10 Allergy Tips for Starting School

The start of a new academic year brings a mix of emotions for all parents, none more so than for those with children who have additional needs. For parents schooled in keeping to strict regimes around care and medication, being asked to simply hand over responsibility to teachers and support staff can be quite daunting.  When your child has life threatening allergies, this is a big ask. 

So with a few years of primary schooling under our belt and a fair few mistakes along the way, here are our top tips for helping the start of school run as smoothly as possible. 

1. Forewarned is definitely forearmed

Send your class teacher a brief user-friendly ‘guide’ on how to best support your child in the classroom.

We were quite a few years and different teachers into primary school before we decided to send my son’s class teacher a user-friendly guide on how best to support him with his allergies in the classroom and beyond. Tips like please wipe the fan blades before using a classroom fan (severe allergy to dust!) are simple wins that can help their teacher keep them safe and prevent allergic reactions from happening. Teachers are massively hard-working and caring professionals and in my experience (as an ex-teacher and as a parent) will always try to make reasonable adjustments to support any child in their care, if they’ve been informed! 

2. Communicate, communicate, communicate

While your child’s allergies are your top priority, they can sometimes get overlooked in the chaos of 30+ busy lives. Don’t ever assume messages will get passed from one member of staff to another. If there are a couple of different teachers responsible for your child, check that they’ve each been informed of your child’s allergies and requirements. And keep an open line of communication with your child’s teacher letting them know if they need any extra attention especially during the winter months when they are more susceptible to eczema breakouts and allergic reactions. 

3. Ensure their Meds Are Safe and Accessible

If your child has severe allergies they’ll need to carry their allergy medication at all times. We’ve benefitted from teachers being able to quickly access anti-histamine within minutes of a reaction. Break time, PE lessons and trips to the school library, the medication needs to be close at hand. Small adjustments like swapping glass bottles of anti-histamine for plastic (your local pharmacy should be happy to decant into a plastic bottle when the situation is explained) may need to be made to allow this to happen.

4. Stay Prepared with Up-To-Date Medication

Before taking the medication into school check the expiry dates and put a reminder in your phone or planner a month before they need to be re-ordered. Some schools helpfully send an automatic reminder when the epi-pens are expiring but I'm not sure how common that is in schools without a dedicated medical officer. Pop a reminder in your phone to be sure.

5. Wear a visual reminder

Ask if your school has a system (or can implement one) for visually communicating your child’s allergy. Wearing an allergy wrist band helps staff immediately identify a pupil with severe allergies. All staff that come into contact with pupils need to be aware and a simple, brightly coloured wrist band can highlight potential risk without the child needing to say anything. This may already be school policy or something that you can implement yourself with the school’s permission. A family member recently gifted my son these allergy badges/tags to pin to his bumbag for our holiday this summer. Who doesn’t love a cute design?

6. Celebrate important milestones safely

Kids love to celebrate their birthdays and special occasions with their friends in school. Ask that ingredients be supplied with any food/sweets that kids bring into school to give out to classmates. Help your child to be included by providing a small tub of safe, wrapped sweets or chocolate that can be given to them if another child brings in something to share that they can’t eat. 

7. Plan for the extraordinary 

We’ve found the times that lessons go a little bit off script to be potential allergy hotspots. Ask to be informed if any lessons will involve food and work with staff to make sure your child is catered for and included in the learning. Allergies need to be clearly planned for with any Food Technology lessons, cooking clubs or even a one-off French lesson including French breakfast items carefully thought through! There are so many safe alternatives available in supermarkets and with careful planning (and potentially sending in safe items from home) children with allergies can be safely included in lessons that involve food. 

8. Advocate for a Nut Free School

Many school sites are already nut free which is great, but this still needs to be enforced. No one wants to be the nut police but if you see people forgetting this, inform the school so they can gently remind parents how to continue to keep kids safe. 

9. Curiosity is the Key

Teaching your child to ask questions such as ‘Is this safe for my allergies?’ can help keep them safe when they are young and heavily reliant on adults to remember their allergies and check ingredients. Questions like this force the member of staff to stop and think in busy and distracted moments and are useful both in and out of school contexts whenever a parent isn’t around.

10. Empowering kids to be the expert

Teach your child to trust their instincts about their body, to learn what having a reaction feels like for them and importantly to speak up if they don’t feel very well. Unfortunately they may need to keep speaking up if they continue to feel unwell or are being dismissed! This level of confidence and self-awareness takes time to develop but can help them advocate for themselves and make sure they receive support in a timely manner.

Thoughts? What tips would you add? We'd love to hear!