Health and Safety Information

Health and Safety Information

Help our community stay healthy

As we move into the cooler months of the year, it is important that we all use a commonsense approach to health and safety guidelines to help reduce the risk of transmission of illnesses such as influenza and COVID throughout our school community.

 

Help reduce the spread of flu and COVID:

To reduce the spread of all respiratory illnesses, please make sure your daughter knows to:

  • Stay at home when sick with acute cold and flu symptoms (such as a runny nose, sore throat, fever, cough)
  • Cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue and sneeze into her elbow instead of her hands.
  • Wash hands often with soap and water, especially after coughing or sneezing. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective.
  • Avoid touching eyes, nose or mouth.

If a student is unwell and has cold-like symptoms they should stay home and test for COVID-19 and flu, if possible. Whether the test comes back positive or negative for either of these, the student should not return to school until they no longer have any acute symptoms. Once the acute symptoms have passed, they may return to school.

Further information is available from NSW Health, including information about recommended vaccinations.

 

Antigen tests

The next iteration of nasal, self-test antigen kits have been approved by the TGA and are now available in most supermarkets and chemists. These antigen tests allow a person to test for both COVID-19 and Influenza A & B at the same time.

Parents/carers should continue to notify the school if a student has tested positive for influenza or COVID-19 as part of the usual absence notification process, by emailing absences.

 

Rest is best

Health advice is that staff and students who are sick should always stay home to rest and recover properly. This allows people to look after themselves and it avoids putting others at risk of getting sick too. We all have an important part to play, so please help us keep everyone in our community as safe and well as possible this winter!

 

Holly Gyton
Deputy Head of School