SunSmart schools resources

We have produced a sunburn animation to show what happens to your skin when you get sunburnt, covering the effect of ultraviolet (UV) radiation on DNA. The animation is suitable for late primary and early secondary students.

View the sunburn animation

The NICE guidelines for skin cancer prevention recommend that Head Teachers should take action to protect children from over-exposure to UV rays. The guidelines recommend that schools “develop, implement and monitor a specially tailored policy to ensure people are protected as much as possible”.

The downloadable guidelines below will help you to create a Sun Protection Policy tailored to the needs of your school.

• Pre-schools and Nurseries
• Primary schools
• Secondary schools

The following materials are divided into nursery/pre-school and primary levels. The three activity plans and worksheets for each level contain enjoyable lesson ideas mapped to the national curriculum.

• Sunny singing walk activity plan and worksheet
• Snazzy sunglasses activity plan and worksheet
• SunSmart book characters activity plan and worksheet

• SunSmart assembly plan designed by teachers to help you run a SunSmart assembly
• Two detailed SunSmart lesson plans designed by teachers to meet Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 curriculum requirements
• SunSmart poster featuring Cool the Monkey to show how your school is being SunSmart
• SunSmart pledge sheet featuring Cool the Monkey
• Example of a completed SunSmart pledge sheet featuring Cool the Monkey
• SunSmart poster featuring Cool the Monkey
• Sun protectors activity plan and worksheet
• Shadow survey activity plan and worksheet
• SunSmart pop-up books activity plan and worksheet

The Teenage Cancer Trust have developed a teaching pack to help create interesting and engaging lessons around the topic of sun safety. Check out the Shunburn website to download your copy.

As a government funded campaign, the UK Health Departments have kindly allowed us to update the former Health Education Authority teaching resources. You can download these worksheets below.

• Worksheet 1 - SunSmart word scrabble and colouring in
• Worksheet 2 - SunSmart word search
• Worksheet 3 - Make your own paper hat
• Worksheet 4 - SunSmart spot the difference
• Worksheet 5 - Join the dots beach picture
• Worksheet 6 - SunSmart crossword
• Worksheet 7 - Draw yourself being SunSmart
• Worksheet 8 - SunSmart code, what do these drawings mean?
• Worksheet 9 - SunSmart hat colouring in

You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view these PDFs. You can download Acrobat Reader free of charge from the Adobe website. Visit Access Adobe to find out how people with visual disabilities can get the most from this software.