Schools sun policy - am I wrong?

[Originalfoogirl]

Before I speak to the school about their sun policy, I wanted to know if others think I'm taking an unreasonable stance.

As soon as it starts getting sunny, we get a text from the school reminding us to send our children wearing sunscreen. Fair enough, a reminder is good. I also send our girl with a bottle of suncream and remind her to re apply it - as per the advice from cancer research and sunsmart. All day sunscreen is not effective. Yesterday she said she got in to trouble for asking for help to do it and was told "you're supposed to put it on before you come to school". At 7 she can kind of do it herself, but her disability does cause her some problems putting it on.

I know it can be a faff for a teacher to put sunscreen on 30 kids and there aren't enough assistants, but just as they have to help the littles get help changing for PE and for using the toilet etc, but to me, sunscreen is just as basic. I have friends who have had skin cancer.

I think the school should have a policy on this and build it in to their day. Schools in Australia seem to manage and before anyone says it, our sun is just as dangerous to children as theirs is.

I know many people just don't see the importance of it for their children and don't appreciate the risks of burning, but should I take this up with the school or not?

Just before half term DD told me that she'd spent the day hugging her teacher, the TA and a student teacher a very dashing young man who I wouldn't mind hugging myself.

I bet he'd be delighted to hear you say that

I don't suppose he could care less. What's your point? Jesus, MN really has become somewhere you can't make a lighthearted comment anymore. back atcha.

I don't know that it is that easy actually. I was told that if you are vitamin D deficient (I was) there isn't enough vitamin D in normal supplements to have an impact.

There is minimal vitamin D is multivitamins - however it is very easy to buy high dose vitD3 supplements (10,000 iu).

The suncream only has to last from 8am-1pm.

Eh?

I may be wrong but surely if you expose yourself to some sunshine each day you will build up a bit of resistance to being burnt by the sun.

How does this work?

Break in the morning, in from lunch at 1pm. If you're worried meet them at the gates with more suncream at 3.15pm.

not at all blankpage

not such thing as a resistance to it-anyone can get skin cancer anyone can burn

blanket you're wrong. This is a nice article about it...
www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-a-base-tan-can-protect-against-sunburn/

As a teaching assistant I refuse to rub sun cream in as I get rashes from the majority of sun creams, gloves aren't readily available so on this one single issue I pit myself first as the pain and itchiness I experience is dreadful. However there are no rules saying we can't apply it to children as long as there are other children or adults around its fine, I used to apply e45 to a little boy on the backs of his thighs when his eczema flared up, as long as we were in view it wasn't an issue, even though he had to take his trousers off.

Actually Aging I suspect we need more than 10-15mins in the UK, especially if you live in the North like me.
The sun is very low down so the sunrays we need for the vitD are very little indeed. That's the reason why people are unlikely to get a sunburn (Bar a few precious days in the year) and why most people are deficient in VitD (one reason GPs avoid doing any test on vitD btw. They know the rate of people who are deificient is so high that the NHS couldn't cope with paying for all the supplements).

Found this nice article on Mercola about vitamin D, increase of skin cancer due to exposure to sun (real sun and sunbeds). The conculsion though is ..... There are a much higher risk of cancer, by 10 fold!, (in general, not just skin cancer) by not being exposed to sun than the risk of skin cancer when you are regularly exposed to the sun.

A good comment in that article is of course that, if exposure to sun was such a huge issue, then farmers, fishermen etc... should have an extremely high rate of skin cancer. Which isn;t the case. They actually have a lower risk of skin cancer....

aristotle Mercola is not in any way a reliable source of scientific information. It's quack central.

Also getting vitamin D from a supplement isn't the same than actually producing it yourself. This is because they are not the same form. VitaminD3 is the one that is the closest to what we naturally produce (Any other vitamin D supplement, which you usually find in mutli vitamin, are just useless btw).

I would also caution anyone with supplementing vitamin D with very high dosage such as 10.000IUI. VitaminD is toxic at high levels, that's why you are supposed to have regular blood tests, every 6 months!, if you do take some supplement.

Then go back to the research paper Purple.
I looked at it but I suspect very few people on here would be able to understand it.

