Is this fair?

[missingthetennis]

Name changed for this.
At our school we have been very lucky over the last few years in that our children have been getting regular cookery lessons from a parent volunteer (in addition to the curriculum minimum requirement). However, there is a child starting at the school with dairy&egg allergies and her mother has kicked up a huge fuss. The parent helper has offered to provide a list of all ingredients used so that the parent can provide alternatives suitable for her child and the school would provide a 1 to 1 helper to ensure the child does not come into contact with the wrong ingredients. Fair enough, I would have thought. BUT the mother has insisted that it is not fair that her child be treated this way as it would be singling her out and that ALL the class should cook dairy-free or not at all. The upshot of this has been that there will be no cooking for the class because of this one mother. The parent volunteer will cook with other classes but never with the class this child is in.
Mumsnet jury views please??

aah, I can see where you're coming from, but in all honesty, I think this mother is entirely in the right and YABU on this one.

Sorry.

unfair. Head must be a wimp.

It is unfair that everyone should change for one child. I also think the child in question could be in a group (I assume they cook in small groups) and that they all could cook a different recipe...the mother of the child with allergies could provide alternatives for all.

I agree with the OP - an allergy by definition singles you out. Other children should not be made to cook dairy-free. As long as provision is made to make it a safe environment, the lessons should go ahead.

i think that providing one to one help would have been a good compromise
mind you, how serious are the allergies? if could result in anaphlaxis then maybe the mother is right to be so concerned.

I agree with lou. She is singled out by her allergy. The school have tried to accommodate her problem.

The only thing the school could perhaps have done differently was offered to provide the alternative ingredients rather than making the mother provide them. That would be fair.

Completely unfair on all the other kids in the class. I'm very surprised at the teachers agreeing to this unless this is a kid who can't even sniff a bit of dairy without becoming ill?

Can't they cook dairy free one class one week then alternate so she always cooks with the dairy free class IYSWIM? Can't be that difficult to organise. Maybe the parent volunteer doesn't want the responsibility of the child with the severe allergy and I don't blame her, it's a big risk in some children isn't it. Can the child's mother not come and help and supervise? There must be a way round it so everyone can cook.

totally unfair, outrageously so actually. the Mother sounds like a nightmare.

I think everyone's probably in the wrong .

If it isn't an anaphylaxis-type allergy (or other v. serious allergy where any slight contact could make the child really quite ill) then the mother is being over-precious.

If it is an anaphylaxis-type allergy (etc.), then I think she's quite correct and agree with her entirely.

However, given that the mother is being either over-precious or completely reasonable , I think the school/parent volunteer are being childish in refusing to do cooking with this class. There are plenty of non-dairy things they could cook.

Thanks for all the comments so far.
Here's some more info. The situation descibed has already happened and I was saving time on the op. There is a new situation in that child 2 is about to start (with the same allergy). There are only 5 classes (mixed years) in the school so 2 of these will now not be able to enjoy the extra cooking. The parent volunteer had done alot of work preparing a programme of cooking which would help teach the children about nutrition too and where the ingredients come from aswell as lots of basic cooking techniques such as how to crack an egg. From a given class, she takes a group of 10 on a 3 week rotation. Would it be fair on the other children in the 10 if they had to always cook dairy-free? Some parents are against using gm produced soya for example.Parents are asked for a contribution to the cost of the ingredients but the cost of the alternatives wasn't the issue it was the ''singling out''. The allergy allegedly does result in anaphalaxis but the child can be in the same room as there are no 'air born' issues.
The majority of the 'lessons' the parent volunteer had planned would be affected and she felt that being expected to do everything dairy-free when she had already offered the compromise of finding out alternatives was a step too far. This was all voluntary and taking up a considerable amount of her time.
In addition to all of the above, there is another child at the school with the same allergy whose parents have been perfectly happy with the compromise arrangements.

My son has nut and seed allergies and I wouldn't expect the whole class to miss out because of his allergies.

"Would it be fair on the other children in the 10 if they had to always cook dairy-free?"

Well, it's not as though they would be being strapped down and tortured. There are dairy-free options for all sorts of things that they could cook and eat quite happily. And I would have thought it possible to move the child between groups (given that it's a 3 week rotation) so that it wouldn't be a case of having to always cook dairy-free, rather having some lessons dairy-free. Given that the parent volunteer was already planning to work out how to cook all of her recipes dairy-free (which must be the time-consuming aspect of doing it dairy free) I do still think she's being a bit childish (while appreciating that she's doing it voluntarily, the school are lucky to have her doing it at all, etc.)

