Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

to be annoyed at parents who send children to school when they are ill?

76 replies

heartmoonshadow · 11/01/2010 15:20

I am a teacher and I went back to work last week after my maternity - I managed unlike a lot of teachers to travel the 25 miles to work in the snow and ice and was fully prepared to teach. I had on average only 6 pupils per day (out of a class of 30) who managed to get in - even though they all live within walking distance. So why is it that the parent of a violently sick child decided to send him to school to spread his bug? The child looked positively deathly when he arrived - he was pushed through the front door of the school - had he have made it to my class I would have refused to take him in. Within 2 minutes of taking off his coat he projectile vomited in the class and we had to call his parents to fetch him - this took them 3 hours - btw neither of them work they in my opinion just wanted some peace after Christmas!

Anyway as a result I now have this awful bug and I have to be off work - DH an DS have gone to stop at MIL for a few days so that they don't catch it. I feel awful letting down my school and my class after 1 week back.

So am I being unreasonable should parents with sick children keep their child away from others? I also worry how many of the other children in the classroom that day got the bug - I assume it is just because my immunity is down after being away from school for 6 months.

OP posts:

cheesesarnie · 11/01/2010 15:27

yanbu in that he shouldnt have been at school but you are being a bit over the top .its a sickness bug.

gingernutlover · 11/01/2010 15:27

YANBU to be annoyed, it always annoys me too (i teach year R) the numbers of kids i get coming in telling me they were sick in their bed last night etc etc.

Hope you feel better soon, is there someone who will take your dc while you are ill?

Original poster

heartmoonshadow · 11/01/2010 15:31

Yes he goes to a child minder so DH and he are stopping at PIL's and DS is going there during day and back to them at night. I am just a bit peeved it is bad enough going back to work but not risking seeing DS is really tough.

I suppose that this is the real issue his parents stupidity has affected not only my professional but also my personal life.

OP posts:

fernie3 · 11/01/2010 15:39

YANBU I hate this too, I was really annoyed when a couple of months ago one mum said to me while we were waiting to pick the kids up - "I though I would have had to come and get him his temp was 40 degrees this morning". With a temp like that he should have been home anyway in my opinion - and the boy came out of the class looking awful as well I have no idea why he was there!. If it something contagious it seems responsbile to keep them off.

BelleDameSansMerci · 11/01/2010 15:41

YANBU. I know sometimes it's hard to keep a child at home if you have to work (I'm single parent and work full time) but I think it's selfish to inflict one child's illness on the rest of the class and teacher. Having said that, a little cold is also not, IMO, enough to keep a child at home!

gingernutlover · 11/01/2010 15:44

from the other side of the coin, I have to admit I have in the past sent dd to nursery having dosed her up with calpol, expecting her to come down with a cold, sore throat etc. My reasoning for this is that she will have caught it from nursery and if she feels better with calpol she isnt that ill IYSWIM

BUT, I would never send her in knowing she had a tummy bug, That is a totally different matter.

Hope you feel better soon OP. I rmember being quite ill a few times after my years maternity leave - not much fun when you have a baby to look after. You must be so releived to be able to dispatch dc and dh off to somewhere germ free - although horrible to be without them.

Original poster

heartmoonshadow · 11/01/2010 15:50

Yes I am glad it is germ free - although I think I will pay for it in the long run as MIL has alzheimers and father in law has arthritis and a bad heart so DH is probably having to do everything for them too - he will be exhausted when they come back. I am soooo glad he is such a good hands on dad.

OP posts:

SerendipitousHarlot · 11/01/2010 15:50

In fairness... if you keep them off for every little thing, you get a letter regarding their attendance!

And I do think you are being a little melodramatic regarding sending your dc and dh away until you recover... it's presumably not bubonic plague.

Hulababy · 11/01/2010 15:51

YANBU and it drives me mad, as a TA. We have so many 5 year olds sent into our Y1 class with various bugs.

I have been there a year and spent most of last year picking up these various bugs. In the end I have felt so run down, after a year of it, than my immune system has been really low.

Have ende up this week with poneumonia. Not caused by anything in particular, but having been so run down that is what my result has been.

