I need help. I’m utterly distraught and upset with my sons school, does anyone have any advice?

[mummytorands]

So I’ve been awake all night with keeping my 8 year old as comfortable as possible and yesterday’s events and I wanted to go to the school today and complain about how they handled things but I think I’m going to write to the chair of governors instead so I want to box clever.

So, I leave work yesterday (I work 10 minutes from the school by car) at 2:45 my children are usually let out at 3:10-3:20. School call at 2:50 telling me my son (8) has had a fall during playtime she explained he hurt his arm, elbow hip and knee. He was grazed seen by first aid but very upset and could I get him early of course I said yes I’ll be 5 minutes. Asked then as it’s unusual for him to be as upset as she was saying as he’s quite a tough cookie has he done any damage. No she said first aid moved his arm but seems ok but he’s very upset and think it’s best you came early and that she would get my daughter for me too (5). I pull up to school a TA is bringing them both out and it was quite evident to me we needed to get to hospital. I could clearly see my son was in pain, he was holding his arm, his wrist and hand were limp. I was given no accident form but didn’t think about that until later as my main concern was to get him medical attention. I called minor injuries they said they had a 3 hour wait and they wouldn’t be able to xray today so off to a&e I went which was heaving but we were dealt with pretty swiftly. Xray and he’s broken both radius and ulna and one of the fractures is going into the growth plate. I won’t know the full extent until we see the fracture clinic in 24 hours however we were sent home in a plaster cast and sling and I’ve kept him comfortable with calpol alternating nurofen. My plan is to go into school tomorrow asking for the accident book copy but I want to see it and not have it done and back dated. I will tell them he won’t be in for the next couple of days until I know more but I’m not disclosing the damage he’s done until I know for definite.

I am furious. He very clearly to me had broken his arm the moment I seen him. She played it down to me on the phone and his arm had been manipulated and it should not have been. They did not contact me fast enough and no accident from was given. Does anyone have advice? I want to complain because I’m just so unhappy about the handling and I don’t want it to happen again but I want the first aid training to be looked into also. My poor boy.

“Immobilised the arm on traction” I’m a HCP with nearly 30 years experience in A and E I don’t know how tp “immobilise an arm on traction”. When assessing a possible fractured arm I might gently move the limb if the patient allows me too it won’t do it any harm. Putting on a broad arm sling might have been nice but not essential.

We live in a part of Aus with historically no delays in ambulances and my children go to a school were there are nurses. When my daughter broke her arm in primary school the nurse correctly assessed it as fractured - and I still picked her up myself. I wouldn’t have dreamed of wasting an ambulance

@Bbq1 yes she absolutely does have the right to see it, did I say in my post that she doesn't?

Agreed.
why do you need to direct your anger at anyone? Why exactly are you angry?
your son had a nasty accident. It’s upsetting and not nice to see him in pain but now he’s getting the treatment he needs and I’m sure will make a full recovery.
teachers are not doctors or nurses. They checked if he could move it (as any medical person would) and then as they are not medically trained and couldn’t start treating it (obviously!!) they rang you.
I really don’t understand your reaction at all.

What else could they have done for him other than comfort him and call you?

Perhaps if it had happened at 10am and you worked miles away then they may have had to select a teacher to take him to hospital and you meet them there but as it happened close to the end of the day they called you & sent both kids out with you.

It's very sad and I hope your son will be okay but there really is no blame here. It's a sad accident (and I tell you this as someone who has also had to rush to school to collect a child - broken SKULL in my situation (not obvious till seen at hospital) - no blame no fault and they comforted son as best they could and I was there in under 10 mins.

Sorry, but my son’s council nursery called me when my son had a (fairly minor) accident and told me to come and take him to A&e and had called a taxi for me to get him there asap ( and they pre-paid the taxi). The school absolutely handled this poorly. OP is right to complain. They need to learn from this

Hmm I don't think anyone is dismissing such a fracture as something minor. It really is limited what school can do in a situation like this. Sometimes it is hard even for a first aid trained person to detect an arm fracture (this has happened to my child before). And it's easier to tell after bit of time has passed because of the swelling on the arm. The school seems to have done here what is expected of them. Do request the accident report tho OP (they probably just forgot to give it to you).
Also the fracture could have moved without any manipulation: I doubt they were pulling his arm (in which case OP do complain). He was probably asked to move his arm to check if he was able to.
And well done OP for your fast action and I'm glad your little one was seen in A&E as soon as that. My son was triaged after 23 hours wait :'( with similar injury and was having pins put in on his arm within 12 hours.
Hope your brave son has smooth and fast recovery OP 💐🎈

OP, I would also have expected much more care and concern from the school.
From what you have said, they certainly showed very little as well as down-playing it all.
I too, would have worried about how long he had been left in pain like that, clearly with a suspected broken arm. If it happened at break time, that must have been the lunch break, at least a couple of hours earlier at best.
A suspected broken limb needs immediate medical attention every time.

….’he seems OK but he’s very upset….’ is definitely minimising what was happening. His level of pain should have been a clue, as should his limp hand.
They could have said, please don’t panic, but it’s possible he has broken his arm so we feel it’s best you pick him up to take him to A&E immediately.

I feel they down played it from the start, then panicked themselves when realising it was getting close to home time and had failed in their duty of care by not having called you earlier.

I would ascertain from your son, when and how the accident happened, and what happened after that until you picked him up. Depending on that information, I would ask to speak this morning to the teacher (or HT) to get the school time-line of events as well as the accident report.

