IMAGINE how little Naomi Tyrie must feel - suddenly banned from school because of her epilepsy.

Nobody loves her because she has a poorly head, she cries.

Yet, if it is difficult to explain to a five-year-old child why she may no longer go to school with her friends, it is equally hard to understand how this situation has come about.

For Naomi had already spent a year in the school's nursery before starting at Moor End Primary in Oswaldtwistle last September.

Throughout all that time her condition posed no problems.

She never had a fit while at nursery or at primary school.

And the arrangement was that, if she did have one, her mother, just four minutes away, would be called to come and give her the medicine she needed. Additionally her mum went routinely to the school at lunchtimes to give Naomi the other medicine she must have for her condition.

Yet now, her parents say school staff insist that she can no longer go to school until staff are trained to give her the medication.

This, apparently, will require at least three staff volunteering to be trained and it is not certain how long it will take.

Meantime, upset and bewildered Naomi must stay away and be taught alone by a home tutor.

But if there is no dispute that the "county guidelines" the school is following are in the interest of the child's safety, it is still hard to understand why Naomi must be excluded until they are acted upon.

For the system that was in place before worked perfectly well and, surely, could continue to do so in the interim.

As it is, a hurt and confused five-year-old child is kept at home believing she is an unloved misfit.

Is that not awfully harsh and unnecessary - when all that is needed on the part of the school's staff and education authorities is some compassion, common sense and a more flexible interpretation of the rule book?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.