Trelewis Primary School
Ysgol Gynradd Trelewis
Welcome
Winter Sickness Bug
Dear Parent/Carer,
As you may be aware, there is currently a winter sickness bug that is affecting a number of local schools within the area, including Trelewis Primary. The sickness bug tends to start as stomach pains, which then causes vomiting and/or diarrhoea in the first instance, but usually only lasts for a short period.
The issue, as with any viral infection, is that due to the virus being able to change, it is possible that the sickness bug can be caught more than once, even if you have had it before. The other issue that we have with this particular ‘bug’ is that as it is an airborne virus it is very hard to control it. Given that children are all in close proximity with each other at school, it does mean that it can be easy for the bug to be passed on.
I want to reassure you that as a school, we have been in touch with Public Health and the Health and Safety department at Merthyr Tydfil CBC, and are doing all we can in school to ensure that we are able to try and limit the effects of this virus in school.
Strategies in place include:
- Increased daily deep cleaning routines, with use of anti-viral cleaning products;
- Toilets checked at start, middle and end of the school day ensuring there is plenty of soap and paper towels available;
- Reinforcing 48 hours rule with all pupils who have been ill or shown signs of sickness
- Single use of cleaning products which are thrown away after use to prevent cross contamination
- Alco-gel sanitisers available in all classes
We would ask for your support at this time, in trying to minimise the impact of the sickness bug by ensuring that you do the following;
- If your child has symptoms of sickness/diarrhoea, please keep them off school for 48 hours (48 hours must be from the last instance of illness). If your child is off with sickness and returns to school within 48 hours, we will phone for your child to be collected.
- If your child is ill and has siblings who are also at school, try to limit contact so that we limit the possibility of the virus being brought into school by the siblings.
- Ensure that you reinforce the importance of good hygiene and hand washing with your child – plenty of soap and hot water is fine. You don’t need to spend money on expensive alco-gel sanitisers.
- Keep hydrated and ensure your child has plenty of fruit and vegetables which will help their body to fight infections. Likewise, multivitamins can give children an extra boost during the winter months.
Hopefully with these extra measures in place we can try to limit the impact of this sickness bug at this time. Many thanks for your support,
Mr R Morgan
Executive Head Teacher