Sickbay

Welcome back everyone and a warm welcome to all our new families. I’m sure over the year I will get to meet many of our students, whether it is an injury or they are not feeling too well or one of the many other reasons that students get sent to sick bay.

I have included general information about sick bay and the procedures we follow when a child visits and is treated in sick bay. I’ve also included information about hay fever, some tips for fighting germs and treating head lice.

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.

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.

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.

Hats: Each day I get students coming to sick bay to borrow hats, as they have forgotten or lost theirs, but most of these borrowed hats don’t make it back to sick bay. At the moment there are no spare hats in sick bay for students to borrow, so if your child wants to play at recess and lunch and not have to sit in the shaded areas they need to always bring a hat to school to wear. If they do lose their hat and it is named and comes through lost property I will ensure that it is returned to their community.

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. 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: If you need any uniform for your children we currently a selection for sale, 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.

Hayfever: With the pollen count being moderate to high most days in our area a lot of our students suffer from itchy, sore eyes. If your child has been complaining of sore, itchy eyes and it is going to be a high pollen count day it may be advisable to give them some antihistamine before they come to school. This will save on trips by you to school to administer medication if it is not registered at school and trips to sick bay by your child, which takes them out of the community and takes away from their learning time.

Tips to Fight Germs

Wash Your Hands
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.

Don’t Touch!
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.

Head lice: It will come as no surprise to many parents that head lice infestations in children appear to be on the rise. There is no way to prevent head lice so it's important to check your child's hair regularly even when you don’t think they have head lice.

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.

Re-infection is the least likely reason for head lice returning in a week's time. If eggs do not die, or were not removed during the original treatment they may hatch and the lifecycle occurs all over again. To break this lifecycle you must re-treat (regardless of treatment method) seven days after the first treatment and continue with weekly checking.

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.

Over time, head lice may develop resistance to some chemicals. It is important to check if a treatment you used has worked, and if not, treat again with another product that has a different chemical.

To minimise head lice at school and save our students from feeling sad and itchy, 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.

Roz

First Aid Officer

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.
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.