We had some fantastic feedback from our visitors RAISED in Yorkshire.

"I just wanted to say a huge thank you for allowing our RAISED in Yorkshire team to come and deliver a workshop to on Oral Health.

Given that in Yorkshire an average of 45% of children start secondary school with decayed and missing teeth. This is strongly correlated with health inequalities and social deprivation – resulting in adolescents experiencing pain (toothache), low self-esteem, bullying, and absenteeism. These are shocking statistics, given it is a largely preventable condition.

Reach to those that need it most has traditionally been so difficult. RAISED in Yorkshire (RiY) is a trying to address this through empowering young people about their oral health and its importance to their general health and well-being.

We also provided in many of the forms the start of a Dental Career talk to raise aspirations early! We would be happy to do more on this to older years too.

Coop Academy Leeds plays a significant part in our RAISED in Yorkshire (RiY)  program – being our “training school”.

The RiY team visited your school – this is a big logistical exercise with 95 external visitors:

• 71 Year 12 students 9
• 9 trainers (newly qualified dental team)
• 8 members of the Core University team
• And 7 accompanying teachers from the sixth formers schools

We were made very welcome by Mr Sleman. The reception staff worked hard ahead of our visit by getting the DBS screening undertaken for all of our staff/dentist trainers and provided a register for our Year 12 students.

We spent the afternoon providing engaging oral health workshops for Year 7 (including those where English is not their first language). The school staff were informed, supportive and very welcoming.

Above all, we all remarked on the excellent behaviour and engagement of the Year 7 students. I saw one of the Year 12’s using the quickly acquired term “Quality Audience 1,2, & 3” (shared by the teacher) and the classroom fell into attentive quiet. It was highly impressive.

We had a fantastic time and all 71 Year 12 students passed their competencies in delivering the education event. A big thank you to Year 7 who were all so well behaved.

The Year 12 students graduated as RiY Student Research Fellows and will continue as oral health ambassadors in their own schools and will lead citizen science projects on oral health.

Thank you for supporting this important work. We look forward to working with you again in Spring 2026."