@beckypv
Can I ask how they knew your child was shielding? Did they get the info from a database? Or had you told them. My son is in the shielding category but we chose to send him back when year 6 returned, and I don’t believe the school knew. I was wondering whether his new high school that he starts in September will see his name on an official list somewhere?
They know our child well as they have had two heart/lung surgeries since starting there, and they also have a very large scar I'm sure the teacher has noticed from when they had one of their lungs removed (and if not it's written on their medical form with the school), and when our other child was invited back (in a year group which has returned) we emailed to say we wouldn't be sending them in as their sibling was shielding.
I'm grateful to know the option is open to us if it comes to it, while I would much prefer they were in school, we were told they would never survive to be 12 months and now they're nearly 10 years old, able to run, do pe, a bit slower than their classmates and much smaller, but bright as a button and very caring so their life isn't limited by their disability, it's just a life we always have to be cautious with not just right now. However they are on two antibiotics as well as diuretics and various other bits and bobs all of the time as a cold can hospitalise them so we have to fight off any kind of chest complaint before it can develop, we had to have medication to stop the development of chicken pox (couldn't have the vaccine before hand though annoyingly!) as it was too great a risk to them have the full illness, so we are very cautious.
We haven't spoken to any of their consultants since today's call, but we do know that they are remaining on the shielding list even though most children are being removed from it, so our consultant has advised us to act as though we are still shielded as much as possible. See the grandparents in the garden but don't take them to a shop or a cinema or anything like that.
We are not making a decision at this point to return to school or remain out of it, I'd be overjoyed to return to school, however I'm also aware we had a call from the consultant in March over a week before schools shut to advise us to keep them out of school, and there were only 158 cases identified that day compared to over 600 today, so rationally right now we're not in a safer postion for a medically fragile child now than we were then, we just know more than we did then that for the vast majority of children it's not actually that serious. Or that's the logic I'm currently wrestling (and I'm really open to other interpretations) with while my child is counting down the days until they can go back to school with their friends.