Health, Safety and Well-being

If your child is unwell, please keep them at home to avoid the illness spreading. Children with severe coughs or colds, vomiting, diarrhoea, raised temperatures, rashes, or conjunctivitis should not be brought into the Pre-school.

Any child with vomiting or diarrhoea must remain at home for 48 hours after the last episode.

Please advise us immediately if your child contracts a notifiable or infectious disease such as giardia, measles, mumps, chickenpox, whooping cough, rubella (German measles), or hand, foot and mouth; parasitic conditions such as head lice, threadworms or scabies, or infectious skin conditions such as impetigo or ringworm.

If your child develops any of these symptoms while at Pre-school, we will contact you to arrange for their immediate collection.

If a child is sent home unwell, there must be a period of 24-hour absence before they return to Pre-school.

As a general rule of thumb, please keep your child at home if they show any signs of being unwell; this is the best place for them to recover, and the best way to prevent germs spreading. We really appreciate your support in keeping Pre-school a healthy and happy place to be! 

Please click here to view the Infectious Diseases Pre-school Exclusion PDF file from the Ministry of Health which has excellent information about common childhood infections and diseases for your reference.

We will follow the Ministry of Health Guidelines for COVID-19. We ask you to encourage your children to wash their hands regularly and to follow cough etiquette. If your child becomes unwell with any COVID-19 symptoms such as sneezing or coughing, or a sore throat, runny nose, or loss of smell please do not send them to school until you have sought medical advice.

Please advise if your child has any allergies. We take ALL allergies very seriously and will accommodate your child’s needs in this area, please discuss your child’s allergies directly with the Head of Pre-school.

The St Andrew’s College Pre-school is a completely nut free zone (including pine nuts in pesto, almond milk and baking made with almond flour).

Please click here to view the Reducing food-related choking for babies and young children at early learning services PDF document by the Ministry of Health for food recommendations for young tamariki to avoid choking risks.

If your child requires medication for either a short-term or long-term medical condition, you will be asked to complete a Medication Administration form that provides Pre-school with written authority to provide the medication. We cannot administer medicine past its expiry date, or medication that has been prescribed to anyone other than your child. We keep strict records of all medication administered by staff.

Immunisation is not compulsory for your child to attend the Pre-school, although there is a requirement for us to keep an up-to-date register of children and their immunisation status. If there is an outbreak of any disease, all parents will be notified and individual action plans will be put in place.

We have a Registered Nurse on-site that we can call upon if required. If our nurse determines your child too unwell to be at Pre-school, you will be required to come and collect your child.

We regularly review our safety and hazard policies with teachers and children. We have emergency and evacuation procedures in place in conjunction with the whole St Andrew’s College campus (you will find these displayed on the notice board in the foyer).

In the case of an unforeseen emergency situation, emergency alerts will be communicated to you via text, our StAC App, updates on the College website, emails and social media accounts (Facebook and Instagram).

StAC App

Download for Apple: https://stac.nz/App_AppleAppStore
Download for Android: https://stac.nz/App_GooglePlay
Instructional Video: https://stac.nz/App_InstructionalVideo