Despite the UK’s rainy climate, there’s a one in six risk of developing skin cancer. Children, especially, should take extra care as severe sunburn as a teenager greater than doubles the possibility of developing skin cancer in a while.
But latest research my colleagues and I conducted shows that lower than half of primary schools in Wales have a proper sun safety policy.
With skin cancer rates continuing to rise by 8% annually in England and Wales, it’s an issue that’s not going away and the disease now accounts for half of all cancers. In 2020 alone, the price of treating skin cancer in England was estimated to be greater than £180 million.
There is hope, though. It is estimated that around 90% of skin cancers are on account of ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposure from the sun. This means they might be prevented through safer behaviour.
In the UK, though, many individuals still underestimate the link between sunburn and skin cancer. Research paints a worrying picture, revealing disparities in sun protection awareness and behavior across different groups. Notably, menpeople living in low-income neighbourhoodsthose belonging to lower socioeconomic groups and people of color are sometimes found to be less informed about sun safety and usually tend to put themselves in danger.
With childhood an important time for learning healthy behaviour, teaching all children from a young age about sun protection might be one strategy to reduce future skin cancer rates. And the World Health Organization recommends formal school programmes as the important thing to prevention.
Overall, school-based interventions have been shown to positively influence sun protected knowledge and behavior. For example, schools in Australia with written policies show higher sun protection practices than those without.
But in UK schools, the situation varies. The UK government’s Department for Education has issued statutory guidance for England that children should leave primary school knowing about sun safety and the way to reduce the danger of getting skin cancer.
In Scotland and Northern Ireland, it isn’t a legal requirement to show sun safety in schools. And in Wales, while sun safety is really helpful as a part of the Welsh Network of Healthy Schools scheme, again there isn’t any mandatory requirement to have a sun safety policy or to show skin cancer prevention. Nor are there central UK resources provided to assist schools on this area.
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My colleagues and I desired to understand how many colleges have a sun safety policy, a proper document that sets out a college’s position with respect to the education and provision of sun safety. We also wanted to know whether the existence of a policy varied by area or school characteristic, and what support schools need.
In 2022, we sent a survey to all 1,241 primary schools in Wales. In total, 471 schools responded.
What we found
We found that only 39% of responding schools had a proper sun safety policy. And of those, not all enforced them. Schools that had more children receiving free school meals and with lower attendance rates were less prone to have a sun safety policy.
We asked schools that didn’t have a policy to inform us the the explanation why not. Thirty-five per cent of colleges were “not aware of the necessity”, while 27% of colleges had “not got around to it just yet”. Thirty schools (13%) said that a sun safety policy was not a priority presently. Clearly, there’s work to be done on raising awareness amongst schools and faculty leaders on the role they’ll play on this area.
Of course, schools are busy places. So, when asked to point what would encourage them to create a sun safety policy, 73% of colleges said assistance with development, while 56% said resources to help the teaching of sun safety.
Previously each Cancer Research UK and the Wales-based Tenovus Cancer Care charities have offered support and guidelines for schools but this support isn’t any longer easily available. The England-based charity Skin has a comprehensive and free sun-safe schools accreditation scheme. Some schools told us they based their policies on resources supplied by the local authority, but this was not consistent across Wales.
UV levels will soon rise within the UK and now could be the time for schools to begin occupied with sun protection. Having a proper sun safety school policy sets out the position of the varsity relating to sun safety. When enforced and communicated properly, this makes it clear to everyone (governors, teachers, carers and pupils) their individual responsibilities relating to staying protected.
But with fewer than half of colleges in Wales having formal policies, and never all enforced, awareness of the importance of this issue and the potential role of colleges is lacking.
It is due to this fact time for sun safety policies to grow to be mandatory for primary schools across the UK. This could help to enhance knowledge and behavior for all age groups. But adequate support and guidance should be also given to varsities to assist them educate children about sun safety and protect them while they’re at college.
