Preparing for primary school with an allergy

At Anaphylaxis UK we hope that on primary offer day, everyone has received their first-choice school which will make the next part of your child’s positive allergy journey. 

An exciting time for children and families can be tinged with a little anxiety regarding your child’s allergy care. Tracey Dunn, our Education and AllergyWise® training manager- a former headteacher and leading advocate for allergy awareness in schools – has provided these top tips for you. 

• Make sure that your child’s allergy action plan is up-to-date and arrange a review with the allergy clinic if necessary. 

• Contact the school to find out the best person to speak to about your child’s allergy. This might be the teacher, SENCo, or it could be an administrator who looks after the medical conditions in school. 

• Arrange a meeting with the school. Take your child’s allergy action plan and clinic letters with you to inform the meeting and leave a copy of the plan and letters with the school. 

• Discuss the school’s approach to allergy management and find out which staff have specialist training in allergies in addition to their essential paediatric first aid training.  You can inform the lead person in the school about Anaphylaxis UK’s Safer School Programme and AllergyWise® School award, e-learning, or face to face training if they need information or support. 

• Consider the induction process and how your child will be safe during these visits. Is there any information that needs to be sent out to the new cohort ahead of these visits?  We have a template letter available in our free downloads that can be shared with the school. 

• Find out the catering arrangements and how to access the allergen information to make safe food choices.  Arrange to talk to the caterer if needed. 

• Help your child advocate for themselves and speak up about their allergies. Teach them to ask ‘is this safe for me?’ 

• Enable your child to recognise their emergency medication container or bag and start encouraging them to carry it for themselves under your supervision. 

• Go to as many of the induction visits as possible. Introduce you and your child to other parents/carers, sharing positive messages about living with allergies and swap contact details ready for playdates. 

We can work with schools to help them develop their allergy practice. Visit our Safer Schools Programme page for more information.

We are here to walk hand in hand with you as you embark on this exciting next step.