To think schools should take nits more seriously?

I think everyone should do more.
They are a plague.

I thought the one good thing to come out of covid would be a world free of these bastards.

Seeing ' nitty Nora' in the school office seemed to be a weekly rigmarole in my day. I was lucky not to get any and I had long hair , but anyone who did was sent home.
Maybe if the schools did this the parents would actually invest in a nit comb / conditioner/ lotion but I suppose that isn't seen as the done thing these days and parents are not at home as much as they might have been in the 70s.
Ds1 had them and I spent ages getting them out and paying out for combs and lotions for everyone.
It's annoying other people don't care even if they are told about it.

The days of Nitty Nora the Head Explorer are long since gone.

Schools can barely afford the basics now, they can't be expected to take responsibility for this on top of everything else. It is wrong to suggest that they aren't taking it seriously, and simply the case that schools can't afford to be responsible for everything.

As for making kids stay off school until the issue is fixed...firstly, who is going to check the kids every day to ensure that they are "clear", and secondly, do you think it's reasonable that children with feckless parents who don't do anything about the nits should also miss out on an education as well?

It's a massive pain, I know. DD had very long, thick, curly hair and it was a tortuous process going through with the nitty gritty comb on a regular basis, but it's just what you have to do when you have young kids. Maybe persuade your dc to go for very short hairstyles if it's really bothering you.

And ensure that, as well as treating any known problems, do a regular "maintenance" comb so that the buggers don't move back in.

One only had to read many posts on here to know how lazy many parents are, sightings go wrong Go and see the Head etc. Give your child the opportunity to be abused then pass the buck to the school. Let schools deal with teaching, we'll see vast improvements all round but it will mean parents extracting the digit more.

That's not a decision individual state schools can take though, they have to follow the rules set out by the DfE, which includes not excluding for things like this.

The DfE, at the moment, consider school attendance a priority, so they're unlikely to change policy in this way, and until that point, there's not much individual schools can do.

My three children always had nits at primary school but never threadworms. As pp have said - expensive and time consuming to treat and comb. My children used to fall asleep whilst I combed through their hair and I checked scrupulously for years.

We laugh about it now but at the time I was so frustrated each time it happened because they were always reinfected.

My grandchildren have never had nits, but they've all had threadworms a few times. A play leader at hospital (granddaughter was hospitalised with kidney infection) said that they most likely come from playdough and that's why they don't have it in hospital play areas.

It is supposed to be fresh/unused stuff every day. But eggs under children's fingernails when they've just had a good scratch will still transfer eggs whether the dough is old or new. And it won't be just the dough that carries the eggs.

I tell my children that I'd rather have nits than threadworms.

Unfortunately, it's up to parents to inspect their children - not a teacher's responsibility. As an ex primary school teacher myself, I remember opening a book at home to mark it and found a louse walking across it. I 'inspected' that child the following day and her head was 'alive' - you see them from quite far away. The weekly newsletter always contained reminders to look out for infestations.

It's hardly surprising that some parents don't keep on top of these things - they can't be bothered and think it's not their responsibility - it's the school's.

Or maybe because my kids smell so strongly of citronella, the other kids avoid getting too close to them, so they never catch them that way 😂 win win!

Which countries? I've lived in 4 European countries and not experienced that.

You just have to suck it up. Expensive treatment isn't compulsory. When I got them when I was pregnant I couldn't use treatment and just had to keep combing them out and using conditioner. They're a fact of life I'm afraid and not worth children losing days off school.

Vosene lice repellent spray 100% keeps them away! I swear by it. I've used this on my girls hair since preschool, they're now 10 and 8 and have never had them, despite the dreaded emails every other week to say the lice are going round the classes again. My girls both have really long hair too, and out of choice wear it down on non p.e days, so I can only guess the spray is doing the job, as I don't know how else they've avoided them. It absolutely stinks of citronella and tea tree, and when their heads are warm in the summer you can smell it radiating off them 😂, but it's worth it as it really seems to stop them. I've mentioned it to a few school mums, and the kids that use it do seem to stay nit free. They do a shampoo too, but I prefer giving them a good dousing of the spray before school each day, as it seems to work and it's also a great detangler. We recently went abroad to a tropical country that is renowned for mosquitoes etc, and I was looking for a good natural bug repellant and also saw this same spray suggested alot for this use, so I think it must scare all creepy crawlies off! We all used it, and had no mozzie bites whatsoever.

