Speaking out at school
You spend a lot of time at school, so it’s important to look after your diabetes whilst you’re there. When you go back to school after the diabetes has been diagnosed it’s safer and easier for you if teachers, best friends and classmates know you have diabetes so they understand if you have to check your glucose levels, have snacks, take insulin or anything else related to diabetes.
Telling people at school
Here are some tips on caring for yourself at school.
Wesley video: School
View the video to find out how Wesley let people at school know about his diabetes and why he feels it’s important to tell people at school.
Top Tips
- It’s really important that your head teacher knows that you have diabetes so he/she can tell the other teachers, and it’s also important that the school nurse is informed
- If you’re nervous about telling your teachers, take your parents or the diabetes nurse or a friend along with you
- Your diabetes team should help you and your parents agree a school management plan together
- Although you might feel uncomfortable about so many people knowing about your diabetes, your teachers need to learn about how it affects you and others with diabetes to keep you safe. Remember most people don’t know much about type 1 diabetes
- If your teachers and friends at school know about diabetes they are more likely to be understanding and helpful if you need them
- Not every school has a diabetes nurse there all the time, but every school should have one responsible for it. The school nurse and the diabetes nurse will be able to keep an emergency box for you (see below to see what to put in it) in a place where you can get to it easily
- It will be difficult to talk about diabetes at school for the first time, but most young people have said that once they have told people they feel better
- If you can talk about it, other people can learn from you and help you if you need them to. Some young people have written about how diabetes affects them for a school project or given a presentation to the school
- If you can you should think about wearing personal and diabetes ID in case you get into trouble. This will make it easier for people to understand what is happening and how to help you. Your diabetes team can help you decide which would be the best to use, for example a silver bracelet