CONCERNS have been expressed about how much time children in Argyll and Bute’s primary schools are spending brushing their teeth.
A councillor responded after a report revealed that little more than half of primary schools in the areas covered by NHS Highland were registered with the Childsmile programme.
Councillor Gary Mulvaney (Conservative, Helensburgh Central) raised the statistic during a presentation by NHS Highland’s deputy director of public health, and called for more schools to become involved.
An Argyll and Bute Council official then said that the authority was “absolutely committed to getting it right” on the health and wellbeing of all learners.
The discussion took place at a meeting of the full council on Wednesday, September 23.
Councillor Mulvaney said: “The report says that only half of primary schools are engaging with Childsmile. Do you think that is good enough, and what should we be doing about it?
“Without naming the school or the head teacher, in one school, there was evidence between primaries one and seven of poor oral health. Children were clearly not brushing their teeth.
“A decision was made by the head teacher and teaching complement that one of the first things they would do every day was get children to brush their teeth.
“It became part of the routine, and that seems to be a sensible idea. We should at least be getting every primary school child to have a basic two to three minutes to brush their teeth.
“I am not expecting teachers to do every single thing, but it is part of the curriculum and is something we should be doing.
“This story does not end on a happy note, because when the head teacher moved on, the new head teacher did not have the same enthusiasm, and it has fallen by the wayside.
“We need to be in there with early intervention and prevention and it would be interested to hear what you think we could be doing with education colleagues.”
Andrew Turvey, NHS Highland deputy director of public health, responded: “There are a number of parental support interventions in play, and it is important to put that in place to bolster the efforts where we can.
“In some cases, having children brush their teeth at school is not their preference because they do it at home.”
Jennifer Crocket, head of education with the council, said later in the meeting: “We have recently received information from one of Andrew’s team regarding changes to the Childsmile programme.
“We are absolutely committed to getting it right regarding the welfare and wellbeing of all our learners. We are guided by colleagues in health as to which settings are a priority. It is not down to individual head teachers.
“We will take this away as a priority to look into it and bring information back.”
