First Aid Advice

IS YOUR CHILD WELL ENOUGH TO ATTEND SCHOOL?

We all know that attending school is vitally important to all students, but it is also vitally important to know when your child is not to attend school due to illness.  This can be very difficult at times for parents to judge.  

I thought I’d take this time to remind parents of a few reasons why students should not attend the school environment while they are unwell. 

As we are aiming to build resilience with all our students, we want them to learn to tolerate minor health issues.   

As a school, we have a responsibility to care for all students by preventing outbreaks of any contagious illness.  In doing this, we need students to stay at home when the following has occurred: 

·         If your child has vomited at home, please keep your child home from school for a full 24 hours from the last vomit.  Many students are sent home again after coming to school due to vomiting in the classroom after they arrive.  This spreads the germs and greatly disrupts the classroom and learning of other students.  

·         If you need to administer Nurofen or Panadol to your child in the morning before school, then your child is not well enough for school.  These drugs wear off around lunch time and the student starts to feel unwell again.  These drugs camouflage underlining illnesses and germs can still spread.

·         If your child has a persistent, hard cough, this can disrupt learning for other students in the classroom as the teacher may not be able to be heard by other students.  If your child is coughing persistently, this will also tire your child and they will not be at their peak to learn due to exhaustion from coughing.  Coughing spreads droplets of germs throughout the classroom and can be spread throughout the students and staff quickly.  Obviously, coughs can linger after having a cold and it is reasonable for a student to come back to school with the occasional cough.  

·         No student should be at school if they have had diarrhoea within the last 24 hours. Click on the link below from the Department of Health guidelines for the full fact sheet. http://www.health.vic.gov.au/edfactsheets/downloads/gastroenteritis-in-children.pdf  

·         If your child has a temperature, 24 hours need to have passed once the temperature stops before coming back to school. 

·         If any other contagious disease or illness, please get your doctor’s approval before attending school again.

To help reduce the spread of illness, please take the time to discuss personal hygiene with your child.  Please remind children to cover their mouth and nose when they cough or sneeze, dispose of any tissues in the bin and wash their hands properly and regularly. 

If your child has been prescribed antibiotics that are to be administered three times per day, these can be administered at home.  

The first dose can be administered between 7 – 8.30am, the following dose can be administered between 3.45 – 4.30pm.  The last dose can then be given at 8pm or before bed. 

Please be aware the school is not allowed to provide Panadol to students.

If your child becomes unwell at school, you will be contacted and required to arrange for your child to be picked up within a reasonable timeframe. While a child may feel better at home, if they come back to school too early, they will fall into a heap quickly due to going back into a classroom full of students and it being a noisy environment with bright lights, extra activity outside at recess and lunch times and moving around the school for different subjects.  

Thank you for supporting these procedures and helping to contain illnesses within our school community.

Amanda Daemen

First Aid Officer