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School is doing a risk assessment on my diabetic son!

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yorksherpud

Well-Known Member
Hi everyone, I hope you are all well this morning.

I am a tad frustrated cos my son went back to school the week before last after the diabetes nurse had been in and done the training for the teachers on what to do in just about any circumstance.

He was fine all last week but the teacher decided to test his bm every hour on the hour and if he was around 5.8 she would wack him with sugar from his rescue box. He felt a bit hypo in the playground on wednesday morning so he had two glucose tablets, then one of the boys got his machine from the classroom to test his blood sugars and they had gone up but school still gave him a further can of coke and a tube of glucogel. Now I appreciate that they are being very cautious with him but did have a word with the diabetes nurse, who rang school to arrange another meeting.

In the meantime, Matthew picked up a bug and was sick during the early hours of Saturday morning, and to cut a long story short, ended up in hospital. As we were heading home from hospital on Monday night we had a phone call from the headmaster to say that they would like Matthew to stay off until they had contacted their health and safety people for a risk assessment doing as his care plan has changed, well the care plan in school hasn't changed, the only thing that's changed is he seems to have stepped up a gear in honeymoon mode and is current not having any insulin injections, which were not done during school hours anyway. I only live two streets away from school and have gone in every day to make sure he's been ok whilst there.

So upshot is Matthew had yesterday off school and is off today and we have not had word yet when he can go back. He takes his SATS next month and is missing out on a load of revision.

I just feel like screaming.

Thanks for listening to my moan

Pud x
 
Yorksherpud,

That sounds crazy. I would suggest that, that would be a violation of your child's human right to education. That really isn't on. Can you not complain to the council??
 
Dear Arjster,

Thanks for your reply, I have informed the diabetic team, who have been amazing with us since Matthew was first diagnosed. They have suggested waiting until tomorrow to see if school gets in touch with either us or them and then they will contact the LEA. The Diabetes nurse has said that our Consultant is 'a bit put out' that Matthew hasn't been allowed to return and they are more than aware of the situation but want to work with the school.

We have spent the last three weeks since Matthew was first diagnosed proving to him that life goes on as normal and the diabetes just comes alongside. He has been doing brilliantly but this is a real set-back and has just gone to show that life with diabetes is anything but normal!

I will keep you posted of how we get on and when Matthew gets back to school.

Kindest regards

Pud x
 
hi yorksherpud,
blimey - in my day if you had a hypo in school they'd pinch your dinner money and leave you
for the caretaker to sweep up.(and that was just the teachers :mrgreen: )
All this talk of health and safety risk assessments makes me think it's gone too far the other way.

can't your son's school provide what he needs to revise at home?

hope you sort something out soon.
 
Hi Yorkshirepud, have a good moan if you want to we are here to listen, it does help to talk about it especially to others who understand diabetes. I can't believe that your son has to stay at home, and without any work and his sats so near. If you wanted to take him out of school for a holiday during term time it would be thumbs down for you. Please keep us posted on his progress with school and his health good luck to you both, junieliz
 
Hi there,

I can't believe this, talk about an overreaction by the school!! Your son must be their first diabetic pupil! I would say they are way out of line in this and I always get very frustrated and edgy at the first whiff of 'discrimination' or any suggestion that my girls are going to be treated differently simply because of their diabetes. The Discrimination Act (or whatever it's called) does cover diabetics by the way.

Your son's diabetes team need to act on this fast and firmly imho, and although I agree it would be desirable to keep the school 'on side', the school needs to understand their position in all this. After all there are thousands of diabetic children at school every day in this country. They also need to stop pumping him full of sugar or he won't be able to learn anyway as he'll be feeling so unwell.

Good luck and pse keep us posted.
Sue
 
Thanks for your replies, I have also pm'd you Sue.

I have just heard that school is on strike tomorrow, so that's another day this won't be sorted out. As school hasn't been in touch with either myself or the diabetes team, that they are yet to set a date for this assessment, which if they set the date on Friday means it won't be carried out until Monday at the earliest, so Matthew isn't going to be back at school until early next week, this may even run in to mid week if they can't get everyone together they need at the meeting.

I shall post again with a progress report, when there has been any.

Kindest regards

Pud x
 
I should have added that he is their first diabetic pupil but they have had training from the diabetes team and one of the teachers (but not his) is T1 diabetic too.
 
Hi

I'm type 1, and my girlfriend is a primary school teacher. Her thoughts are below:

Schools do often over-react to medical situations. Every child with an allergy, hey-fever, asthma, etc needs an individual care plan. Some schools take this more seriously than others. It seems like the teacher has taken on any advice given a bit too seriously. Nobody wants to make a mistake or be seen to be irresponsible if something goes wrong so the teacher is probably dealing with it in the only way that he/she knows how by establishing a routine, albeit a rather OCD one. For the school to ask the child to stay away from school I'm assuming that a situation must have occurred where they did not feel confident in their procedures and probably want to take further advice to make sure everyone knows what they are doing. As a teacher you can opt-out of administering any emergency meds but this is a difficult decision to take. If the teacher has been confronted / criticised by this parent perhaps he/she has voiced their concerns to the head teacher and no longer wishes to take onboard responsibility for the child's medication.
In some schools you need a risk assessment for everything, this is mostly due to the need to have a paper trail should something go wrong. It's a result of litigation culture where most teachers and schools have become far too wary of just using their common sense.
 
