Jump to content
Home
Forum
Articles
About Us
Tapestry
This is the EYFS Staging Site ×

Head Lice


Recommended Posts

Today 2 children were sent home with head lice. Both had eggs and lots of live crawlers. One parent was totally unaware and the other parent had treated the child the night before.In the past I have asked parents to keep their child away untill they have been treated but should there be an exclusion period.

38156[/snapback]

 

I'm not sure what the policy is but we are not allowed to send children home even if we see head lice on them. The big oblem we find is that parents do not retreat children 2 weeks after the first treatment when the eggs hatch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it's probably down to the individual school. We do send children home if we see live headlice. We also make a point of informing parents if we see their children scratching their heads a lot (and politely request that they check their child's head "just in case").

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is that time of year where Larry Louse and Nitty Nora (and all their family) come to visit. :o

 

Is it fair to exclude? ( although I have also thought about it)

 

There will always be more than one child with head lice, so if you exclude a child, the child has treatment at home only to return to preschool/school and then play with the "other" child (who was not excluded) and hey presto...infestation again.

 

We have a whole group headlice treatment day. The Friday at the end of half term we ask ALL parents to treat their child that night, to check hair throughout half term daily with a comb, then on their first day back after the half term we ask them to ALL treat the hair again.

 

We encourage parents to then check hair on a weekly basis. One year I got free combs from the health visitor to hand out. (I haven't asked for any yet, this year)

 

This doesn't eradicate them completely but it does help.

 

Peggy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

we also do not exclude mainly for same reasons as Peggy, other then check every child and exclude all it is almost impossible to be certain that no child had head lice.

 

If we find them we do inform parent and then tell all parents we have had a case asking all parents to check their family....not just the children but adults and grandparents etc etc.

Have twice had a problem with children who seem to be constnly infested, so asked parents and got HV involved, who helped parent sort out the problem.

 

I aslo send home leaflets regularly advising on checking (I found some on this site somewhere!)

 

further discussion from before can be found here...

headlice or here

 

Inge

Link to comment
Share on other sites

our policy (preschool) is that if we notice head lice, we inform the parents and they are asked to treat them. we will give them advise and information on treatment.

 

if after two weeks, we can see that the child has not been treated, we will exclude until they have been. most parents are unaware their child even has it, so most are glad we have noticed.

 

this is all done confidentially of course.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi all,

We have three stages in our policy.

1) tell parent and explain that they need treating and give a leaflet on how.

2)If child obviously has not been treated we re approach parent and explain that if he/she not treated this time, they will be excluded until they are clear.

3) exclude - with a letter written to parent to explain and a copy to be kept on file.

 

I have to be honest, we have never got to 3rd stage.

I agree it is not fair to exclude as it is noe the childs fault but it is also not fair on the other children.

 

Net x

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I was at nursery, we were not allowed to exclude - just had to inform parents and hand out leaflets like many others on here.

 

I also seem to remember some bizarre European directive about checking children's hair as, without their permission, it was infringing their personal space and contravening the rights of the child.

 

I know that the world has gone mad, but just be careful when checking (particularly older) children's hair -they only have to go home and say that 'so and so touched me today and made me cry' and you have a whole other problem on your hands!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally, I would campaign for a nationwide head lice removal day. Just like Peggy mentioned, if everyone treated this problem on the same day and then again two weeks later, say every term surely this would give the little blighters a hard time. But might it not save everyone a lot of time and expense in the long run. My daughter was continually getting them, I would treat at £6 a time , they would go away and a short while after they would come back again. Or is this being too simplistic.

Nikki

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I was at nursery, we were not allowed to exclude - just had to inform parents and hand out leaflets like many others on here.

 

I also seem to remember some bizarre European directive about checking children's hair as, without their permission, it was infringing their personal space and contravening the rights of the child. 

 

I know that the world has gone mad, but just be careful when checking (particularly older) children's hair -they only have to go home and say that 'so and so touched me today and made me cry' and you have a whole other problem on your hands!

38235[/snapback]

The world has gone mad!!but I was told some years ago that we were not allowed to look through childrens hair but could imform parents that the child seemed to be scratching their heads a lot and give them a leaflet?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nichola, It's not too simplistic, I got the idea from a website which had "national" treatment days, it provided leaflets about Nora and Larry.

 

Can't remember the web address though.

 

Peggy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. (Privacy Policy)