School giving me no notice

dieselhead

I agree with the above it sounds unacceptable. However I do have a tiny bit of sympathy with her, I am a brownies leader and I have 2 coeliac brownies, I do struggle buying ingredients and treats since so many say 'may contain traces of wheat' or 'packaged in an environment where wheat may be present' sometimes I don't catch the parent as they drop their child off to ask. Perhaps she is worried by messages like these on packaging, but you know whats OK and whats not. Perhaps she is worried about getting it wrong.

However that is no excuse for her not buying things in advance and checking with you if she is unsure.

alexandrajj

As Milliebear said, i think she is possibly naturally a bit disorganized and a harrassed teacher. I don't envy her job. I know it isn't all playing in the sandpit, drinking coffee in the staffroom & long summer holidays.

LondonDiva wrote: »

If your son is allergic to so many things & you make a massive fuss, would you be happy for the teacher to stop offering a treat that from the sounds of it the children really enjoy?

Nothing to stop the teacher then going to extremes and only offering one session every 6 months if you're lucky because she is miffed.

Exactly. Everything these days is constrained by H&S, everything has to be planned, risk assessed etc etc. Even when staff have planned and risk assessed you then undoubtably get at least one parent who will object for some spurious reason or other. I don't envy the staff & Head having to try and keep everyone happy. I know I sound like I am defending her, but I do understand up to a point and this is why I try to be helpful and accommodating. The only problem is, it feels like things have been over stepped. If things were the other way round and she was saying to DS "oh don't worry, a little bit of that won't hurt you" then I'd be the first one in there tearing a strip off her. I can't blame teachers for tending to be over-cautious.

Having thought about what LondonDiva has said, given that DS's class do so much baking, undoubtably the cost of alot of the ingredients must come out of her pocket as I am sure the ingredients budget isn't big enough to cover the amount that they do.

It's a tricky one, I was assuming he'd move onto another teacher in September so I have bit my tongue over this since January. I had assumed that I'd just be proactive from the start with the new teacher and ask for more notice from day one. Now he's got her teaching him for another year, it's a little more tricky.

Maybe I should be glad that he has got a teacher that he likes, one that motivates the pupils, gets them to behave well, and has so many other strong points. Maybe I need to just turn round and say, sorry DS, this time you can't do the cooking with the others because i haven't got/can't afford the stuff you need.

alexandrajj

picnic wrote: »

are all the other parents getting just a few hours notice?? or, as others have asked, is the school providing them??

I'm the only parent being asked to bring in special ingredients. None of the other kids have food allergies, 2 kids have physical impairments & had CSAs but as far as I have seen, they just get help/specially adapted equipment to use.

To be fair, only once did she give me precisely 1h35mins notice. Usually i get a message via DS in the evening expecting ingredients for the following morning.

ellawood

If I was you I would stop now and see what happens ohhhh hard I think because of course it your ds who will miss out but she thinks it no problem she might have a store cupboard too die for but mere mortals donot

she should HAVE to consider him because it is wrong that you have to shop at such short notice that is shocking and should be looked at by the head and it should not be down to small bugets the money is for ALL tough she will have to think about that mabye they could apply for money as it a NEED and not a want :eek:

oh I thought it was bad when dd was at school but she used to say oh by the way I need XYZ as we are cooking at school, late at night I would be in bed or getting ready and I hated it but she had a week to tell me most of the time and I would ask her what she needed as I went shopping:rolleyes:

peachyprice

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Flour and butter are not uncommon allergens!

I know, but OP hasn't said exactly what it is her son is allergic to, all we know is it's 'many things'. So it may not be any of the common baking ingredients, just the added extras. Without knowing what he is allergic to, which the OP isn't saying, it's hard to judge just how unreasonable the teacher is being.

If it's flour, butter etc it wouldn't have to be bought every time, a bag on non-wheat 'flour' or butter alternative would be enough for 1 child to bake on a fair few occasions, which would suggest it isn't these things if she's being asked to supply ingredients every time they bake.

