Our 4 year old has just started Primary 1 (went back last week in Scotland) and today he was sick at lunchtime and my wife went to collect him.
Chatting to him this afternoon it transpires that the P1s (3 adjoining classrooms of 21) eat their lunches from 12:40 to 1:10pm in their class rooms under the 'supervision' of a P7 pupil. Apparently, folowing a call to the school to check this out, there's a first aid member of staff available in the school building during lunchtime but no adults are present in any of the 3 P1 rooms for this 30 minute period.
Today our son sat from 12:40 to 1:00pm feeling sick but didn't tell the P7 pupil. I'd like to think that a member of staff would have been aware enough to notice a 4 year old not eating his lunch and work out that he was feeling unwell. Anyway, sitting at his desk he was sick all over the table, over his uneaten lunch and over the lunch of the girl sitting next to him. He was apparently then attended to by the other 2 P7 pupils from the other 2 classrooms who cleaned him up and cleaned the table (don't know if their classes were left alone for this time)
To my mind this has raised a number of very serious concerns:
Regardless of the availability of a 'roaming' first aider in the building, an unsupervised group of 4 and 5 year olds are as at risk of choking as much younger children and there's one boy in the class who has a nut allergy - is he being watched for sharing food?
In the event of an emergency is it right to rely on a 10-11 year old to effectively raise the alarm
Why is a pupil with a very obvious tummy bug being cleaned up by other pupils and did they clean themselves up adequately afterwards - who knows how many kids are going to be off tomorrow.
Why aren't the staff staggering their breaks to provide coverage to the school's most vulnerable group.
My wife called the school and got a very unsympathetic deputy head. We're going to email the head after the kids are off to bed but wanted to get others oppinions. Are we overreacting, do others think this is quite common?
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Supervision of P1
15 replies
LiviChris79 · 01/09/2014 18:32
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