Hidden in the new school allergy guidance is a major victory for clean air

Clinically Vulnerable Families on the new allergy safety guidance, clean air in schools, and why this matters for our families.

There are two or three children with asthma in almost every classroom in Britain. For the families Clinically Vulnerable Families represents, poor indoor air is not an abstract environmental issue but a daily health risk. Children with severe asthma, allergies, immune suppression and other complex health conditions including severe allergy spend hours each day in classrooms where the quality of the air they breathe can determine whether they remain well enough to learn.

For years, the official response in schools focused almost entirely on what happened after an asthma attack had begun. Keep a reliever inhaler available. Recognise the warning signs. Call 999 if symptoms worsen.

What official guidance rarely acknowledged was the thing that can trigger those attacks in the first place: the air inside the classroom.

This summer, that changed

The Department for Education has today (6/7/26) published new statutory guidance on allergy safety in schools following Benedict's Law, the campaign led by the family of Benedict Blythe, who sadly died from anaphylaxis at school in 2021. Their determination secured stronger expectations around allergy policies, staff training and emergency adrenaline medication in schools. Their son's legacy has already transformed how schools approach allergy safety.

Less widely noticed is what the guidance says about asthma and indoor air.

It states:

"Clean air is a core asthma control measure. Good ventilation, air quality monitoring and supplemental HEPA air filtration are essential, especially when ventilation is limited and outdoor air is polluted. Systematically integrating and embedding clean indoor air into legal health and safety duties, policies, procedures and practices will reduce pressure on staff and ensure consistency and support without too much extra work."

Those few sentences represent a profound shift.

For the first time, statutory guidance explicitly recognises ventilation, air quality monitoring and HEPA air filtration as essential elements of asthma control, placing clean indoor air firmly within schools' health and safety responsibilities. After years in which air filtration was often dismissed as an optional pandemic measure, clean air is now recognised as part of protecting children with asthma and allergies.

For parents, that changes the conversation. Schools should now be able to explain how they are managing indoor air quality, what ventilation measures they have in place and, where ventilation is limited or outdoor air pollution is poor, how they are using HEPA filtration to reduce risk.

The case we made

Clinically Vulnerable Families has spent years arguing that clean air should be regarded as a basic part of making schools safe for children with with health conditions including respiratory conditions, and not only as an optional intervention introduced only during public health emergencies.

As a Core Participant in the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, we submitted evidence documenting what happens when classroom air is treated as somebody else's responsibility.

Families told us about schools refusing permission to install privately funded HEPA air cleaners, despite parents offering to buy them themselves. We documented examples of schools considering ozone generators - a technology widely regarded by experts as inappropriate for occupied classrooms - instead of evidence-based ventilation and filtration. Again and again, we heard from parents who found themselves forced to advocate for measures that should already have been routine.

That evidence was submitted to the Inquiry and shared directly with the Department for Education. We also subsequently have had the opportunity to contribute to discussions and written contributions during the development of the new guidance.

Seeing clean indoor air recognised in statutory guidance is the culmination of years of work by families, clinicians and campaigners who refused to accept that children simply had to tolerate avoidable risks.

A shared campaign

This progress was never the work of one organisation, many others have also been working hard. Safe Air Schools played a central role in developing the guidance through the National Allergy Strategy, ensuring that indoor air quality became part of the conversation around allergy safety.

Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah CBE, whose daughter Ella became the first person in the world to have air pollution recorded as a cause of death on a death certificate, has been one of the country's most influential advocates for cleaner air. Through her work with Michelle Wong BArch MSc, an early member of  Clinically Vulnerable Families, the importance of HEPA filtration became part of the Ella Roberta Family Foundation's campaign for healthier indoor air in schools. That work helped pave the way for the Mayor of London's decision to fund HEPA filtration in 200 schools across the capital.

Many different other organisations took different routes. Together, they helped move classroom air quality from the margins of education policy into national guidance.

The attendance fight

The good news doesn't end there. Clean air was not the only issue Clinically Vulnerable Families raised with the Department for Education.

For years, schools have celebrated 100% attendance through certificates, prize draws and awards. The intention may have been positive, but the effect has often been deeply unfair. A child with a health condition will have addition health related absences, such has recovering from a serious asthma attack and therefore cannot ever achieve perfect attendance. Neither can a child whose medical condition requires regular treatment, or where common infections carry far greater risks.

Our evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry found that children in Clinically Vulnerable families experienced substantially higher levels of unavoidable absence during the pandemic. Yet many continued to watch classmates rewarded for attendance targets they could never hope to meet.

We argued consistently that attendance policies should recognise medical reality rather than penalise children for it.

The new guidance reflects that principle. It identifies excluding children from attendance rewards because of a medical condition or allergy as unacceptable practice and expects schools to ensure their policies do not disadvantage pupils because of their health.

It is a relatively small section of the guidance, but for many of the families we support it corrects an injustice that has quietly affected children for years.

What parents can do now

This guidance exists because one family refused to let their son's death be in vain. It also reflects years of work by organisations, scientists, clinicians and parents who argued that clean indoor air should be recognised as a health and safety issue rather than an optional extra.

Parents can now ask schools how they are implementing the new guidance. They can ask what ventilation measures are in place, whether indoor air quality is being monitored and, where ventilation is limited or outdoor air pollution is poor, how HEPA filtration is being used to protect children with asthma and allergies.

These must no longer be considered unusual questions. They go to the heart of what the Department for Education now describes as good asthma management.

Publishing guidance is only the beginning. The next challenge is ensuring that every child - regardless of where they live or which school they attend - benefits from the healthier classrooms that our families have spent years campaigning for.

For  Clinically Vulnerable Families, that work continues! Keep up to date with our work:

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