Safe Air Schools and National Policy: Advancing Indoor Air Quality in Education
The National Allergy Strategy 2025 to 2035 and the Department for Education’s new Allergy Safety in Schools statutory guidance mark an important shift in recognising the role that air quality plays in supporting school children’s respiratory health, asthma control and allergy safety.
For Safe Air Schools, these developments are particularly significant because our founder contributed to the work that informed both.
This blog explores what the National Allergy Strategy and the Department for Education’s Allergy Safety in Schools statutory guidance say about air quality, respiratory allergy and asthma, and highlights the contribution Safe Air Schools made to the process.
How Safe Air Schools became involved.
In 2024, our founder applied to participate in the National Allergy Strategy 10-Year Plan. Her background in respiratory care across hospital wards, on-call and intensive care, alongside six years of work on air quality in schools, made the connection between respiratory health, allergy and the environments in which children learn particularly relevant. She was accepted onto the Indoor and Outdoor Air Quality (Respiratory) Working Group and contributed over the next year.
During the introduction process, we were also pleased to see Catherine Sutton of Airborne Allergy Action on the working group. Catherine already works with Safe Air Schools, providing valuable experience and expertise.
What does the National Allergy Strategy say about air quality?
The National Allergy Strategy takes a broad approach to allergy, recognising that improving outcomes requires more than diagnosis, medication and emergency treatment. It also highlights the importance of air quality and environmental controls in preventing and managing allergy.
The Strategy calls for stronger standards, better monitoring (including CO2 and indoor air quality monitoring), improved ventilation and air filtration, greater awareness of indoor and outdoor pollutants, and action to reduce exposure to allergens and pollutants. Together, these recommendations demonstrate how the Strategy connects cleaner air and healthier environments with allergy prevention and management across the UK. In doing so, the Strategy provides an important link between allergy, respiratory health and the environments in which children learn. It also reflects the approach advocated by Safe Air Schools: understanding the environment, improving ventilation and using filtration where appropriate.
Indoor and outdoor air are closely connected.
The working group’s focus on indoor and outdoor air is particularly relevant to schools. Outdoor air quality can directly affect indoor environments: traffic pollution, particulate matter, smoke and pollen can affect the air children breathe in playgrounds while also entering classrooms through windows, doors and ventilation systems. At the same time, indoor sources such as viruses, mould and dust can affect the air children breathe inside the school. This is why Safe Air Schools takes a whole-school approach to air quality, considering both the indoor and outdoor environments and the ways in which they interact.
The new statutory framework.
Benedict’s Law is the name of the campaign driven by Benedict Blythe's family following the death of their five-year-old son caused by an allergic reaction at school The campaign called for stronger and more consistent allergy protection in schools. Safe Air Schools was pleased to support the campaign and help it reach 10,000 signatures in just 10 days. Thank you to everyone who saw our call and supported the petition through sharing and signing. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 subsequently introduced a statutory requirement for applicable schools to have an allergy safety policy. The Department for Education’s statutory guidance provides the framework for implementation.
The progress made in allergy safety in schools has been driven by Benedict’s family, campaigners, clinicians, organisations and families who have continued to call for stronger protection for children with allergies. We would like to thank the Benedict Blythe Foundation and everyone who has worked so hard to bring about this change in law and statutory guidance. Their work will immeasurably improve life for children and families living with allergy and undoubtedly save lives.
For information and resources, including the timeline to Law, we encourage families and schools to visit the Benedict Blythe Foundation and Allergy UK.
What does the statutory allergy guidance say?
The National Allergy Strategy provides the wider strategic context. The Allergy Safety in Schools statutory guidance takes this further by setting out what schools in England need to consider when meeting their allergy safety duties.
Safe Air Schools was invited to contribute evidence and views during its development.
One of the areas we particularly wanted to see recognised was the relationship between clean air, asthma, allergy and the school environment.
Our contribution to the statutory guidance.
As part of the consultation and development process, Safe Air Schools submitted evidence and recommendations relating to air quality, respiratory health and schools. Rather than reproduce our full submission, we are highlighting our contributions that subsequently appeared in the published guidance.
A key part of our submission was a request for a specific section on air quality, recognising the relationship between indoor and outdoor air, asthma, allergy and the school environment. The final guidance includes: “Clean air is a core asthma control measure.” For us, this is an important outcome of the consultation process.
Our contribution extended beyond environmental controls to how schools respond to pupils whose health conditions affect their attendance. Safe Air Schools raised concerns about 100% attendance awards. We highlighted that these awards disadvantage pupils with higher health risks, whose absences may be necessary and unavoidable, while also creating counterproductive pressure to attend school when unwell, particularly during periods of high illness circulation. Page 22 reflects some of this discussion where unacceptable practice is deemed as:
"excluding children and young people from rewards for 100% attendance where their non-attendance is the result of a medical condition or allergy".
From medical conditions and allergy to two pieces of guidance.
The development of the statutory guidance initially brought allergy and medical conditions together, before the work was separated into two strands: Allergy Safety in Schools, which has now been published, and the wider Supporting Pupils with Medical Conditions guidance, which is due later this year. Safe Air Schools were pleased to introduce Clinically Vulnerable Families to the Department for Education and their medical conditions work, bringing the experiences and perspectives of clinically vulnerable children and families into the development process.
We hope that our full submission on air quality will be considered as part of the update to the Supporting Pupils with Medical Conditions guidance. We will publish our submission in due course.
What does the statutory guidance mean for schools?
We wanted the guidance to recognise that allergy safety encompasses both individual support and the environment in which children learn. Individual Healthcare Plans (IHPs) are an important part of supporting children with allergies and respiratory conditions, including identifying individual triggers and setting out appropriate measures to manage them. Where an identified trigger is environmental, it is also important to consider the wider school environment and measures that can help reduce the risk associated with that trigger.
The National Education Union has produced some FAQ's to assist schools, stating:
"The new guidance also highlights clean air – which has been named for the first time as part of a school's basic duty of care - as being a core control measure for asthma. The statutory guidance identifies good ventilation, air quality monitoring and, where appropriate, supplemental HEPA filtration as important control measures for managing asthma. Schools must have regard to the guidance when determining the measures needed in their circumstances. Finally, schools should review any attendance reward schemes to ensure that pupils with allergies and other medical conditions are not placed at a disadvantage".
The Benedict Blythe Foundation has produced a useful summary regarding Individual Healthcare Plans that we have reproduced here:
They have also produced a useful series of summaries on training, seen here:
From policy to implementation.
The National Allergy Strategy has put indoor air quality monitoring, adequate air exchange and HEPA filtration into its respiratory health objectives, while statutory allergy guidance has gone further by explicitly recognising clean air as a core asthma control measure and addressing ventilation, air quality monitoring and HEPA filtration within its advice to schools.
For Safe Air Schools, this represents important progress.
Our founder’s involvement began with the National Allergy Strategy and its Indoor and Outdoor Air Respiratory Working Group. It has continued through our contribution to the development of the statutory allergy guidance.
The policy discussion about air quality in schools has moved forward.
The focus now needs to be on implementation: ensuring schools have the practical support, information and resources they need to act. For children with allergy and respiratory conditions, the environment in which they learn is part of that conversation.
