Exclusion for 48 hours - vomiting due to choking - do all primaries do this?

[orangepoo]

DS is in reception. At school lunch, he choked on a piece of broccoli and vomited up a bit of his lunch due to the coughing fit. He has not had any sickness/diarrhoea before this lunchtime and I was called to pick him up. I picked him up. He was perfectly fine, asked for some food. Eaten perfectly normally, run around fine, absolutely nothing wrong with him. School are insisting that he is absent for the next 48 hours because he choked. I am really angry about this and think it is really unfair. I can totally see why kids are excluded for 48hrs with D&V bugs but he doesn't have one - he choked because he ate his lunch a bit fast/carelessly! He has been crying about not being able to go to school tomorrow. Do all schools do this?

Over-reacting IMO. The exclusion thing is for bug-related vomiting; if it was clear that it was due to choking then they're being a bit daft.

No, that is not usual. Choking is not infectious! Dd chokes regurlarly, can be quite scary, and as you say, is perfectly fine afterwards.

I would send him in.

What an overreaction by the school.

This sort of thing drives me mad - why can't they use some common sense.

My DS went through a stage of missing a lot of nursery cos everytime he was teething his poos became a bit less solid. According to the nursery he may have had Diarrhoea so kept having to be off for 48hrs. Grrrr!

Ours excludes for 48 hours after vomiting, yes. The problem is that the school can't be 100% certain it was just down to the choking, I guess - unless someone was watching him the whole time from before he choked to after the vomiting, which is unlikely.

They can't be seen to be making exceptions - I would imagine it's hard enough to persuade all parents with kids who are ill to keep them off without giving them any more excuses.

I wish they would make an exception for him. He missed a load of school last term when he was actually ill so it is such a shame to be excluded when he is not ill!

Perhaps they just think I am fibbing when I told them he hadn't been sick at home beforehand.

PatriciaHolm does that include kids being sick due to travel sickness on school trips?

I have no idea, I have never had one of mine or their friends in that situation as we're only in YR/Y1 and on the one coach journey we did last year, no-one was sick. So no idea how they would deal with that!

Daft, I agree with you.

It's a daft rule I agree but same happened to us last year with DD choking on a piece of carrot in the playground then being sick.

I am the biggest fan of common sense and i totally agree, if the school knows without and shadow of a doubt it was just choking, then 48 hours is unecessary. ( I am a teacher and have had children vomit due to coughing fit, they are exempt from this as i saw the whole thing.)

THe flip side of this common sense is that a small percentage of parents don't use it when it comes to illness. I have had children fall asleep in music lessons, faint, profusely vomit, vomit blood etc because parents have brought blantently ill children in to school. The rules used to be 24 hours and still are in some schools, but during swine flu, winter vomiting virus season it can be extended.

I am sorry you have the crappy end of this. You are obviously a sensible parent, im sorry you are being penalised for the rest!!

Have just realised how dreadful my grammar and spelling was in that last post! So sorry, i promise i teach children properly!! Honest!!