I am now not rturning to work until I am entirely better - at least another two weeks said hospital when they finally released me this morning, and maybe longer. Not risking it again!

cheesesarnie · 11/01/2010 15:54

SerendipitousHarlot -thats what i ment,but you said it much better!

Original poster

heartmoonshadow · 11/01/2010 15:59

No serendipitus not bubonic plague but if ds catches it I will have to stasy off even longer as he wont be able to go to child minder so vicious circle - if I hadn't just been off for 6 months and only back for 1 week maybe I wouldn't be so paranoid.

OP posts:

gingernutlover · 11/01/2010 16:22

there are rules in place regarding sick bugs - you must not send your child for at least 24 hours from the last episode (thiunk it may even be 48 hours now). These parents have been very unfair, since if a teachers child gets it, the teacher has to take unpaid leave.

Hulababy · 11/01/2010 16:23

Why would a teacher take unpaid leave if they were sick? They get sick pay.

clam · 11/01/2010 16:29

gingernut said a teacher's child.
Although that's down to the discretion of the head teacher.
I've never lost any pay yet, although thankfully my kids are rarely ill, and DH and I box and cox whereever possible. But, llike the vast majority of teachers, I do way more that my contractual obligations, so the Head recognises that. Just about works.

SerendipitousHarlot · 11/01/2010 16:35

And if my child gets ill, and I have to take time off work to look after them, I have to take unpaid leave! What's the issue?

gingernutlover · 11/01/2010 16:37

yes i did say the teachers child - My dh is self employed so I do have to do the majority of dd's sick days, and I have lost pay for every single one of them.

SO yes I think it is extremely selfish for parents to send their child to schjool or nursery with a sick bug.

Colds etc are par for the course and most children arent that ill with them but a sick bug means to me, a day or 2's lost pay whilst still paying for nursery place. Most people are in the same boat, not just teachers.

moffat · 11/01/2010 16:41

yanbu to be annoyed and this case was extreme but, echoing serendip.. when the dcs are unwell I am always conscious of how their attendance will look if I keep them home. Obviously I wouldn't send them in with temp or d&v but there have been times when they were recovering and I would have liked to keep them home for a bit more rest but have worried about the school's reaction.

YeahBut · 11/01/2010 16:41

YANBU. Drives me potty.

gingernutlover · 11/01/2010 16:43

the issue is that the parents deliberatly sent their child to school ill, knowing they would infect others.

children get ill, fair enough, but it is selfish of these parents to have sent him in especially bearing in mind they werent even at work!

Hulababy · 11/01/2010 16:51

misread gingernutlover - sorry, not wuite with it whilst I am ill.

You really should be paid for the first few days of a child's illness though. Every teaching contract I have been on has always included x number of days paid in this instance.

But, as said before, I completeky agree with OP.

Please don't send your ill children to school. It is not fair on anyone.

Wanderingsheep · 11/01/2010 16:56

YANBU.

I'm a CM and the other week one of my mindees arrived having had been up all night being sick. The poor child looked like he didn't know where he was. I told his Dad that I couldn't take him whilst he was ill.

It's in the contract FGS!

Sassybeast · 11/01/2010 16:56

YANBU but it's typical of the 'I'm all right jack' attitude of some people. A vomiting child should be at home for 48 hrs after the last episode of vomiting or diarrhea. And I think head teachers should have the power to enforce it. Whilst most children fight off a tummy bug easily, they will in may cases pass it on to others who aren't quite as robust - tiny babies, the elderly, immunocompromised. But when hospital wards are full because people have to be admitted because of severe vomiting bugs and the associated complications, the same people who do nothing to stop the spread of the bugs will likely be the ones shouting the loudest.

gingernutlover · 11/01/2010 16:56

really hulababy, i have never been paid

i even once lost a whole afternoons pay when I was called away at 1pm even though the head didnt let me leave til 2pm when the supply came!

The other thing is that I really avoid taking time off ill for myself because I am made to feel bad when a week later dd gets it and I have to have another few days off so I end up going in anyway and getting really run down (but thats a whole other thread really isnt it! Rant over)

peacocks · 11/01/2010 17:00

yanbu, sick children should be at home

but very tough if both parents are working, very tough, that must be so hard

gingernutlover · 11/01/2010 17:02

Yes it is tough, it is very hard.

But I do it, so should everyone else.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Swipe left for the next trending thread