Thanks Goofer,

There is an individual care plan in place for Matthew. The only thing that has changed is that Matt had a viral infection over the weekend, for which I rang the hospital for advice and he was taken in for observation. Matthew had a bit of a wobble at school on the Wednesday prior to this weekend and the school gave him stacks of sugar and he was ill again in the afternoon. Now with hindsight we assume this is when the virus was first doing it's stuff to him.

The teacher has watched him like a hawk and for that we are really grateful. I think the school were worried when Matthew had a hypo in the playground on Wednesday followed by a spell of feeling unwell in the afternoon and that is what shook their confidence. I did everything I could as a mother to assist the school last week, I went down before and after school each day to talk to teacher and went in on the Wednesday when they rang to say Matthew was hypo in the morning and again when he was unwell in the afternoon.

I would have been willing to sit in class with Matthew this week had they wanted, although I don't think that Matt would have appreciated that.

School rang on Monday evening to say not to take him back; it's now Thursday and neither myself or the diabetes team have heard from them since. I understand there are strikes up and down the country today but I'm not sure how badly it has affected his school (due to him not being there all week!).

I can't see this being resolved until mid next week at the earliest, which is such a shame for all concerned.

Pud
 
Every virus i've had, even a little sniffle of a cold, has sent my blood sugars rocketing upwards. It happens even before I realise I have a cold. So he may feel ill from that as well regardless of the honeymoon aspect.

all the best
 
Hi Pud, It rather sounds like your son's school has never encountered a diabetic child before and are feeling outside of their comfort zone. They will be understandably concerned about repercussions if they were to get something wrong.

It might help you if you were to contact your local education authority (LEA) and ask what are their guidelines for schools within their control when dealing with diabetic children. This is something your school should in any case have done but it appears they may not have. This information will show whether your son's school are acting on advice or making it up as they go! Knowing what the official picture is will at least put you in a stronger position when discussing the matter with the school.
 
We've not long since heard that the school is hosting a meeting on Monday, so hopefully Matthew can start back after that.

Kind regards

Pud x
 
Hi Pud,

Just thought I would mention that today we received our copy of Balance, the magazine put out every couple of months by Diabetes UK. Coincidentally this issue is a special children's issue, and there is a piece about schools that I thought you might be interested in. I'll quote a bit of it:

'There are around 20 000 children with diabetes in the UK, and many get a raw deal at school. They experience problems such as being excluded from activities, prevented from snacking, and some parents have been forced to give up work in order to go into school to monitor blood glucose levels and administer insulin.

To help improve this situation, Diabetes UK, along with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, INPUT, and the UK Children with Diabetes Advocacy Group, has launched the "Living with diabetes in schools" campaign. ' And so it goes on ....!

Of course not all schools are problematic, and hopefully your son's won't be once they get over the shock of it all! Both my daughter's schools are good now, although when my older daughter was at primary school and newly diagnosed we did have a problem!

I know you are probably suffering from information overload at the moment (! :shock: ), but at some stage you might like to take a look at http://www.diabetes.org.uk/schoolchildren. Also, just for interest, http://www.jdrf.org.uk.

And something to think about in the future are Diabetes UK Family Support weekends which we have been on and found really excellent.

Good luck for Monday's meeting.
Sue
 
Well we went to the meeting this morning and Matthew was back in school this afternoon, much to his delight and ours!

School had concerns about the health and safety of the other 17 kids in his class whilst the teachers attention was diverted to Matthew if he was having a hypo. School are going to resolve this by re-organising their teaching assistants so that there's one in his class, currently there's only the teacher in there.

Thanks for all your support over this matter.

Kindest regards

Pud x
 
Thanks for your reply, he's currently not on insulin due to him having his honeymoon period, so technically he should have no hypos at all!

I have told him that he needs to make sure he's eating a good amount of his lunch at school, which was one of the teachers concerns. I think the boys wolf down as much as they can in 30 seconds so they can get out to play football, but Matthew needs to be a bit more aware now of what he eats.

I have said I will go in to school each lunchtime to do his sugars just in case they go high and he needs insulin.

Matthew has only 3 months left at this school before he goes to senior school, but I know there are a few other diabetic children there, so we shouldn't go through this again.

Kind regards

Pud x
 
Hey Pud.
Good to hear that your son is back at school. Hopefully things will quickly get better now. The school just totally overreacted and blew things way out of proportion. Hopefully they will start to adjust to things now.
Good luck 4 the future. :D
caitlin xx
 
We had a similar problem getting our daughter back into school, school said yes but LEA SAID NO. She has been back in for 2 months now. I also go in every lunchtime (bit of a pain) and school trips. PE can be a bit hit and miss but we are getting there. I offered to talk to all the staff about my daughters symptoms of hypo rather than text book symptoms which made a big difference.

Hope things go well.
 
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