Exploring education beyond the classroom
Dundee Dental Connect is a community initiative lead by staff and students at Dundee Dental Hospital and Research School (DDH). The group adopts a co-creation approach, allowing for staff and students to work together as equals with the aim of mitigating oral health inequalities within our local community of Dundee and beyond.
We currently have three main branches – food banks, ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) groups and primary school visits, all of which provide oral health education and supplies to communities within Dundee and the surrounding area1. In October and November 2024, we visited groups of primary school aged children taking part in a school holiday science camp at the Dundee Science Centre, and a local Girls’ Brigade group. This allowed us to adapt our usual primary school visit approach (fig. 1), and explore delivering oral health education to primary school aged children in our community, beyond the classroom.
[Figure 1
Caption: An outline of the development and delivery of sessions to primary school groups.]
All of our primary school visits are carried out by our student members. All resources and delivery approaches have been quality assured by members of paediatric staff, ensuring all content is delivered accurately and safely and is in line with current guidance, such as SDCEP 2. Each visit involves a presentation being given to the class about oral health, what happens at the dentist (fig. 2), OHI, and for older classes (P6-7) also involves information about dental trauma and its management. After the presentation is given, the P1-3 classes work their way around 4 stations, each led by a Dental Connect member, and the P6-7 classes make informational posters about something they have learned from the session. This allows for consolidation of knowledge and gives opportunities for the pupils to ask questions in a small group setting. At the end of all sessions, pupils are provided with a toothbrush and toothpaste, and educational leaflets are sent home for their carers.
[Figure 2
Caption: A slide from our primary school presentation. Our volunteers show children what the dentist might be wearing, an attempt to ease anxieties they may experience. The P1-3 children also get to try these items on in the ‘dressing up as a dentist’ workshop station.]
When presented with opportunities to visit groups of primary school aged children outwith schools, our approach to the presentations and subsequent workshops needed to be adjusted. This was due to the wider age range found in groups outside of school classes, and the somewhat unpredictable nature of what ages these children would be at any given event.
In October 2024, we carried out two visits to holiday camps being ran at the Dundee Science Centre, accommodating children ranging from P1-6 (approximately 5 to 11 years-old). Each session involved 10 children, so we decided the most effective approach was to split the attendees into two groups dependant on age. Two Dental Connect members worked with each group and delivered the age-appropriate presentation. Due to the limited space, we ran our four workshop stations with all of the children, regardless of age, to negate the risk of confusion across the groups.
Structuring our content delivery and workshops this way allowed us to spend more time with each group, and this in combination with the smaller group numbers allowed us to answer more questions and engage in more meaningful conversations about oral health. This format additionally allowed for more interactive discussion with the children while delivering the presentation, which is typically more challenging when presenting to a full classroom of pupils such as at our school visits.
The next month, we were asked to visit a local Girls’ Brigade group. We saw this as a fantastic opportunity to further engage with children within the community, and we liaised with one of the groups leaders to ensure we effectively made the most of the session. This group of young girls varied in age, with the majority falling within the P1-3 category. The number of attendants varies week to week, so this is something that was difficult to predict. These factors in combination made this session slightly more challenging to prepare for, and we ultimately opted to give our P1-3 presentation to all attendees, as we felt it would not be beneficial to separate the few older girls from the rest of the group.
A number of these slightly older children were able to answer many of our questions, or knew the content already, which proved challenging when trying to engage the younger children. This required us to adapt our delivery approach, and the ways in which we asked questions, such as by encouraging some of the quieter girls to answer questions or making sure we picked different people to answer questions. This was important to us, as although it was positive to see some of the older children so enthusiastic and educated about oral health, we wanted to encourage everyone to get something out of the session. Additionally, during the workshop stations afterwards, we had further discussions and asked more challenging questions to some of the older attendees, which they seemed to enjoy and benefit from.
When planning for this event, we wanted to consider that this was an extracurricular group the children attend to have fun, so we wanted to make the experience as fun and as interactive as possible, while maintaining its educational value. We decided to adapt our workshops stations slightly, as the group leader we organised this visit with suggested we incorporate arts and crafts into the session, as this is something the girls always enjoy. The workshop stations we ran covered the following: dressing up as a dentist, foods which are good/bad for our teeth, how to brush your teeth, and tooth fairy pouch making. We also had dentist colouring in sheets available for anyone who finished their stations early.
Throughout the workshops, all of our members who were running the stations felt the children were enjoying the evening and even expressed excitement about all of the new things they had learned. After completion of this visit, we received excellent feedback from the children, their carers, and the group leaders, and we have also been informed that multiple children and carers have signed up for a course of student treatment at the dental hospital as a result of this visit and the education they had received regarding the importance of oral health.
Since running these visits, our eyes have been further opened to the potential scope of Dental Connect’s initiative, particularly our branch focused on educating children and their carers on the important of oral health. We have found that to facilitate this potentially increasing reach, our core presentations and resources are adaptable to multiple different situations and environments. We hope that these learning experiences will enable us to expand out work in providing oral health education to children and allowing for fun and education environments to be fostered in children-based community groups, beyond the classroom.
References
1Nedelcheva V, Mannion J, Gonzalez M. Dundee Dental Connect: A new approach to school engagement. British Dental Journal. 2024 Aug 9; 237, 160-16. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41415-024-7772-2
2SDCEP. Prevention and Management of Dental Caries in Children [Internet]. 2025 [accessed: 2025 Mar 13]. Available from: https://www.childcaries.sdcep.org.uk