First School Zoom Meeting with Barts Community Smiles

We had our first school Zoom meeting today which was an exciting experience! Barts Community Smiles ran a session for parents on caring for your teeth which was very well presented and was both interesting and enjoyable. We're delighted some of you made it and we hope to hold more sessions for parents on Zoom in the future so do look out for these and come along. Zoom is pretty easy to use and you can join on a phone as well as on a tablet or laptop. We might try and run a training session to help parents learn how to use Zoom if people would find that useful.
One issue that came up was that some children are not keen on brushing their teeth. Having a special toothbrush with a favourite character might help as might their favourite toothpaste. It can be helpful if a parent brushes their teeth at the same time and having a timer is a good way of making sure a child brushes for long enough. Some children might need a reward system of some kind. It's also good to get into the habit of teeth brushing at an early age. Children's teeth should start being brushed as soon as they come through the gum. The dental students suggested several fun videos that might help encourage children to brush their teeth and we have now added these to our website. Have a  look at the Safeguarding/Healthy Families page.