Medical and First Aid

The Academy employs a fully qualified medical professional in order to: provide emergency first aid during the school day. Their roll includes:

• Giving support to students who become unwell during the school day
• Oversee the provision for students with significant medical needs that could impact upon their access to learning or personal safety.

They achieve this through:

• Development and maintenance of Health Care Plans for students with additional medical needs
• Completing risk assessments for identified students to ensure they can safely take part in trips and visits, and day to day Academy activities
• Liaison with external agencies to manage and support the medical needs of students
• Providing advice and guidance to staff and families on the management of students’ medical needs so that all students can access to the curriculum
• Monitoring and promoting student health and wellbeing

How families can support medical provision 

1. Inform us of any changes to pre-existing medical conditions: contact your child’s Head of House and copy in the School Nurse so that  we can update individual Health Care Plans and share any necessary new information with your child’s teachers as required. 

2. Inform us of new medical conditions: Inform your child’s Head of House if they have  a new medical condition so that an individual Health Care Plan can be written and  agreed with you. This will then be shared with your child’s teachers as required. 

3. Prescribed medication: continue to inform the School Nurse if your child has  prescribed medication to take during the school day. This must be handed to the  School Nurse by a parent or carer and be in its original packaging, with clear  instructions from the pharmacist regarding dosage. 

4. Send your child in healthy: we assume that if a child is in school then they are fit for lessons and learning. Please do not send your child to school with the message that  they can ask to be sent home during the school day. We have had an increasing  number of children coming into school in the morning and very quickly expecting to  be sent home if they are feeling a little unwell or upset. This is unnecessarily disruptive to students and their families, and to the smooth running of the Academy. If children do feel unwell during the day, we advise: 

∙ Make sure you have had something to eat and drink 

∙ Make sure you have had some fresh air at break and lunch time

5. Provide paracetamol or ibuprofen from home: The Department for Education advice  to schools is that students should be encouraged to take responsibility to self administer non-prescription medication, provided that their parents or carers judge  that they are mature and responsible to carry a single dose of paracetamol or  ibuprofen in their school bag. If this is appropriate for your child, please ensure they  have plenty of water and the correct single dosage for their age. 

Should you consider that your child needs to be supervised to self-administer  paracetamol or ibuprofen, the School Nurse will be able to continue to support them  as required. However, the School Nurse does not provide paracetamol or  ibuprofen as part of our in-school provision. If students require them, we expect  them to bring a single dose from home. Please note that students should not carry full packs of painkillers, or other medications, and should never share medications  with anyone. 

Our priority is to reduce the number of students visiting the medical room to obtain routine painkiller doses, to ensure that our new School Nurse can use her skills and expertise to support our most vulnerable students and those with significant medical conditions, so that they can have full and uninterrupted access to the curriculum. We will continue to keep our medical provision under close review, to ensure that it is  supporting those with genuine needs so that all our students can remain fully focused on learning.