O’er Matron… School Nurse!!!
I took up the school nurse post at Cargilfield 2 years ago, but have been a parent here since 2011 so have felt a part of this great community since then. When I dropped my son off for his first day in P1, I also had my first day as a student midwife!
You may all wonder about my background… well, I do have my Bachelor of Science in Midwifery, along with a Bachelor of Science in Genetics and a Masters of Science in Medical Genetics with Immunology. My scientific background has enhanced my knowledge base and after working as a community midwife for the NHS until 2018, I have transferred my diagnostic and triaging skills to the nurse post at Cargilfield.
This job is truly a varied one! I have pupils I see on a regular basis, for various medications but then thrown into the mix are the varied injuries and illnesses that occur. These can range from grazes, to sore tummies, to broken bones and some very interesting wounds. I always try to be approachable but the nature of my job does mean I am sometimes not hugely popular with the children or staff, for instance when I need to put children off games!! However, my priority is always the health and wellbeing of the children and as such, I have to make unpopular decisions where necessary!
A part of the job I enjoy is taking part in the Form 8 PSHE lessons- I am not sure about the children, but I have certainly learnt a lot in these sessions. We have had some fantastic guest speakers come to talk to us, for example the police officer who brought beer goggles- they were a great eye opener! We also had a Krav Maga master come and show the children some great self-defence moves. It is a fantastic way to open up new experiences for the children who are about to leave Cargilfield and start their senior schools.
The current Covid pandemic has really thrown a spanner in the works! Affecting every aspect of life, the school has had to adapt to the new world order! As we segue to a more ‘normal’ way of living again, we are all hoping to return to the exciting Cargilfield experience. The new surgery was remodelled in 2019, with a comfortable counselling room for children to have space to offload their worries, if they need to. Unfortunately, this area is now our ‘red zone’, meaning we need to keep it as a quarantine area. Fingers crossed we can open it up again soon!
The importance of following the rules to ensure we protect the vulnerable people in our school and wider community is everyone’s job during this pandemic. We take this very seriously at Cargilfield. The sooner we stop the spread of this virus, the sooner we can open up and bring back the Cargilfield we all love!
My role as school nurse has definitely kept me on my toes for the last couple of years and I hope I can continue to keep all our children happy and healthy, especially looking forward to post pandemic times!
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