Education Business

Healthy and unhealthy habits are formed early in life, and with children spending an average 35 hours in school each week, there’s no doubt that schools can be one of the biggest influences.
    
As all Healthy Schools know, the impact of the school environment reaches far beyond the school day, and the Healthy Schools programme, which is now celebrating its 10th year as one of the most popular non-statutory government programmes in schools, is helping schools to promote positive health choices, both inside and outside of timetabled curriculum.

The next phase
With more than 80 per cent of schools having already achieved National Healthy School Status, from Autumn 2009 schools are being invited to take part in the next phase of Healthy Schools – which will help schools to continue to build upon existing good practice in supporting children and young people to choose healthy behaviours.
    
The government’s vision for the 21st Century School places schools firmly in the centre of efforts to improve children and young people’s health and wellbeing, and schools that take part in the new Healthy Schools enhancement model will be particularly well placed to translate that vision into practice.
    
Helen Williams, director of curriculum and pupil wellbeing at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, explains: “This next stage of development is really about recognising the growing role played by schools in supporting a range of children’s outcomes. In the future, schools will still be about education in the traditional sense, but will also focus on developing the whole child, by offering: more personalised education, a stronger focus on improving health and wellbeing, and a wider community resource to support whole families and communities.”
    
Working with Healthy Schools, schools can now prioritise their own health and wellbeing agenda by choosing which issues to focus on, in partnership with other local services and based on local evidence.
    
Schools will carry out a needs analysis to identify those children and young people who need more support – whether they are young carers, those with mental health needs or who need help to tackle issues such as bullying, low self-esteem, weight management, or drugs or alcohol misuse.    
    
Indeed, as part of this approach many schools are also using after school clubs as a way of increasing the breadth of opportunities for participating in healthy activities, including for children and young people that might not usually engage in traditional sporting or extra-curricular activities. Here we take a closer look at the difference evidence-based after-school clubs are making to targeted groups of children and young people through Healthy Schools.

Looking after me
Treloweth Community Primary School in Cornwall is tackling the sensitive issue of obesity with a number of its children, through a club called ‘Looking After Me’ which encompasses a range of issues from healthy eating, self esteem, confidence and exercise – which was set up with close input from parents.
    
Kate Pordage, Healthy Schools coordinator for Cornwall explains: “The club provides the children with physical activities to take part in everyday, along with lunchtime sessions and weekly after school family sessions covering a range of health issues, including cooking workshops and provides free access to local swimming pools and family pedometers to help the children measure how far they are walking each day. It has also trained year 6 pupils as playground leaders for ‘Wake and Shake’ which children can join in at break time to get active.”
    
Starting with 22 students, the club has proven a great success with continued attendance from those students. Parents and carers have also given it a firm vote of confidence. As one parent said: “Since the club started my daughter is more positive about herself, seems happier and more motivated, and has learned how different foods and exercise can help to keep her healthy. But the best thing is that she feels like she is part of a team, supported by her friends and teachers.”

Bike-fixing club
In Bristol, Teyfant Primary School has been using after school clubs to focus support for the emotional health and wellbeing of its students. Head teacher Gus Grimshaw says: “Like many schools locally, for us addressing the emotional health and wellbeing of our children and young people is high on the agenda, because without first addressing a child’s emotional and physical health, they are in no fit state to learn. A great aspect of Healthy Schools is that it encourages a holistic, ‘whole child’ approach to health and learning, understanding that you cannot have one without the other.”   
    
Recognising that children would develop more positive behaviours in the classroom when they also felt secure and supported by role models at home, the school began to provide a platform to help strengthen parent and child relationships using a range of after school clubs.   
     
For example, a group of parents at the school introduced an after-school bike repair scheme where parents and children were encouraged to bring broken bikes and bike parts along for an upgrade. Together, the parents and children were taught how to build and repair bikes from different parts, encouraging team work and closer relationships, particularly amongst dads and lads, and the group have since organised a number of biking trips into the country.  
    
Indeed, the scheme has been so successful that through word of mouth, parents from other schools have heard about it and have approached the club for help in starting a similar initiative in other schools, and the parents are also now looking at running other after school skills classes.  

Motivation through sport
A group of Healthy Schools in St. Helens, Merseyside are using an alternative sports and PSHE education initiative including a range of after school activities, to re-engage young people who were at high risk of exclusion from school.  
    
Over 500 girls from the area, aged 14 to15, who showed they wanted to ‘get back on track’ but were perceived by staff as struggling with elements of social interaction and behavior at school, were chosen to take part in a 20 week long ‘SHE’ course which introduced them to a range of alternative physical activities such as boxercise, gym and street dancing, as well as sessions to help develop citizenship skills such as healthy relationships, bullying and sexual health.
    
With a structure to the course that has enabled these girls to grow through mixing with different social groups outside their usual school settings, teachers have seen significant impact on girls’ attitude to learning. One teacher, Emma Cookson from Cowley Language College has noticed some dramatic changes amongst her students: “Two girls, in particular, struggled with their form groups and lacked confidence due to past experiences of bullying. One of them hardly spoke even when spoken to, and they would never join an extra-curricular club. The street dance sessions really developed their personal confidence and social interaction, and a residential weekend away at the end of term, proved just how far they’d come, when they performed a dance routine for the rest of the group.  
    
“We also found out later that they often rehearsed dance routines at home, and the sessions had provided the opportunity to further develop their interests and stretch their confidence in a safe environment. It has also since led to them helping out at our after-school dance club and auditioning for local dance competitions.”

For more information
Web: www.healthyschools.gov.uk