It’s important that your child receives good support at school to help them manage their diabetes.
When your child is starting school or returning to school after their diagnosis, it’s important to make sure that they get the help and support from their school that they need. There will be a number of things the school staff will need to know.
Many parents feel anxious about their child going to school with their diabetes. Concerns about whether the staff are willing and able to look after your child the way you want them to or even just leaving your child with someone else are quite common and understandable. It does take time to fully understand diabetes, as you’ve learned yourself, but with help and support from you and your paediatric diabetes team, school staff can become competent and confident in looking after your child.
Teachers don’t cover medical conditions during their training. So, unless they’ve taught a child with diabetes in the past, or have experience of diabetes themselves, their knowledge about it might be limited.
How you approach school staff and work with them will depend on your child’s individual needs and their school’s processes. However, the information in this section will provide a guide to what schools need to know and how to get that information across.