Some girls don’t look after their hair and it gets bugs in it

[Fishfingerssmellfishy]

The class assistant in Dd’s class told her today, after putting up her hair…again
Dd has just past shoulder length, curly hair, it’s tricky to style and takes a long time. Dd is Nd and hates having her hair done.
Sometimes I can get it into a nice french plait, normal plait, ponytail or bun if she’s having a calm morning before school. Sometimes I can’t and I pick my battles and sometimes she simply wants to wear it down, so we do.
With it being curly and her running around, it invariably gets a little messy.
Recently, Dd has been coming home with it in a quite messy ponytail and telling me the classroom assistant keeps doing it

Aibu to find this a bit annoying/feel a bit offended?

You need to explore adjustments. Your refusal to pursue literally any way such a child can even be in the lesson illustrates all we need to know.

It’s not about it being unfair but the law. You absolutely do need to attempt to work with the child/ family to come up with some kind of adjustment so he/ she can attend the lesson.

All sorts of things can be looked at.

This!

mine were never asked to have their hair up but it is such a sensible idea
when they had their hair plaited the lice couldnt touch them!

I need to do it?

So just to be clear you want secondary teachers to be making decisions on a case by case basis which require us to go against the advice of our managers and risk assessments.

And you wish for us to 'explore' these adjustments in the tons of free time we have?

Cool.

It’s not wanting, it’s the law which any parent in this situation would remind you of should you be so rigid to not even to discuss or explore reasonable adjustments or ways to facilitate a disability in your class. Your manager and SENCO will be well aware of said law and able to advise you. They will have to provide evidence of adjustments explored and substantiated reasons why such a child can’t attend the lesson at all.

Ive barely posted.

Our school have a rule where children’s hair needs to be up to make catching nits harder and to stop hair getting pulled or caught. I really don’t think the TA did anything wrong by talking about potential nits?

Maybe this TA is actually trying to make it easier for this child during lessons, or she is worried about her getting lice because she can see it would be harder for the child sensory-wise to sit through de-licing treatments due to sensory issues and her curly hair? I’m sure she’s not doing it out of malice fgs.

I remember combing nuts out of my DD’s thick, long and curly hair in Reception nearly 20 years ago so I’d do all I could to mitigate that. I used to spray it w anti-nit spray, put it in lists or a puny tail and thankfully nuts stayed away for the rest of the time.

I love your typos! 🤣🥰

I’d like to see some actual research backing this cos it’s clearly a load of shite . They don’t just crawl on someone head and say “oh I don’t like this head it’s too dirty I’ll go on until I find a cleaner one”. And plenty of people with filthy hair manage to get lice and the lice manage to attach themselves just fine and lay eggs on such hair .

It’s pretty simple. Dirty hair is oily which lessens their grip.

Its a myth. I cannot tell you how many people with severe neglect I have worked with who have lice and nits.

Having clean hair wont protect you, having dirty hair wont protect you

Assume that nits will be present and take other mitigating actions, such as cutting short or tying back.

It isn’t utter garbage. I taught for over 20 years. I have seen why this rule was in place. It’s not for any reason other than safety and comfort of children. And the rule does exist in many schools - in EVERY school I taught in.

You may have had long hair and got away with it- good for you - but there are many who don’t.

Just FYI, in countries where we wear our hair down in school, we don't have nits all the time.

Yep, although I wouldn't have talked about nits, but made it a positive thing 'your handwriting is so much better when your hair is tied back and you can see your work properly'. Children generally respond better long term to positivity rather than threats.

No it’s not that simple . They manage to attach themselves to filthy hair just fine as we all know

The prevalence of nits for children is fairly uniform (no pun intended) across the world, higher in developing countries of course due to overcrowding but generally the same across other countries, sometimes a smidge higher than the UK but not significantly so.

Harassed/exhausted TA trying to follow policy (hair up- no doubt) and trying to help your dd avoid nits. She probably had about 5 little tapping her on the back urgently to get her attention as she was saying this, so her turn of phrase wasn’t perfect. If your DD likes her hair down, check in to find out if this is encouraged, as it might not be (due to nits).

Ideally she needs to have it tied back for PE. You could also get her a headband to push it off her face. Maybe put a scrunchie in her bag so she has an option for PE? No Classroom Assistant should be touching her hair unless she asks her to. It's an invasion of personal space.

My kids went to a school (in the US) where a note was sent home if someone in the class was known or observed to have nits. Parents were obliged to notify the school if their child had nits, ringworm, pink eye, or any other conditions that are easily spread, and were also required to state what measures they were taking to address these problems. Pink eye required staying home until it was cleared up.

It was not surprising at all therefore that my DCs never got nits.