National Smile Month 17th May -17th June 2021

The 0-19 School Nursing Team have contacted school about their National Smile Month running from 17th May – 17th June where they are raising awareness on dental health in children with the following 3 messages:

1. Visit your dentist regularly, as often as they recommend. Try to register children by the time they reach their first birthday.  NHS dental treatment is free for children under 18.

2. Brush your teeth last thing at night and on at least one other occasion with a fluoride toothpaste.

3. Cut down on how much sugary food and drink you have, and how often you have them. Try to keep sweet things to mealtimes.

The Oral Health Foundation (OHF) have organised a “Brushathon” on Wednesday 2^nd June. It would be great if the children at Marfleet could take selfies of themselves brushing their teeth at home on this date and send them to the school via Bloomz – these images will then be turned into a collage to be published to our website and social media platforms as well as on the displays around school.

Attached below is a downloadable weekly tooth brushing chart for your child.

Below are some great short oral health videos with ‘Dr Ranj and Super Tooth’:

• For children aged 0- 3 years of age  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owbp5F0K45c
• For children aged 3-6 years of age https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQE4xxk1r5g
• For children aged 7 years +  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHS27DHyIi0

Also, Change4life is a fantastic website. It has lots of great ideas for developing healthy life styles, such as Sugar Swaps and the Sugar Smart app, as well as tasty healthy recipes. The Sugar Smart app is free to download and can be used by everyone in the family to identify sugar contents in many of their foods and drinks. Families can scan the barcodes on items that they have in their cupboards / fridges to identify the sugar content of these products. It can also be useful during food shopping trip, to help choose healthier options. All these resources can be found on the link below:

https://www.nhs.uk/change4life