiple times doesn't change its meaning

Do you really think that if medical professionals didn't think there was a real risk of adverse effects from a substance the school itself seems to have said was poisonous that they would have kept DC under observation for six hours? How low do you want to set the bar for parental intervention? A sea of vomit down the staircase? Hospitalisation on a drip?

OP is quite right to challenge the school now the same thing has happened twice to the same child and could happen to others.

With four adults and one child out of six prone to grabbing things and eating them, the adults are not doing their jobs properly.

I’d definitely be asking the school some further questions about this, especially as this is the second time your child has eaten something potentially poisonous at school.

Given that they were taken to A&E and remained there for around six hours, I would ask whether the incident has been formally assessed against the RIDDOR reporting criteria and, if they have decided it isn’t reportable, what the reasoning for that decision is.

I’d also be asking for an urgent review of their individual risk assessment and supervision arrangements. After the first incident, the risk of them eating unsafe/non-food items was known, so there should have been consideration of what measures were needed to prevent it happening again.

I’d put your concerns in writing to the Head and ask for a written response explaining what was put in place following the first incident, what happened on this occasion, and what additional measures are being put in place now.
Two incidents involving potentially poisonous substances really do need looking at together rather than being treated as two unrelated accidents.

YANBU to raise a formal complaint, this is very serious. Poisonous fungi should not be on the grounds. Your child should be supervised due to known behaviours.

Well they can block the area off and up the ratio off staff if needed

Thank you for all responses. I have emailed the head teacher and made a formal safeguarding complaint because I am worried that this will ultimately happen again. Also, when my child does try and eat inedible things it’s not a quick, spontaneous thing that they do. They often show a lot of interest in it (touch wise, smell wise) before trying to have a taste, so there is plenty of ‘warning signs’ to pick up on first before it even gets to that stage, which if they were being adequately supervised, would have been spotted and this whole event prevented (twice!).

No, they were doing planting as a class activity. However, the school was completely unable to identify what bulbs they were actually planting so I had no information to go off when getting to the hospital so we never actually found out what my child had eaten!

So would you prefer your child be excluded from every activity? It’s not the schools fault your kid likes to eat things they shouldn’t.

I’d raise with the school governors- there will be one appointed to health and safety matters.

It's a SEN school, I am pretty sure it's reasonable to expect them to be able to adequately supervise children with SEN.

Definitely a safeguarding issue and should be investigated.

Who do you expect ‘the school’ to be reprimanded by? That is a silly comment.
I work in an SEN school and children have a very high level of supervision but they are not 1 to 1.
when we’ve become aware that mushrooms are growing in the playground we go out and check each morning and remove any that we see before the children go out, but I can see how that would be missed so early in the school year before anyone is aware of what’s growing.

It does seem a bit strange that they don’t know what type of bulbs they are planting, so this is worth questioning. However, you sound like you’re looking for an argument with the school, which won’t achieve anything. There are going to be a lot of various staff members working with your child and she will
not be supervised as closely as she is with you got her entire time at school unless her needs are extremely high and she is given funding for 1-1. If she is developing a tendency to eat non edible things then you need to ask that this is included in her risk assessments and profile/ passport/whatever document the school
uses in classes, and maybe explore a PICA diagnosis.

Ooo.

Make sure they get a tetanus shot.

Regarding poster above saying remove/ fence off all plants - that’s absolutely ridiculous. Only way round this is supervision.

Ofsted!