Sorry in advance for long post. I need to admit to something very stupid, it's eating away at me. As it's all 'last lessons' at the minute I've been giving out chocolate and sweets to the students. My year 9s got these little chocolates that have a hazelnut filling, so I was very loud and clear about them containing nuts. All was fine, one girl was allergic so didn't have one.
Yet I'd planned to give my year 7s little bags of Haribo, and my loud one piped up several times during the lesson saying "miss, if you've got us sweets I hope they're vegetarian!". By the end of the lesson (last lesson of the day) I was pretty tired anyway and sad to see them go, so I made the point about veggies to shut this girl up, and offered those chocolates as an alternative, WITHOUT mentioning that they contained nuts. They took them on their way out. Most had Haribo but a few took chocolates. How so very stupid of me.
One girl came back in after a minute or so and said "miss, sorry but I noticed this had nuts in it as I was going to eat it and I'm allergic, can I have something else?" - cue me freaking out asking her about 500 times if she was OK, how sorry I was, etc. I can't believe I was so stupid. She was absolutely fine, she skipped out with a gelatine free sweet I happened to have on me too.
But what if another of them took their chocolate with them and sat and ate it on the bus with nobody to help them if they had a reaction?? I am so paranoid now. I presume that if something serious had happened between after school and around 5pm I would have already been contacted with a demand to see my headmistress/course manager/somebody as irate parents would have phoned the school, surely. But what if this girl tells her parents that I hadn't warned her about the nuts and they report me to the school tomorrow or something?
I think that to some extent by the age of 12 children (and these are grammar school students so I do think this should be the case at my school) would be able to take some responsibility to check what they are eating, especially chocolates which so often contain nuts. At the same time I know they are still children and were probably liable to be excited by me giving them chocolate but I'm trying to find something to comfort me a little bit! Obviously if anything awful has happened it IS my fault that I didn't warn them so whatever happens, happens. I just hope that there isn't more than one vegetarian/Haribo disliker who is also allergic to nuts in that class, surely the odds are in my favour?
(if anybody was very seriously allergic to nuts to the point where contact is an issue, I would have been informed, yes? Nobody has ever mentioned Epipen locations to me, or whether anyone in my classes carry one, either.)
All of this on the eve of my final day at the school! As a result I am nowhere near ready- nearly 10.30pm and I haven't dug out any of the stuff I need to return. Argh, such an idiot!
Please either comfort me or be honest with me about the reality of my situation!!
Harsh lesson well-learned, best lesson of the entire year, unfortunately. I will be taking no such chances ever again (even going to dispose of the rest of those chocolates again- I never want to see them again!!)