A child at the school where my mother teaches once went into anaphylactic shock after touching something that had been touched by another child who had earlier eaten peanut butter, so potentially the "not air born" issue is misleading. If there is a genuine risk of anaphylactic shock (it sounds as though you don't actually believe the mother on that>) then I could see why she wouldn't want the child in a classroom full of other children up to their wrists in the relevant allergen.

If the mother's issue isn't with the health risk of her child being in with the dairy-users, and it's solely with the social aspect of being singled out, then I think in the school/volunteers position I would have (a) reduced how many of the sessions involved dairy elements in the first place (b) presented those that did involve egg/dairy with two alternative options for everyone (i.e. "We're going to make X. Now, you can either do it this way, or this way" rather than "We're going t o make X. All of you do it this way except Fred, who wil have to do something different") and then, if the mother still wasn't satisfied, told her to lump it.

I very much doubt that any child in a "normal" primary school is in a dairy and egg free environment. What about packed lunches and school meals? ... butter on sandwiches, cheese strings and yoghurt seem to be the staple diet of my class. Other children will naturally have touched these so if there was danger of transference then these would need to be banned too.
I think the school has offered a very good compromise and the parent is making an issue where one doesn't exist.

Port&lemon - good points but it is your last point which applies in this case. The mother doesn't want anyone to be using anything other than dairy-free when her child is cooking. I think she was offered the compromise you suggest but I think it was complicated in that the school would have still wanted the 1 to 1 supervision to cover themselves and ensure the child didn't pick up the wrong ingredients. The issue which confuses many of the parents is that the parents of the other child with the same (and definitely anaphalactic sp?) allergy are happy with the compromise arrangements.

You could always write in to the head and complain that your child is being unfairly treated by being denied cooking opportunities that other classes have. In fact, if a few parents did this, then the Head would have to find a different solution that that of bowing to the stroppiest mother.
Mind you, by that stage, the lovely volunteering mum would have, not unreasonably, flounced off in a frustrated huff.

My ds2 has severe egg and dairy allergies and the school ran normal cookery lessons for the other children. He usually watched and was allowed to do a little stirring whilst wearing gloves . He coped really well (even though he was singled out).

I think it's a bit sad for the other children to miss out.

The OP says "the mother has insisted that it is not fair that her child be treated this way as it would be singling her out" so it doesn't sound like it's a case of being worried about accidental contamination.

OTT on the part of the mother of the allergic child IMO. the child will come into contact with potential allergic situations many times and really has to get used to being "different" to others around them.

tbh its not fair on anyone involved.

not fair on the child with allergies being singled out, and not fair on the rest of the class not being able to cook.

in a way though, singling the child out by providing appropriate ingredients will teach them that it is perfectly possible to live with the allergy and make the same things as the others but safely. the singling out reinforces to the child that using different ingredients makes it safe.

Clam - I am posting this as I understand that some of the mothers are planning on going to the head and am worried about potential fallout - ie no extra cookery for the whole school. I feel sorry for the head as the mother went to the governors and put the head in a difficult position.

completely unfair.

I have an allergic child, and am allergic myself. I do not expect the school to do more than make sure that he does not come inot contact with, and eat, dairy.

he can join in with cooking, and in fact he did this week and also came home with crumble. he just could not try the cooking this week as they forgot......no loss, (he would not have eaten it anyway as he does not like that type of theng anyhow).

I do complain about major food companies not catering for allergies, but that is another thread entirely.

I go in and do cooking once a week with Reception and we have a child with a severe nut allergy. Her mother is told in advance what the recipe is and then sends in all the ingredients herself. That child always cooks first in a small group and all the children in that group use her ingredients. Avoids all cross contamination issues, Mum is happy, child's happy and the other children in the group don't notice any difference. It works really well

That sounds very sensible, Zog. But, to be fair, the OP's school also offered a reasonable solution to the problem, but the mum switched the issue to one where her child was being singled out and treated unfairly. Well, as far as I can see, if the child has a serious allergy, then she needs to be singled out, in order to keep her safe. The only unfair part of all this that I can see is that the whole group are now being denied the opportunity to cook. This is an unnecessary step, and even if a posse of parents do go and see the head, I can't see how to ban cooking across the whole school is going to help either. Just denying even more children.