Is my child too ill for school?

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Every other guide in this section has shopping links on it, and we earn money when you use them. This one does not. We are not qualified to tell you what to buy when your child is ill, and a page about a sick child is the wrong place for us to be selling anything.

We are telling you this so you can trust the rest of it.

The short version

Most mild illness is not a reason to stay off. A cough or a runny nose is usually fine.
If your child has a high temperature, the NHS says keep them off until it goes away.
If you are unsure, the NHS has a page for exactly this, and your school office has seen it all before.

The honest answer

Nobody can tell you over the internet whether your child is well enough for school today. You are looking at them and we are not.

What we can do is tell you where the real answer lives.

The NHS has a page called "Is my child too ill for school?" It goes through the common ones — coughs, colds, chickenpox, high temperature, sickness, head lice, sore throats — and says for each one whether a child should stay off, and for how long.

👉 Is my child too ill for school? — NHS

That is the page to bookmark. It is free, it is written for parents, and it is the one your school is most likely to be working from too.

Mild illness is usually not a reason to stay off

It is usually fine to send a child to school with a mild illness — a bit of a cough, a runny nose, a sore throat. Children get a lot of those. If mild symptoms kept a child at home, some children would miss most of the winter.

A high temperature is different. The NHS's wording is simple: if your child has a high temperature, keep them off school until it goes away. Note that it is until it goes, not for a fixed number of days.

🔒 We are not going to give you a number to measure against. You will find thresholds quoted all over the internet. The NHS page does not give one, and we are not medically qualified to invent one. Looking at a thermometer and not sure what to do? That is a question for 111 or your GP. Not for us.

Some infections have a set time a child must stay off. Nurseries and schools follow national health rules on those rather than making it up. The NHS page covers the common ones, and your school will tell you if there is something going round.

Why does the odd day matter?

Because days add up faster than anyone expects, and the arithmetic is unkind.

A child who misses one day a fortnight misses about four weeks of school across a year. Nobody plans that. It happens one reasonable-seeming morning at a time.

Missing school is not just missing lessons, either. Things get taught in an order. A child who missed the day fractions were introduced spends the next fortnight quietly behind, and often does not say so.

There is a social cost too. Friendships in primary school are built in small daily moments, and a child who is often absent can find themselves on the edge of a group without ever knowing why.

This is not an argument for sending in a genuinely ill child. It is an argument for noticing the pattern. One day is one day. A habit is different.

What if they say they feel ill and you are not sure?

Common, and worth taking seriously without immediately giving in.

Ask what specifically hurts. A child who is really unwell can usually tell you. A child who is worried often says "tummy ache" and cannot say much more.

Worry can feel physical. A tummy ache before school can be completely real and still be about school rather than about the tummy.

Watch for the pattern. Ill on Monday and fine by ten o'clock? Ill on PE days? Ill since a particular week? That pattern is information.

Talk to somebody, and do not tackle it alone. The NHS advice here is worth following. If your child is anxious about school, speak to your GP or a school nurse, as well as the school. It also makes a point most parents do not expect — avoiding school can make a child's anxiety about going worse, which is why the advice is to get help rather than to wait it out.

Schools deal with this constantly. They will usually have noticed something you have not. And small adjustments early work far better than a long conversation months later.

If your child is going to be off

Tell the school first thing, the way they have asked you to. They have to account for every child.
Say what is wrong. "Unwell" is harder for them to work with than "sickness bug".
Ask about work only if your child is up to it. A child with a temperature should be resting, not doing worksheets.
Send them back when they are better, not when they are perfect. Children often want another day after they are well. That is when the habit starts.

Longer absences

Some children miss a lot of school for health reasons. That is a different situation, and you do not have to manage it alone.

Schools can put support in place. Ask what is available, and ask your GP what they can tell the school.

There are also legal duties on local councils to arrange education for children who cannot attend school because of health. We are not going to summarise the law for you. Getting it slightly wrong would be worse than not saying it. Ask the school and ask the council. If you need to know where you stand, a charity or an education-law adviser can tell you properly.

The important thing is to have that conversation early and in writing, rather than absence by absence.

Where this comes from

Is my child too ill for school?, NHS. This is the source for the high-temperature advice, for which common illnesses need time off, and for the point about school avoidance and anxiety. 🔒 The NHS website is not published under the Open Government Licence. We have summarised a few points and linked to the page for everything else. The NHS page is the one to use, not this one.
Department for Education guidance on school attendance, for the expectations on schools and parents.
Health protection rules for schools and nurseries set out when children should be kept off for specific infections. Your school follows these.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

⚠️ This page is not medical advice and we are not medical professionals. If you are worried about your child, contact your GP, or call 111. In an emergency, call 999.