Sickbay

Message from Sickbay

Winter and germs: Already sick bay has seen a rise in students who are sick with a cold or virus. To stop the spread of germs we all need to get into some basic habits. Tips to Fight Germs

1. Wash Your Hands
2. There’s a good reason why doctors stress again and again the importance of keeping your hands washed and clean: It’s the single most important thing you can do to prevent the spread of illness. About 80% of infectious diseases are spread by touch.
3. Teach Your Child Germ Etiquette

It is okay to move away from a person who is coughing and sneezing. If your child is sick you should teach your child to cover coughs and sneezes to prevent spreading infection and turn away from other people before coughing or sneezing. When possible, it is best to sneeze into a tissue and throw it in the trash right after. Otherwise, your child should cough or sneeze into crook of his/her elbow, not his/her hands.

1. Don’t Touch!
2. Try to communicate how important it is that your kids not touch their nose, face, eyes, or ears during the day. Germs can quickly infect you through these access points.
3. Stay At Home

If your child is really ill, being at school is probably not the best place for them. By being at school it slows down the recovery process and causes more students and staff to be exposed to germs. It is up to you to judge whether your child is well enough for school, attendance is very important but so is the minimisation of spreading germs to others.

SMS messaging for Head injuries: If your child presents to Sick Bay with a mild head injury, you will receive an SMS notification through Compass. It will give a brief description of what happened and the treatment that was given. For severe injuries a phone call will be made.

Sick Bay Visit: An entry on Compass is made for any student with an injury or illness that attends Sick Bay. This entry includes details of the injury/illness, treatment given and the times that they attended Sick Bay. The students are given a yellow Sick Bay Visit pass to take home to a parent/guardian (except for minor head injuries which an SMS is sent or major incidences where a phone call is made). Please logon to Compass to access all relevant information about your child’s sick bay visit.

Head lice: Following up from the information in last month’s newsletter, it is really important to re-treat your child’s hair for at least 3 weeks. To break this lifecycle you must re-treat (regardless of treatment method) seven days after the first treatment and continue with weekly checking. Make sure you remove nits carefully every week and watch your child closely to see if any live lice return. Using conditioner is a cheap and effective way to help find head lice in your child's hair. Conditioner doesn't kill head lice, but it stuns them for about 20 minutes, so they cannot move around or hang on to the hair. This method gives you time to comb through the hair with a lice comb and determine if your child has head lice and begin a treatment method as soon as possible if they are detected.

Only use products that are licensed or registered for head lice. There are four different active chemicals that target head lice, each works differently and aim to kill lice and/or eggs.

To keep minimising head lice at school, we ask that you are pro-active and check for lice regularly. Treat as necessary and let us know. If all families are doing this, we can reduce the spread of head lice in our school.

Anaphylaxis and Allergies: As a school we have children with anaphylaxis and allergies to foods. It is very important that as a community we are all aware of this and where possible minimise the chance of our students having an allergic reaction. Being food aware goes a long way to preventing reactions. The main foods that our students have a reaction to are peanuts and tree nuts. Whilst we are not a nut free school, educating ourselves and our children about not sharing, washing our hands and being aware helps keep our students with anaphylaxis or allergies safe.

Naming Uniform:  Each week the lost property tub is emptied, all uniform that has a legible name is returned to the community that your child is in, but there is still uniform coming through to sick bay that is unnamed. Please label your children’s uniform, especially jumpers and jackets, so that they can be returned to you. Drink bottles and lunchboxes also need to be labelled as these are regularly in lost property.      

Second-hand Uniform: We currently have a lot of second-hand uniform for sale, if you need anything for your child, please pop in for a look.

Change of clothes: It is good for all Foundation students and others who are prone to “accidents” to have a change of clothes in their bag.

Roz                                                                                         

First Aid Officer