Manchester primary school becomes one of the first in Greater Manchester to achieve “Sun Safe Schools” accreditation.

Dr Stephanie Ogden, Consultant Dermatologist and Skin Cancer Clinical Lead for Greater Manchester, said:

“Without adequate protection, a child’s skin can burn within minutes, causing long term damage. This can significantly increase their risk of developing skin cancer in later life. I am delighted that St Teresa’s are now a sun safe school, and hope that soon all primary schools and early years settings in Greater Manchester will become accredited.”

Jo Kane, Assistant Headteacher at St Teresa’s Primary School, said:

“At St Teresa’s we have really enjoyed working towards the Sun Safety Accreditation. It is a fantastic scheme which makes bringing awareness of the dangers of sun damage and the easy ways to protect against it to the children, staff and parents. From our initial meeting we were impressed by the passion shown by the team for sharing the important lifelong educational message about sun safety. The website was easy to navigate and provided everything you needed- support, tools, resources, polices and letters to parents. The resources provided to deliver the programme were excellent, the individual class lessons were age appropriate, informative and fun to use. The children really engaged in the activities and enjoyed learning more about the importance of sun safety.  The children appointed to represent our school as Sun Safe Ambassadors have really impressed us with their sense of responsibility and dedication for sharing the message about sun safety. Working towards the accreditation has really helped us to raise awareness of the importance of sun safety for our children, parents and carers and our wider school community.  We are very proud of being an official Sun Safe School!”

Lorna Greenwood, parent, said:

“It’s really important to make sure that children don’t get burnt, as we know that sunburn can damage the skin and increase the risk of skin cancer. I’m being more careful myself too!”

Olivia Gordon, a pupil at St Teresa’s, said:

“I’ve learned that to protect my skin on a sunny day I can do the five ‘s’ – slip, slip, slop, slide, shade, and wear a bucket hat to protect my ears and head. Check the UV rays.”

Marie Tudor, Chief Executive Officer of Skcin, said:

“Our sun safe schools programme was born out of our mission to evoke behaviour change for the next generation. We need to take action to combat the rising statistics of skin cancer .90% of skin cancer cases are preventable, as they are largely due to over exposure to UV,  we need to educate. This education needs to start with embedding the seeds of sun safety for the next generation.”

“Our Sun Safe school’s accreditation was started over 10 years ago and has over 3500 Primary schools engaged with the programme. We are delighted that Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance has become strategically aligned with our objective and our Sun Safe Schools programme to help us reach more schools nationally. We are proud to be working in collaboration and thank the team for their input/support. ”