Question:
Has anybody come across any good approaches to skin cancer prevention
for a primary school?
I am governor of a 50-pupil village school, with 2.6 staff already very
busy, and only modest ECO and other support.
I'm looking for ideas on how to tackle:
* making hat-wearing socially acceptable (In New Zealand, kids aren't
allowed out to play in summer without a hat, but I'm not sure that our
parents are concerned enough to accept this)
* how to get sun cream applied to small children during the school day
(including issues of liability in case anyone suffered a bad reaction)
* ideas on creating shaded areas for modest investment
All suggestions, and pointers to resources, gratefully received.
Answer:
> * making hat-wearing socially acceptable (In New Zealand, kids aren't
> allowed out to play in summer without a hat, but I'm not sure that our
> parents are concerned enough to accept this)
We had an (arranged) visit from what must have been a PR branch of Boots
the Chemist the other day. They gave a talk to the children (very animated
with good advice and irreverent behaviour from 'Brian the dog') about the
health hazards of too much sun. They also brought along a 'goodie-bag' for
each of the children, which contained sachets of sun cream, after-sun,
etc., as well as info for parents. My son enjoyed it, came home with all
sorts of "dos" and "don'ts" - and the playground is now full of hatted
kids at playtime and after lunch.
> * how to get sun cream applied to small children during the school day
> (including issues of liability in case anyone suffered a bad reaction)
Not really practical, I'd say.
> * ideas on creating shaded areas for modest investment
Got any gardeners (tree planting - long term) or DIY-ers (pergola building
and such like) among the parents? Ask around, identify your targets and
then start applying a bit of arm-twisting :-))