As an example, a research on the link between sun exposure and survival rate for skin cancer or that one about sun exposure, vitamin D and breast cancer

www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/diet/vitamin-d-fact-sheet

Not a quack source

Lack of vitamin D does lead to an increased risk of some cancers. According to my son's paed and an oncologist I have worked with.

My son was low in Vit D very badly so but I prefer him to get his vitamin D from medication and his levels are fine now. Plus, he had just as much sun exposure as my other children and their levels were fine.

Break in the morning, in from lunch at 1pm

Ah, ok. DDs school have afternoon break as well.

VitaminD is toxic at high levels, that's why you are supposed to have regular blood tests, every 6 months

You'd have to take a lot more than 10,000 iu to reach toxic levels...

I'm sorry but your sunburn would be far worse if you haven't had any exposure at all. Farmers, fishermen are a good example their skin has been exposed to the sun so they don't get sunburnt. I'm not saying you won't burn if your out all day in it but you will not burn as quickly.

So little and often is important.

For goodness sake!
Factor 50 applied before school should be effective enough for the amount of time the children are outside during a school day. I send mine in with a hat which the teacher always reminds the children to wear when going outside. With their school uniforms on they only have their legs exposed below the knee and they wear shirts or dresses with short sleeves, it's not like they're running around in swimwear is it!?

There is minimal vitamin D is multivitamins - however it is very easy to buy high dose vitD3 supplements (10,000 iu).

I didn't take it as a multivitamin. I took 10 mcg a day which I think is 400 iu. 10,000 is much higher than the recommended amount and wouldn't be recommended without medical advice. It is a fat soluble vitamin and can be harmful.

You'd have to take a lot more than 10,000 iu to reach toxic levels..

Not if you took it for a prolonged period of time. I wouldn't want to take that much unless I knew I was deficient.

I wasn't suggesting people should take 10,000 iu a day (although probably perfectly safe), I was pointing out that if is possible to supplement effectively...

I put soltan once spf 50 on ds' cheeks nose and ears before school and thats it I figure he needs a bit of sun on the rest of him. He west's,a hat so he gets it on his lower arms and lower legs for an hour a,day max.

I wasn't suggesting people should take 10,000 iu a day (although probably perfectly safe), I was pointing out that if is possible to supplement effectively...

I was pointing out that it is not that easy. Some people would benefit from high doses (e.g. me) but for others high doses would lead to toxic levels of vitamin D. Therefore without blood tests it is not that easy to ensure you are getting the right amount of vitamin D, if you rely on supplements and no sun exposure.

My DDs both react to the majority of sunscreens (come out in painful hives, lips and eyelids swell etc) and the only one we've found that doesn't cause this reaction is only available in factor 30. They're both very pale and both pretty good at wearing hats at school (where there is minimal shade and all break times are between 11am and 2:30pm). They know to reapply their own sunscreen, from their own PE bags, before lunchtime and DD2 (6) has adults in class who will supervise her doing the back of her neck and help her rub it in if need be.

All fine. Until last summer when the headteacher announced that sunscreen had to be stored in the school office and the children queue up for it at the start of lunchtime 'because of allergies'. Bonkers idea given that previously, the children could reapply it themselves whilst listening to the story/participating in guided reading etc. It seems ridiculous in terms of compliance and in terms of encouraging sun sense, never mind the possibility for cross contamination should another child's sunscreen leak into the communal box and end up on the hands of a child who is allergic to it. I'm unimpressed with the lack of independence this approach encourages and have negotiated with my DDs' teachers to let them store it in class. I can't pop into their school to apply it before lunch each day as I'm a teacher too and am busy requiring my class to put their hats on their heads or face a lunchtime of skulking around the edge of the playground where the sliver of shade is to be found.

I think schools need to be sensible and realistic. Some children won't be able to use all day sunscreen, some will need supervision to effectively apply a top-up and a few will need active support to achieve this. Most children will need to be reminded to put their hat on in the summer in the same way they they need to be reminded to put their coats on when it's freezing. I'll happily provide supervision for the application of sunscreen or will help a child rub it in on the back of their neck if they can't coordinate their arms/hands. I will also help source spare hats for children without them. I won't willingly send a child out into the midday sun for 75 minutes with minimal shade available, without doing what I can to help protect their skin.