free fruit in schools. but no nuts allowed

[stitch]

another rant i'm afraid.

dc school has decided that they dont think the chidlren get enough veg and fruit, so will be providing evry child with a free piece of fruit. the school is a state school, in an affluent area, so full of poncy wannabe, organice lentil weaving moms, who frown on jam sandwiches and fruit as being not healthy enough for their lo's. needless to say that ballet lessons and gym memberships are almost derigeur.

but the same school declares itself a nut free zone. yet nuts are an extremely healthy snack. they are full of essential oils. minerals, etc. tiny packets of energy, they will be far better at keeping the kids going, than half an apple, or whatever.almonds are chock full of calcium, essential not only for good bone developement, but boossts immune systems wonderfully. etc etc etc.
the kids come out of class at least twice a week clutching crappy sweets full of artificial flavourings andcolourings becuaes it is someones birthday. a practice theschool positively encourages. and of course, the siblings also get given the artifical crap by the birthday childs mother.
surely a bar of chocolate would be healthier than the crappy chewy maom they come out with?

[wannaBe]

Berrie, but it is possible to snsure that children don't eat nuts without banning the other children in the school from having them.

Our school does not have a nut free policy. However, all the staff are aware of which children have which alergies, and where the younger ones are concerned a TA sits with the ones who have food alergies to ensure that they are ok. This is not done obviously - the TA's sit with the younger children anyway, they just make a point of sitting with the ones that have food alergies.

Food sharing is strictly forbidden, and there is enough supervision in the dinner hall to ensure that it doesn't happen.

And I know we have children at school who are alergic to nuts as one came and asked me at a recent disco whether a chocolate bar she was about to buy had nuts in it. In fact one of the TAs' child has a severe nut alergy and even she is happy with the way things are done at this particular school.

Schools need to be a bit more involved rather than essentially bowing out of the responsibility, iyswim?

[oops]

Message withdrawn

[bramblebooks]

The government funds free fruit and veg snacks to all children in foundation and ks1.

As a 'side issue' my insulin dependent son relishes sugary snacks as they save his life daily when he goes hypo.

[Berrie]

But that's my point WannaBe. It ought to be possible but you never know with little ones what might happen. Reception children 2 weeks in may not quite understand the no sharing policy. The children are supervised at lunch time but this happened at break time. You can never be sure what they will do and as much as we've tried to teach ds to keep himself safe, starting school is a big new experience for all of us and there are things that we have not thought of. A peanut butter sandwich in a lunchbox in the cloakroom feels as dangerous to me as someone having a deadly weapon in their bag. Yes there should be policies in place to protect children and the children ought to be able to take responsibility for themselves. However, I still feel far less anxious knowing that something so deadly to my child is not hanging on the peg next to his.

[SaTanicGore]

We have a no nuts rule in our school.

We also have a strict no sharing rule.

Today I had to sprint from our KS1 building to our KS2 building to get an epipen from the first aid post.

A child with an undiagnosed allergy ate a piece of another child's lunch and suffered an almost immediate and very severe reaction.

[oops]

Message withdrawn

[imaginaryfriend]

Hello oops!

The fact is that nuts are not essential to any child at school. There are tons of alternatives. Nuts on the other hand are dangerous to other children. Given the fact that something not essential can be mostly eliminated to save the lives of some children, even a small group, then it is obvious that they should be banned.

Anyhow the OP suggested that nuts should be given as a class snack instead of fruit. This surely must be agreed upon by everyone is a bad idea.

[oops]

Message withdrawn

[imaginaryfriend]

Nice to see you too oops! I've been hanging around on the primary ed. threads as always, discussing reading etc. But I don't get as much MN time as I used to.

How are you and your genius ds?

[oops]

Message withdrawn

[bunny3]

STITCH, why dont you just accept some children (ds included), have potentialy fatal allergies and go and find something else to moan about.

[BreevandercampLGJ]

Jesus Stitch.

You really are in a bad place these days...

This is not about nuts, is it ??

[stitch]

bunny, please read the entire thread.

and accept that nuts are a very very healthy snack for a large proportion of the population.

then read the rest of the thread again.

[stitch]

no bree, it is about the school. and about my inability to do anything to help my dc.
as usual, you have manged to get right to the heart of the matter.

[imaginaryfriend]

stitch, please read the entire thread.

and accept that nuts are a very very dangerous snack for 1 in 60 of the population.

then read the rest of the thread again.

... And ask yourself why schools need to have something unnecessary to all children when it is dangerous to many others?

[imaginaryfriend]

Well if there's another issue stitch, leave the nut allergic minority out of it. They're not the problem.

[stitch]

imaginary friend dairy is just as dangerous to a proportion of the poupulation. but you dont see schools banning dairy products becuase of the risk of severe allergic reactions resulting in death
nuts are healthy, assuming you are not allergic to them. get your head around that. forget all the media hype about how nasty they are as killers. because whilst htey can kill, they are far far less likely to kill than any number of other factors.
so please get over yourself. and go read the thread again.

[bundle]

disagree about dairy, I'm sure the figs re: severe reaction are nothing like as big as with nuts

[stitch]

imaginary friend, the main issue is that i have problems withthe school. i think it is a hypocritical load of balltwaddle. trying to use expletives that wont get deleted.
their hypcrisy with the nuts is a small part of the problem. in my original post, i did say that i was ranting. the nuts are only one way in which they are hypocritical. come read my thread about the parents taking legal action against the school.

[bundle]

oh and stitch, a friend told me today she was on a recent international flight where everyone was told NO NUTS because even dust could cause a reaction in one of the passengers. that's not a joke. or an overreaction

[imaginaryfriend]

You cannot ban dairy because it's essential to many children. Nuts are not essential.

If there were a scheme to make dairy-allergic children safer at school I would support it although you wouldn't.

I don't need to read the thread again and I don't need to get over myself.

You need to get some empathy for people in a more difficult situation than you. And stop being so aggressive.

[stitch]

yes, i know bundle. people who are severly allergic to nuts will have an anaphylactic shock brought on by dust.
but, i dont know how i can say this without sounding like a selfish cow, but, how can that make it right to deprive chidlren from such a healthy snack? on a plane, as in the school, they are banning it not because they are worried about the health of someone, but becasue they dont want to deal with the legalities of responsibilty should there be a death. a highly immoral stand imo.

[imaginaryfriend]

Ok stitch if you have issues with the school then that's one thing. But I don't have issues with my school and I like the way they try to keep nuts out of the school. I would be very stressed sending dd in if they stopped that policy. You would too if you had a nut allergic child.

If you're having school issues then let's leave this. It's not the right place or way to help.

[imaginaryfriend]

And while I'd like to take a moral ground. To be honest I don't really care what the reason is behind them banning nuts. I just want them banned.

[stitch]

dairy is NOT essential
a proportion of the worlds population gets by perfectly well without resorting to dairy once breastfeeding is over.
it is only in britain and western europ e that milk and cheese is considered so important.