Allergy Awareness

School and Parent Action & Responsibility

As a school we have always taken allergy awareness extremely seriously and continue to do so.

With an increasing number of children who have allergies and intolerances to an increasing number of substances, along with the introduction of ‘Benedict’s Law’, this area of safeguarding is even more important to us than ever.

With this in mind, we would like to give an overview of what responsibilities the school has and also what responsibilities parents have.

The school will:

• Ensure that we have an up to date policy to make all staff members (and the public) aware of the actions and reasons for this that we take.
• Publish the policy on our website for ease of access.
• Update the policy regularly.
• Co-ordinate a register of all children who have allergies and the accompanying risks and actions required.
• Ensure that all staff working with the children on the register are aware of their responsibilities.
• Ensure that staff are suitably trained.
• Record all incidents and near misses in relation to any incidents.
• Audit the equipment we have on site and liaise with parents regarding any items which are missing (according to Allergy Action Plans).

Parental Responsibility:

• It is a parent’s responsibility to ensure that their child has the necessary medications (antihistamines, epipens X2 etc) in school and that the correct paperwork has been completed.
• It is a parent’s responsibility to ensure that an up to date Allergy Action Plan has been completed and that this has the correct details of any medications which a child may require (see below for details).
• These plans should also be kept up to date.
• It is a parent’s responsibility to ensure that any medications are in date.

Allergy Action Plans

These action plans are a necessity to keep your child safe. They can only be completed by the person who has prescribed the medications and / or undertaken the diagnosis. This is usually a GP; however, if a GP says they are unable to complete a plan, then it may be that an Allergy Specialist Nurse at a hospital has been involved.

If there is an issue with obtaining this plan then please ask to be referred to East Kent’s Allergy Nurse (Claire) who will be able to aid you.

Thank you for your engagement – please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any questions.

Mr Dyson (Headteacher)

For further guidance please see the school allergy policy attached and links to helpful websites for information.