Injured at school

[BabaYaMorgan]

I wonder if someone would be kind enough to offer me some advice. My son had a fall at school last Wednesday and a note wasn't given to his mum explaining what had happened until Friday. She took him to A&E and it turns out he had a fracture and required his arm to be put in a cast. This feels like negligence on the schools part to me. We weren't informed that he had had a fall and he is an SEN child with and EHCP who is not always good at communicating things with us. We only knew about the fracture on Friday after school had finished and so tomorrow morning is my first opportunity to communicate with the school about this incident. Any advice about how I should handle this situation would be much appreciated.

Rob,

I think you need to start by asking what happened and why weren't parents informed on the day.

It might be perfectly normal. Not every incident that breaks a child's bone is obviously significant at the time. Children get injured every day; they have very hard falls and are OK, or they can trip over on carpet and break their arms. Was it obvious on Wednesday to parents that he needed to go to A&E? You say you didn't know about the fracture until Friday so I assume not. I'm not sure how school would know if parents don't.

A few questions to ask, if you don't already know:

• Was the accident witnessed by staff?
• Did he receive any medical treatment in school?
• Was the normal first aid procedure followed in this case?

You should also expect school to complete a risk assessment for him while his cast is on, and follow it.

I would ask the school to explain why you weren’t notified earlier - why they thought it significant enough to report on Friday but didn’t do so on Wednesday or Thursday.

Going forward, if DS struggles with communication, you could request a home school communication book. If staff complete the book each day, messages like this are more likely to be passed on.