Managing Student Health Care (Medications)

Student safety and wellbeing are our highest priority. We therefore encourage parents to work in partnership with the school by providing up-to-date medical information and immediate notification of changes to emergency contact details.

Unwell Students

Students who are unwell should not be sent to school. If a student is unwell or is injured at school, the parent/carer will be contacted and asked to take them home. If you are not available, your emergency contact will be asked to respond. In an emergency situation, a doctor or ambulance may be called.

For administration of short term medication such as a course of antibiotics, the school requires written authority from parents/carers, using Form 3 Administration of Medication (click to download). Alternatively, Form 3 can be obtained from the School Office or posted out on request by phoning the school.

Note: 

• Medication must be clearly labelled with the child’s name.
• Medication must arrive at school in its original packaging and with dosage and expiry date affixed and legible.
• Home packaged medications cannot be accepted.
• Staff are not permitted to adjust doses, therefore tablets to be administered as half doses (for example) must be halved by parents/carers and delivered to the school in original packaging, as noted above.
• The only medication students are permitted to retain in their school bags are asthma puffers.

Long Term Use of Medication

If you require the school to administer medication to your child for a period of more than two weeks, and if you have not already done so, you may need to complete a Student Health Care Summary and a Management/Emergency Response Plan for your child’s particular health need. In most instances, this documentation will have been completed when you enrolled your child or as part of the school’s process for updating student health care records. If this is not the case, please contact the School Office.

The notes above for short term medication (e.g. packaging) also apply to long term medication.

Head Lice

Schools have a responsibility to ensure head lice is not spread throughout the school. If the school suspects a student has head lice, it may exclude them from attending school until treatment has commenced. Your child may return to school when all live head lice have been removed.

Visit the Department of Health website, HealthyWA, to find out about treating head lice.

Managing Student Health Care

For students whose health care needs can be supported using the resources available to the school, principals will:

• request parents to complete one or more of the Department’s standardised management and emergency response plans (staff only) or provide an alternative plan from their child’s medical practitioner;
• manage the implementation and updating of student health care plans; and
• arrange the training necessary to enable staff to support student health care.

For students whose health care needs cannot be met by the school using the resources available, the principal will refer the matter to the Director of Education.