Well said!

We found that lotions and preventers don't work. The only thing that shifts the buggers is wet combing. Nitty gritty is crap too, it just pulls the hair and makes it very difficult to comb. A cheaper plastic comb is better. The bug buster kit from the local pharmacy was the best product i found - it's a couple of combs and instructions on how to use them to break the breeding cycle. You have to stick to the schedule but it works.

If all parents tied their kids’ long hair back that would help - but heaven forbid the parents take responsibility for anything.

Definitely, add it to the list of things schools are responsible for like discipline, table manners, potty training, speech, phone use, porn, knife crime, trans rights, identifying radicalisation, misogyny, etc.

Somewhere in that list I do believe they need to teach maths and English and a few other subjects but who has the time 🤷‍♀️

🙄

They used to have the nit nurse in primary schools one time back in the day when a lot of things were different..

@Eurydice84

IME, the treatments don't work after the first go round, if the source is not eradicated as the lice develop immunity to it, so your DC are also likely to be spreaders now too OP, if your relying on treatments alone. Comb with conditioner and a nit comb. I spent 2 hours a night combing with DD when either of our schools (I'm staff) have an outbreak we've caught. Every night for over a week, to catch the full egg cycle.1 hour each (we both have waist length hair, so may be less for you).

Then, once the fuckers have gone from our heads, ballet buns and vigorous hairspray. They detest crunchy hairspray helmets. My regular spreaders are kids who have got complex family lives, I'm incredibly grateful they are there at all, and will avoid sending home at all costs, nits or no nits.

There's no blanket rule across 'EU countries' that stops kids coming to school with nits. I'm sure some countries have that rule, but it's nothing to do with the EU and it's not universal. I also don't think it's necessarily true that other countries in Europe have fewer nit outbreaks than we do. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of evidence, if so.

Cheap conditioner and a nit comb work better than the shampoo

The government funds the NHS which would fund nurses in schools. We have one nurse for 25 schools in my area-she sees each for about half a day per term.

The government degrees whether schools can sanction absences.

Write to your MP, don’t complain that schools don’t do enough.

Schools are literally crumbling, Ofsted and workload are causing so much pressure that teachers are leaving in their droves and no one new wants to join. Yes, I don’t want to catch nits (again) from the kids in the class, but there is very little schools can do, without government changes, and frankly that is the least of the problems of most of them.

OP you keep repeating about the nurses but you've had lots of replies telling g you why they'd be ineffective and what you can do instead...key word being YOU.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nitty-Gritty-Headlice-Defence-Spray/dp/B000KUALP4/ref=mp_s_a_1_15?crid=ZGU9FVHXDNYP&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.QKIr09zleY5zHabQwWXlMuC_hlC_pHNM3T0P8KPN5wbPdVL-0L1Fh_fuCga8ehvolALrqi0_wJG3LWkJEedJjxOvD-29IrK3YmaAPVfeZp_AIWGCvF7qny6XVLPg1MfHROSpP1cyMkqJLDTlspXiKb9Bl1D9cdh6L96V3NnXCs5fTbXiuFCE1bMbbBIwANz93lgqCbECmdRgonGG2HGgYA.bdEYGLTxpyC8ljsuskWSI2CqH93TmtePef3HUwS8BvI&dib_tag=se&keywords=nit+spray&qid=1712938587&sprefix=nit+s%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-15 this is a natural replant spray you can also get repellant kids shampoo probably not going to be 100% effective but it will help

Schools were never responsible for nit nurses. They weren't funded or engaged by schools.

And of course schools can't make children stay at home when they have nits. It's nits, not bubonic plague. It's contagious, yes, but it's not exactly a life-threatener. It's up to you to sort it out.

As people have said, treatments don't really work. Best thing to do is comb every day, buy a massive tub of conditioner and a nitty gritty comb, for a week or 2 to get all the lice and eggs out. There will always be a tiny cluster of eggs remaining after a treatment so you do need to comb as well, not just think of it as treated. It's possible your DD is not catching it again, but just still has it. Keep her hair tied back neatly and then comb weekly to check there's nothing there.

Use preventative spray. We haven't got them once since we started using preventative spray when though they have gone round school lots.

Thick conditioner is far more effective than any of the other stuff. Nits are simply not eradicated in one go, people aren't getting "reinfected", they're not getting rid of the first lot.