Health Promoting Schools

A Health Promoting (HP) school offers the whole school community the chance to improve their health and encourage others to be healthy. The aim of the scheme is that children grow up making better decisions about their health.

HP schools deal with many health issues affecting primary and secondary school children. These include:

healthy eating
oral health (teeth and mouth)
physical activity (exercise)
mental health (thoughts and feelings)
sexual health
smoking
alcohol

The benefits of HP schools include:

improved wellbeing for both children and staff
getting parents more involved
a positive learning environment

The aim of the scheme is that children grow up making better decisions about their health. This could help them have fewer illnesses later on in their life - for example, heart disease or diabetes.

Examples of HPS Activities

Healthy Eating

Primary schools can introduce sticker schemes to encourage pupils to eat healthier food in the canteen. Tuckshops can be changed to offer more healthy options - for example, toast, milk, fruit, cereal bars or low fat crisps.

Physical Activity

Introduce more lunchtime/after school activities to improve physical activity and mental health wellbeing. For example, football, badminton, cheerleading, music, drama and arts.

Environment

Improve the area outside the school so pupils have a more attractive space to play in. For example, buy resources for various games (active play), plant flower and vegetable beds or make quiet spaces that have a garden bench.

The HPS Award Scheme

All Health Promoting Schools begin by doing activities to get their Bronze Award. They need to keep doing these activities and add more to gain Silver, then add more again to achieve Gold.

Every Council and NHS Board in Scotland are working together to meet the Scottish Executive target that all schools should be Health Promoting Schools. Lanarkshire was one of the first areas to have all its schools taking part in the Health Promoting School Award Scheme.

The national website www.healthpromotingschools.co.uk is designed to support everyone working towards improving health in their school. The site has special sections for family, staff and primary and secondary pupils.

HP Nurseries and HP Youth Service

The original idea has been widened to include nurseries and youth groups. Both these schemes are similar to Health Promoting Schools. The HP Nurseries Award Scheme keeps the three levels of Bronze, Silver and Gold but the HP Youth Service scheme has one combined award. Overall, the nurseries, schools and youth service schemes are known as Health Promoting Establishments.