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Dental health promotion at nurseries and schools

The support of schools and nurseries is vital to the success of Designed to Smile and improving the oral health of children in Wales. Settings can participate in a number of ways:

1) Participating in the supervised toothbrushing programme

Settings in certain areas of Wales should participate in a toothbrushing programme with full support from the Designed to Smile team up to school year 2. For information about whether your school or nursery can be involved, please contact your local Designed to Smile team.

Download the toothbrushing at nursery and school poster to see how the programme runs in settings.

Download the toothbrushing chart to encourage toothbrushing at home.

2) Supporting the Fluoride Varnish programme

The Designed to Smile teams will come to targeted schools and nurseries twice a year to deliver the Fluoride Varnish programme.

3) Delivering oral health education lessons to children

Classroom teaching resources are available to support learning about oral health.

Designed to Smile award

In recognition of the commitment and continuing support to the Designed to Smile programme, your nursery or school may be eligible to receive the Designed to Smile award.  A plaque has been developed to showcase your efforts in striving to improve the oral health of young children in Wales.

The criteria for the award:

  • Plaque without badge – for those starting the scheme
  • Bronze badge – those schools who have taken part in the scheme for 1 year
  • Sliver badge – those who have taken part in the scheme for 2 years
  • Gold badge – those who have taken part for 3 or more years

*All levels assume regular brushing.

Thinking about the environment

In 2018/19, we conducted an environmental impact assessment of the Designed to Smile programme in terms of carbon footprint and plastic use, as we want to aim for the lowest impact on the environment.

The review estimated that the annual carbon footprint of Designed to Smile is equal to the carbon generated by 140 people taking a return flight from London to Sydney and for every million grams of plastic waste produced in the UK, only 7g is created by Designed to Smile.

It may seem that we use a lot of toothbrushes and paper, but we have discovered that our positive work to prevent tooth decay actually considerably reduces the worse environmental impacts of many patient journeys to dental surgeries and use of equipment to fix decayed teeth.  So we are saving the environment as well as saving smiles!

We encourage all nurseries and schools to try and minimise waste, when delivering the Designed to Smile programme and to support us to ensure the programme is as eco-friendly as possible.