The Hidden Battle with Allergies : Keeping Students Safe in School

Education can be an anxious time for parents. Entrusting your child into the care of another for the first time can be daunting… whether it be staff at a school, a nursery or a holiday club.  But for parents and carers of children living with serious allergies, there comes a whole new level of stress and worry. Will the school, nursery, club be able to keep your child safe whilst you’re not there?

Parents and carers of children with allergies know only too well how terrifying and overwhelming allergic reactions can be.  Parents quickly have to become an expert on allergies and an advocate for their child which is not always easy without access to reliable, accurate information.  The anxiety and worry of keeping children with serious allergies safe at school, extends further than just the parents and carers of those children. School staff feel this worry too. It’s often the case that educational staff may have very little knowledge or experience of allergies until the day a child with serious allergies joins their school or classroom. They therefore go on the same rapid learning journey that parents and carers had to go on. 

Fortunately, this is where Anaphylaxis UK can step in to provide all the information, support and resources educational settings need to care for children with allergies.

Led by our Education and AllergyWise® Training Manager Tracey Dunn, a former headteacher and mother to a child living with serious allergies, we work closely with schools, nurseries, holiday clubs and other education providers to enhance the safety and wellbeing of children with allergies whilst in their care.

As our focus for Anaphylaxis Awareness Week 2024 is about easing The Hidden Battle with Allergies, we wanted to share some of the information and support we offer to educational settings to help keep children with allergies safe in school :

Safer Schools and Safer Childcare Programmes

We are able to support all educational settings to create a safe and inclusive environment through our Safer Schools and Safer Childcare programmes. An essential part of these programmes is the online training courses we offer that equip staff to understand signs and symptoms of allergy and anaphylaxis, how to use adrenaline auto-injectors and how to respond appropriately in an emergency.  The courses go further than just covering the basics by also helping staff to consider their organisation procedures enabling them to create inclusive, safe, learning environments.

We very much believe that knowledge is power when it comes to managing allergies, but that is only the case if the information and resources are credible. We are proud to say our training programmes are CPD certified so you can be assured that the educational settings who complete our AllergyWise®Training have received the very best information. Parents can also breathe a little easier knowing that the staff looking after their child are better prepared to recognise and respond to allergic reactions, reducing the risk of severe incidents.

Free Resources

On top of the high-quality training programmes we offer, education establishments are able to download a wide range of free resources from our website to help them better manage allergies in their settings. These resources include :

• a DfE approved allergy policy which was written by Anaphylaxis UK, Allergy UK and BSACI.
• Risk assessments for individual children as well as for the organisation that enables them to identify control measures for creating safer spaces.  Individual risk assessments, co-produced by parents and organisations provide a solid framework for conversation enabling the parents to share the best way to support their child.
• Posters that can be displayed around the educational setting to remind everyone of the steps to follow in the event of an allergic reaction.
• Guidance for schools who have or are considering having therapy dogs visit schools to ensure that the needs of children with animal hair allergies and the therapeutic needs of children can be balanced.
• Educational resources that schools can use to educate students about allergies.

AllergyWise® School Award

For extra peace of mind for parents and carers of children with allergies, we also offer our Anaphylaxis UK AllergyWise® School Award to the educational settings across the UK who are committed to raising whole school allergy awareness with staff and pupils.

This award recognises schools and nurseries who complete our AllergyWise® for Schools online training course, encourage allergy awareness with pupils by delivering lesson resources, hold spare adrenaline auto-injectors and have a policy in place for allergy management at school. We hope that these awards can provide reassurance to students, parents, carers and educational staff that the organisation is committed to providing the best possible learning experience and environment for its students by meeting some simple criteria which are at the heart of keeping children safe. 

School visits and additional support from Tracey Dunn

As if all of the training and resources we offer doesn’t keep Tracey Dunn busy enough, Tracey is also on hand to assist schools through the helpline, consultancy, face to face training and through our brand new education newsletter. The newsletter will be published 6 times a year with a termly invitation to attend a free Q & A session for educational staff. These sessions will be an opportunity for worries and questions to be asked and addressed in a safe, confidential environment supporting them to create an inclusive learning experience for their students.

To kick off Anaphylaxis Awareness Week 2024, Tracey was out and about visiting a local school where she led an assembly and ran training for the entire staff team, including Hollie the therapy dog. Feedback like this sum up perfectly what Tracey can offer and why it is so important :

“We wanted Tracey to come into school because we know how important it is for staff and pupils to be allergy aware. Allergies can develop at any time, and it is essential that we can spot the signs and act immediately to keep everyone safe. For children who have allergies, it’s good to know that they are not alone and to understand their allergy better.”

Working in Partnership

We are also working hard to develop partnerships and working relationships with key organisations who support each other to keep children safe.  We have already announced our partnership with Safeguarding Network, who recognise the importance of good allergy management in schools to safeguard students. Through this partnership subscribers to Safeguarding Network will be signposted to Anaphylaxis UK for information and resources to support the development of allergy awareness, keep up to date with the latest news and developments in allergy and ensure that students are learning in safer schools.

And some of you may have already seen on social media earlier this week that we are working with Twinkl to share our learning resources on their platforms. Twinkl provide educators across the world with high quality, trusted teaching and learning resources so we are delighted to be able to share our resources even further through their network.

We have more exciting partnerships lined up and we will be sharing more on those next week so stay tuned!

Sponsor a school:

And finally we know that budgets for schools and educational settings are incredibly tight and whilst we keep our costs as low as possible, sometimes school budgets just can’t stretch far enough. We want our resources and training programmes to be accessible to all, regardless of background or circumstances. So we are delighted to be able to launch our ‘Sponsor a School’ scheme as part of our Anaphylaxis Awareness Week. Through this initiative local businesses can support local schools by covering the cost of them receiving our trusted and credible AllergyWise®Training.

We believe every school should be equipped to manage serious allergies effectively and we hope this initiative is a step closer to achieving this. We already have commitment from one local business sponsoring a local school and we can’t wait to share more on this over the coming weeks.

Our theme for Anaphylaxis Awareness Week 2024 is ‘The Hidden Battle with Allergies’ and we know through the calls and emails we get through our helpline that the emotional impact of leaving your child at school is huge. We know the worry will never fully go away, but we hope that the work we are doing to educate educational settings on how to manage allergies effectively will serve as some reassurance for parents, carers and the staff involved. By working together we can work towards a safe, inclusive and happy experience of school life and beyond 🧡💙.

If you would like to talk to Tracey about any of the support we can offer to educational settings, then please do drop us an email on allergywise@anaphylaxis.org.uk.