Emergency Contacts                                                                 

Parents/carers are asked to provide two telephone numbers where they, a friend, or relative may be contacted should their child become ill at school and need to be sent home.

Pupils occasionally injure themselves, requiring hospital attention.  If parents/carers can be contacted by telephone and have a car, they will be asked to transport their child to hospital. Otherwise, school staff will take the pupil to the hospital and meet parents/carers there, if at all possible.

Medicines  

Completion of the appropriate form (available from the school office) certain prescribed medicines can be given to pupils at school.  School staff do not administer intimate medical procedures. Oral medication only is administered.

Staff do not administer medicine because parents forget to do so. It is always part of a planned and agreed approach between school and parents and in the best interests of the young person concerned. (please see our medication policy)

Staff are trained in medication administration, however only two staff are responsible for administering medication.

Illness at school

From time to time children are sick (vomit) either at home or at school. Unfortunately it is not possible to distinguish between the causes, and therefore it is essential that the same rule of exclusion applies in all cases of vomiting or Diarrhoea.

In the Health Protection Agency document, “Guidelines for the Control of Infection and Communicable Disease in School and Early Years Settings”, the guidance is:

Diarrhoea and Vomiting exclusion

Diarrhoea and/or vomiting commonly affects children and staff and can be caused by a number of different germs, including viruses, parasites and bacteria. Infections can be easily spread from person to person (by unwashed hands), especially in children. In general, it is recommended that any staff member or child with diarrhoea and/or vomiting symptoms must stay away or be excluded from the school or early years setting until they have been free of symptoms for 48 hours (the ‘48 hour rule’) and feel well. Personal hygiene whilst ill must be very strict.

If your child shows sickness and/ or diarrhoea at school, we will ask you or your emergency contact to take your child home. They should not return for 48 hours. We appreciate that this is inconvenient in many cases, and you may not believe your child is ill, but you will appreciate that we do this in all cases and it should reduce the risk of infection for all children in school.  As an example, if your child is sick at lunchtime on a Tuesday, they should not return to school until after lunch on Thursday, provided there have not been any further episodes of vomiting.

Thank you for your understanding with this.  Further guidance on infection control may be found on the Public Health England Website.