Exclusion periods for nursery: when a sick child stays home

Exclusion periods for nurseries and childminders in England come from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). Its table says how long a child with an infection should stay away to stop it spreading, and it was last updated on 7 September 2026. Most common childhood infections need no exclusion at all; the ones that do are mostly measured in days after symptoms stop or after antibiotics start.

The EYFS does not set periods itself. It requires a procedure, discussed with parents, for taking appropriate action when children are ill or infectious, including the steps you take to stop infection spreading (paragraph 3.60 of the group framework). The UKHSA table is what most settings build that procedure on.

The exclusion table

These are UKHSA’s periods for the infections a nursery sees most. The full table, with rarer infections and when to call your health protection team, is on GOV.UK.

Infection	Stay away until
Diarrhoea and vomiting (including norovirus and rotavirus)	48 hours after the last episode
Chickenpox	5 days after the rash appears
Scarlet fever and other group A strep	24 hours after starting antibiotics
Impetigo	Sores have crusted over, or 48 hours after starting antibiotics
Flu	Well enough to return and with no fever
COVID-19 and other respiratory infections	No exclusion if symptoms are mild; stay home with a high temperature until it has gone
Measles	4 days after the rash starts
Mumps	5 days after the swelling starts
Rubella (German measles)	5 days after the rash starts
Whooping cough	48 hours after starting antibiotics, or 21 days after symptoms began if not treated
Hepatitis A	7 days after symptoms began
Scabies	24 hours after the first treatment, for children aged 5 and under
Ringworm	Treatment has started
Shingles	Only if the rash cannot be covered or has not crusted
Food poisoning	48 hours after the last episode of diarrhoea

No exclusion needed: conjunctivitis, hand, foot and mouth, head lice, slapped cheek, threadworms, cold sores, glandular fever and athlete’s foot.

Two periods catch settings out. UKHSA’s chickenpox period is 5 days from the rash, where many older posters say “until every spot has crusted over”. And whooping cough without antibiotics went from 14 to 21 days in May 2026, so a poster printed before then is out of date.

Too unwell to attend is a separate question

The UKHSA periods answer “is this child infectious?”, not “is this child well enough to be here?”. A child with conjunctivitis may need no exclusion and still be miserable, feverish and needing one-to-one care that the room cannot give.

Your policy can cover both, as long as it is written down, shared with parents before the child starts, and applied the same way to every child. Settings commonly say a child should be well enough to take part in the day, and set out what happens when a child becomes ill while they are with you.

What your illness policy should cover

• Which exclusion periods you follow. Name the UKHSA table and the date you last checked it, rather than copying periods into the policy where they will go stale.
• When a child becomes ill at nursery. Who decides a child needs to go home, how parents are contacted, and where the child waits until they are collected.
• High temperatures. What you do, and whether you give medicine such as paracetamol, which needs the parent’s written consent first. See giving medicine in a nursery.
• Returning after illness. How you know a child is past the exclusion period, for example the date of the last episode.
• Staff. The same periods apply to staff, and food handlers with diarrhoea or vomiting stay away until 48 hours after it stops.
• Telling other families. When you let parents know there is chickenpox or scarlet fever in the room, without naming the child.
• Outbreaks. When you contact your UKHSA health protection team, for example several children ill with the same thing, or more absences than usual.

Who you must tell

• Ofsted, or your childminder agency: any serious illness of a child while in your care, as soon as reasonably practicable and within 14 days (paragraph 3.79). Food poisoning affecting two or more children has its own duty and the same 14 days. Everyday infections are not notified.
• Your UKHSA health protection team: a suspected case of meningitis or septicaemia, and outbreaks. The table on GOV.UK says when to call for each infection.
• Parents: the EYFS expects you to share your illness procedure with them before their child starts.

Recording a sickness absence

A child off sick is still on your register. Record the day as an absence and the reason, so you can see when a period of exclusion started and spot clusters in one room. If a child is away and nobody has told you why, your absence follow-up procedure applies as it would on any other day.

Where Coat Peg fits

Coat Peg’s register has Sick as its own mark, beside Away and Holiday, and the reason is kept with the day. So the date a child went off sick is on the record when you are counting 48 hours. The absence follow-up lists every child nobody has marked by your follow-up time, so a child who is off ill without a call is not missed. If a child needs medicine when they return, the dose is checked against the parent’s written consent before it is recorded, and the parent is told the same day.