Floss

peachyprice wrote: »

......If it's flour, butter etc it wouldn't have to be bought every time, a bag on non-wheat 'flour' or butter alternative would be enough for 1 child to bake on a fair few occasions, which would suggest it isn't these things if she's being asked to supply ingredients every time they bake.

But don't forget that the OP is on benefits, and these alternative ingredients can be expensive - have you looked at the price of wheat-free or even just gluten-free flour recently? And non-dairy spread? We have a relative who cannot eat anything containing wheat and even though we are not on a strict budget, it still makes a difference to our shopping bill when they come to visit. And if this is every week or even less, then a kilo bag of flour will only last about 5 sessions depending upon how much is needed each time. Yes it may be more cost effective than buying, but I understood that part of the issue is the timing / notice that the OP is getting from the teacher, which in my eyes is not acceptable from someone who is responsible for looking after children, especially if she is the SENCO.

OP - Personally, I would ask for a meeting with her & the Head to go over your son's documented conditions & needs with both of them, and stress that you need to have a reasonable amount (preferably 5 days) of notice, if the school cannot fund the special ingredients. Also point out that these are not fads but allergies and spell out the consequences of any incident of your son being in contact with the offending things.

Good luck!

fernliebee

A friend of mine has a bad gluten allergy and she gets prescriptions of flour and bread etc maybe worth OP approaching her GP. If you genuinely can't afford it, and DS needs a fair amount of it, then you can just pass it on to the teacher and not have to worry. Perhaps it would be the same for his other allergens too- worth a try!

On a side note I think it is brilliant that this teacher is covering as much of the NC as poss through practical, hands on activities, and can't believe there has been a couple of negative posts about it. IMO, especially at KS1 most of the curriculum can be covered with practical activities, but some teachers rarely embrace this due to time/ cost/ planning/ H&S constrictions.

peachyprice

Floss wrote: »

But don't forget that the OP is on benefits, and these alternative ingredients can be expensive - have you looked at the price of wheat-free or even just gluten-free flour recently? And non-dairy spread? We have a relative who cannot eat anything containing wheat and even though we are not on a strict budget, it still makes a difference to our shopping bill when they come to visit. And if this is every week or even less, then a kilo bag of flour will only last about 5 sessions depending upon how much is needed each time. Yes it may be more cost effective than buying, but I understood that part of the issue is the timing / notice that the OP is getting from the teacher, which in my eyes is not acceptable from someone who is responsible for looking after children, especially if she is the SENCO.

So that would be a bag every half term, that could really be ordered with the kitchen supplies, if the school does it's own cooking. If indeed it is wheat/gluten allergy.

Maybe the teacher assumes that with such allergies the OP would have suitable ingredients and home and doesn't realise they have to be bought every time. Which I think is a fair assumption TBH if you have a child with severe allergies.

But as I said before, it may not be wheat, we don't know.

Mips

Can't you get these special items on prescription from the Doctors?

My step-son has food allergies and carries an epi-pen, poor little mite has lots of different allergies.... but he is catered for completely by the School .

Nicki

alexandrajj wrote: »

Maybe I need to just turn round and say, sorry DS, this time you can't do the cooking with the others because i haven't got/can't afford the stuff you need.

No, that is the one thing you mustn't do! It isn't fair on your son, and it also isn't fair on the school, as they must be inclusive for all their children, and they will be in trouble with the Local Authority and with Ofsted if they routinely exclude a child from what seems to be a major part of the curriculum on the grounds of his medical condition.

I think you need to have a meeting with the teacher tbh and just sit down and discuss the issues. I can understand you don't want to list everything your son is allergic to here, but you could sit down and discuss these with her. The school could hold a stock of common substitutes (if you can get them on prescription so much the better, but otherwise there is scope in the school's budget for this) and the teacher will also have to make sure that when she plans a baking session it doesn't include any ingredients which he's allergic to if the school doesn't have a substitute in.

You should also make sure at the same time that there are sufficient staff in school trained in the use of the epipen if your son needs this sometimes, as a KS1 child regularly baking is likely to come into contact from time to time with some of the stuff to which he's allergic just from child to child contact, and possibly a risk assessment needs to be done on this.