Junior School

We thought it would be a timely reminder to let parents know what we are teaching the students in the junior school in relation to good hygiene practices.

It would be great if you could continue to monitor and reinforce the same messages when at home with your child.

• ‘Catch a cough or sneeze’ – we are teaching the students to cough or sneeze into their elbow, or place their hands over their nose/mouth. They are then asked to get a tissue to wipe their face and hands and then wash their hands, or use hand sanitiser on their hands.
• Any tissue that is used must be placed into the bin straight away and then the students are asked to use hand sanitiser on their hands or go and wash their hands.
• Students are reminded to wash their hands after using the toilet and before eating or playing outside – please follow the correct practice at home. They need to wash their wash their hands for 20 seconds (humming the Happy Birthday song or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star).  They must also be reminded to wash the backs of their hands at this time and between their fingers….not just hold their hands under running water for 20 seconds.
• Students are being reminded not to touch their eyes, nose or mouth unnecessarily. We know this can be tricky to enforce!
• It is extremely important that students are not sharing drink bottles or food, even if they are friends.   We are explaining to the students that we must keep our germs and bugs to ourselves and we wouldn’t want our friends to get any nasty germs from us.  Please reinforce this at home.
• We are reminding students to not hug, touch each other or play with each other’s hair etc. Keeping in your own ‘space bubble’ ensures that you don’t give your friends any of your germs.

We are having ongoing discussions with the students to answer any questions about the Corona Virus, it is important that students know that it is a serious virus and they need to follow the rules to ensure their health and safety and that of their friends.

Please be mindful of letting your children watch too much TV at this time or be surrounded by adults having conversations about the severity of the virus and the world wide effect.

Young children process information differently to adults and they can sense when the adults around them are worried or anxious. So please reassure your child that they are going to be safe and OK if everyone needs to work together to follow the rules and look after each other.

If you have any questions, please see your classroom teacher.

Kind Regards,

Melinda Michalski, Anne Lee and Sarah Crookes.