Best Practices for Sending Students to the School Clinic

🚑 Sending Students to the School Clinic.

Teachers are responsible for their students well being, and that includes sending them to the School Clinic when necessary.

Familiarizing yourself with the procedures for nurse visits can make a world of difference when those scrapes and bruises come our way.

Things to Consider:

1. Know School Procedure

Typically, every school has a clinic form that needs to be filled by the classroom teacher and sent with the student. Some schools require young students to always have a buddy with them when they make their way to see the nurse.

Make sure you ask about what your school requires, and be prepared.

2. Know Your Forms

While forms will vary, most are carbon copy forms, and will require you to write your name, the student’s full name, grade, and time when you are sending them to the clinic. There will also be a place where you describe the problem your student is having.

The nurse will record the student’s temperature, and describe what she did to help the child. She will keep a copy of the form, you will keep one, and one will be sent to the parents of the child.

With that in mind, be thoughtful articulating the problem at hand.

3. Have Forms Accessible

Emergencies happen anywhere your students are, and they happen when you are absent as well!

For that reason, keep clinic forms:

In your classroom
In your substitute binder
Accessible in the cafeteria
Accessible in the playground

4. Have a Field Trip

Sending students to the School Clinic only works if they know where to go!

Go on a field trip to the Clinic on the first day of school. Similarly, invite the school nurse to come to your classroom and meet your students.

5. First-Aid-Kits

Sometimes, students might get a small paper cut, pull a hangnail, scratch a scab, or have another minor incident that requires attention, but not necessarily a visit to the nurse. Have bandaids, hand wipes, and gloves at hand to take care of those.

Remember to have those with you on the playground as well!

6. Err on the Side of Caution

This is SO, SO important!

There will be times when you might not want to send a student to the clinic. We’ve all been there with kids that complain everyday, or We have this intuition that tells us that the tummy ache isn’t that serious, or that the fall from the monkey bar wasn’t that bad.

PLEASE don’t keep your students from going to the nurse. In a small number of cases, you will be wrong in your assessment, and the price for not assisting a child is not worth the few minutes of inconvenience of filling out a form.

That’s it! Follow these best practices and your students will make it safely to the clinic!