Returning to school - what you might not expect to bring home!

It would seem that it's not just the return to the school routine that many students and parents have to face, but a potential influx of contagious infection! Canada.com highlights the case of Angela Di Paolo, an elementary school teacher working in Toronto who, between returning to work during the fall of 2011 and leaving for the winter break picked up hand, foot and mouth disease, bronchitis and finally, just before Christmas, chickenpox! And this was not an isolated incident. Similar outbreaks have been noted in Halifax, Nova Scotia and across Saskatchewan. The recommended age for booster shots to be administered is now Grade 7 in the former province and Grade 8 in the latter, opposed to Grade 9 across the rest of Canada.

It seems that it is the first term of the new school year that is most rife with viral threats, alongside the more common school yard afflictions like head-lice and scabies. But perhaps there is some advantage in fact that these conditions - unpleasant although the may be - come at such an early stage in both the academic and growing-up process. For a start children are shown to recover more quickly and easily from certain infections, e.g. chicken pox. Furthermore, contracting and recovering from an infection is vital for a child's long term immunity against that virus.

In terms of education, children accumulate information far faster during the time in which they attend elementary school, and so are less likely to be disadvantaged by a possible gap in their learning. However, should your child come down with something that requires them to take off a longer period from school, it could be worth hiring a private tutor on a weekly basis, simply to keep them up to date with what they will be required to catch up on when they return to school.

Depending on exactly what your child had contracted, a tutor may be able to visit your child at your home. However, this may be undesirable for many tutors and parents because obviously the tutor will have to be informed of the circumstances under which they are employed, and unless a previous infection has caused an adult tutor to be largely immune to a virus - for example in the case of chicken pox - they are unlikely to want to risk their own health. Online tuition - where tutoring takes place over an online platform such as Skype or iChat - may provide an excellent alternative to in-house tutoring in instances of illness.

We emphasis that we do hope your child will not be amongst those who contract something during the first months of the fall term, but - just in case! - we have supplied an introduction to online tuition here.

Enjoy the rest of your summer!