Better schools through health: learning from practice

for Community Medical staff in health promotion and nine hundred and thirty-eightteachers have been trained in new teaching methods and how to promote HPS to theircolleagues.The aim of the project is to certify the improvement that schools achieve in the sixareas and in 2007 fifty nine schools were successful in all identified areas. Specificachievement in individual areas was as follows:In the area “school ethos” twenty-one schools achieved the objective to guaranteedemocracy and equity in the school through an analysis of the health needs of thepupils.The area “organisation and leadership”, was not approached by any school.In the area “social climate” ten schools achieved the objective to promote inclusionthrough participation of pupils and parents in the local school health team, givingvisibility to the work done by the children about health topics.In the area “curriculum about health topics” fifty-three schools achieved the objectiveto structure the formal curriculum about health topics, and to develop it in all targetclasses. Health topics, integrated in the curriculum and taught with active andparticipatory methods, taking an approach of ten or more hours, were treated asfollows: Hygiene by sixteen schools, oral health by twenty-six schools, mental andsocial health by eighteen schools, gender and sexual education by seventeen schools,physical activity by twenty-seven schools, nutrition by thirty schools, smoking habitsand illicit use of drugs by thirty-four schools, emergency and accident prevention byforty-three schools, environment and pollution by twenty-one schools. The averagenumber of health topics treated by a health promoting school is 3.9.In the area ‘environment and school opportunities’ three schools achieved the objectiveto improve the scholastic atmosphere and well-being through the participation ofparents and pupils.The objective ‘to supply opportunities for health through the school setting’ wasachieved as follows: smoke-free context by twenty-nine schools; walking bus byfour schools, brushing teeth after lunch by one school, providing fruit snacks by sixschools.In the area ‘alliance with stakeholders’ eight schools achieved the objective to developalliances with families, involving parents in health-related events.Conclusions and lessons learntFrom this experience we learned that schools need support with the challenge ofdealing with health promotion. Organisational investment is needed which means thatschool managers must be involved in the whole process. Teachers need continuousprofessional development especially with regard to planning in order to identifyobjectives and select appropriate indicators. Experiences should be shared amongst allinvolved in order to foster a strong culture of dealing with these health topics. Centraland local authorities should develop health promoting policy to ensure that healthservices are part of this process supporting and monitoring this work towards makingevery school a health promoting environment.24