You are upset and anxious of course. But please take all that emotion out of it, if you can, just in order to gather the facts. Only then can you decide whether to go ahead with recommending better First Aid procedures to the governing body.

Exactly. It can be difficult for a doctor to detect a fracture, never mind a first aider. Even if a fracture was identified nothing would have needed to have been done differently.

Did the first aider ask son to move arm or did they move his arm if they moved his arm that's not good maybe they need a little retraining also I'd want to know how it all happened my daughter was in PE and when running a grate gave way and she sprained ankle I checked it was in accident book for health and safety reasons but I was nice about it as things happen maybe take a deep breath and ask for a meeting just to double check all is in order

One of our local orthopaedic doctors missed his own daughter’s wrist fracture - took a few days before he realised it actually needed to be xrayed

Not minimized the accident and told OP she should take him to A&E.

This boy was lucky as he had a Mother who saw something was badly wrong immediately. A different Mother might have taken her lead from the school and just taken the kid home for some calpol and rest.

As I said above. The school minimized what appears to have been a bad injury. It’s right the OP feeds this back so they can learn from that.

I broke my wrist a couple of years ago and the first nurse that saw me had to move it about to investigate before the x-rayed me. I suspect that’s probably what the first aider did too. It wouldn’t have made much difference to the outcome. Poor little mite. Sounds like a bad break.

Is overreaction normal for this family? I suspect it might be, look at the thread title? 😅

When you say ‘manipulated’ they probably just asked him to twiddle his fingers, use your brain OP. The hospital probably did the same thing in A&E. They did when I went to A&E when I broke my wrist badly last year. It’s not nice and it’s a big shock when you break a bone but it’s not school’s fault and they did the right thing.

Sod the incident report, just look after your son and focus on feeling better yourself. you will feel better when calmer!

This.

Op the accident book is not going to tell you he had a fracture. The only way to determine a break or a fracture is by x-ray. Schools are not hospitals and they are not equipped with x-ray machines, neither are they qualified to diagnose a fracture. Even you yourself didn’t know for definite that he’d fractured anything until you took him to A&E and they were able to check him over.

Yes you are upset but the school contacted you straight away. They thought he was fine. If they had any reason to suspect the injuries were worse than they thought then they would have advised you to take him to hospital. They aren’t doctors. I could understand your point if the school hadn’t contacted you and just told you at the end of the school day but they didn’t. They contacted you asap.

This. It was an accident. All they could do was calm him amd ring you which is what happened.

OP a similar thing happened with my daughter when she was 9-it was obvious she’d broken her arm, it was in a Z shape-& they still called family, who were 30 mins collecting her, then another 30 mins to hospital. I asked to speak to the safeguarding staff (after everything was sorted, obvs) and worked with them to change some of their policies, which were fine for a child with minor injuries, but not for a child with an obvious bigger injury. (There were a few things that went wrong that day, not least not calling me as first point of contact 😮)
So I think it’s definitely worth asking to speak to them, but not in anger. It might help to either change some policies, or put your mind at rest that they did everything they can do. Hope your son’s feeling ok.

The only thing I'd question is the time it took and that they didn't try your DH's number when they didn't get through to you.

It seems to be quite common for schools just to wait to speak to the first contact instead of moving to the next. So I think it's fair to say that you're concerned about that and that staff should be reminded to the second contact is there to be used, rather than waiting for mum.

You’re upset because your son is hurt, but it doesn’t sound to me that the school has done anything wrong. We try and apportion blame sometimes as a way of self soothing. He hurt himself, they called you, I don’t see that they could possibly have known that his arm was broken. They handed him over to you, you dealt with it.

He should heal relatively quickly at that age. All will be fine.

Not telling the school is a mistake, they will have to report this to the local authority as he has broken a bone, it will be investigated to make sure procedures were followed. I hope your son is ok and feels better soon.

They did not contact me fast enough

They called you at 2:50 to say he'd fallen at playtime? I assume they mean he fell in the playground during lunch break? Yes, I think that if you could see straight away from how he was holding his arm that it was serious (and I assume he was in a lot of pain from two broken bones) then I'd agree they have not called quickly enough.

I don't think they did anything wrong in terms of asking him if he could move his arm.

But what does your son say? What happened between the fall and you being called? I'd want to check that he wasn't initially dismissed, because tbh that's what I would assume happened here, and that's what caused the delay.

Any mother is upset to see her little one in pain and needing hospital treatment after an accident and hopefully her son feels a bit better this morning but, I agree with pp, no wonder teachers are leaving in droves!

Not wanting to derail, but here is my story from 1986: I fell and hit my head in the playground, with blood everywhere; it happened to be before school started, so an adult from home was still with me. Without hesitation, or even telling the school office, a teacher who was there took us to the nearby hospital in her car, and left me and the adult to make our own way back later. I suppose things were different in those days, with less paperwork; I've wondered since if that could happen now.

(At a different school, they flatly refused to call my dad when I was ill, because "he would be busy at work". Even I knew, aged 8, that he was much easier to contact than my mum, and it said so on the paperwork, but they would have none of it. I had to stay in school until the end of the day.)

Are you supposed to get an accident form? I’m a teacher and we don’t give parents accident forms. We have an online system where we log any accidents (must be logged within 24 hours) but parents don’t get a copy, we would tell parents of any accidents verbally either via a phonecall or face-to-face at handover. I’m not really sure why you are fixating on needing to receive an accident form? We would only take a child to hospital in extreme cases, usually we would phone parents to pick the child up and make that decision.