Partnering For A Stronger Future

March 10, 2010

The 21st century school is about much more than just learning spaces and school design in the physical sense, although this is an important element of improving the overall offering available to children and young people.

It is really about the reshaping of the whole culture and ethos of schools. It’s about creating a school environment where children and young people h ave easy access to all of the support they need to reach their full potential in learning and life.

Healthy Schools celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2009, having established itself as one of the most popular, non-statutory government initiatives in English schools today. A major part of the reason for its success to date is that its ethos sits at ease with the reason why teachers, nurses and the broader school workforce do what they do. People go into education because they care about children and young people and want them to succeed in all aspects of their lives – and that includes them being physically and emotionally healthy.

There is now a far greater appetite for the health and wellbeing agenda among schools than ever before, and the fact that more than 99 per cent of schools are now working with us pays clear testament to that.

A major part of the programme’s legacy to date is that activities that were once pioneering good practice – such as integrated personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE), healthy school dinners and children’s water bottles on desks – are now commonplace within the culture of our schools. And this agenda is still growing.

The publication of the recent Child Health Strategy, recent ministerial pushes on healthy eating, the publication of the 21st century school system, statutory PSHE education, and the introduction of the Ofsted pupil wellbeing indicators all highlight the government’s commitment to health and wellbeing within the school setting.

Achieving the Children’s Plan absolutely depends on creating a school system that prepares every young person to make a success of their life, and although we’ve already achieved an enormous amount, in future schools will have a more significant role to play in supporting young people to be healthy and to make positive life choices.

Achi eving long-term behavioural change around major public health issues such as childhood obesity or teenage pregnancy cannot happen overnight. It is a long-term challenge and one in which the next phase of Healthy Schools will play a vital role. We are not asking teachers to suddenly become health or social work specialists, but we do recognise that schools that are working with Healthy Schools already have strong partnerships in place and are now well positioned to deliver aspects of health promotion and targeted support.

Helen Williams, director of curriculum and pupil wellbeing at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, says that as the government has begun to place an increasing emphasis on the health and wellbeing of children and young people, Healthy Schools has offered an invaluable framework of standards, good practice and tools to help schools evaluate what they are doing.

"The next stage is to make good schools into really great schools, by engaging more closely with parents, personalising children’s learning, opening up school services to the wider community and increasing capacity through greater collaboration as we build towards our vision of the 21st century school," Williams says. "This vision is 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, 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 resource to support whole communities."

The point is reinforced by Nina Hughes, from the Extended Services programme for schools, who explains: "Schools that have already achieved national healthy school status and are working towards the provision of Extended Services are acknowledged as already contributing to the wider role which schools will p lay in the future. Key to this vision is our commitment that all schools will be providing access to a core offer of Extended Services by 2010, and already more than 80 per cent of maintained schools are partnering closely with their local authority and other local private and voluntary sector organisations to provide access to these services."

Extended Services include before and after school activities such as study support; sport, music and arts opportunities; childcare in primary schools; parenting and family support including parenting programmes; easy access to specialist health and social care services; and community facilities such as adult and family learning and ICT.

Of course, schools are not being asked to deliver these improvements alone. Shared visions and local partnerships have always been at the heart of our work with schools – whether that is in partnership with local authorities, other schools, or local services in the private and voluntary sector, health and social care services or community organisations.

Schools have already come a long way, but we are really just at the start of a longer journey towards ensuring a truly integrated approach to education and health in schools, which will draw upon the expertise of teachers, health professionals, parents and the wider community.

These partnerships will become crucial channels for better support and guidance to help schools achieve health and wellbeing outcomes for children and young people, and enhance the core offer available to the whole school community. We want to use the reach, trust and expertise we have gained over the past 10 years to help schools make sense of this changing school agenda, and to put in the systems, processes and interventions to be able to make a real and long term difference.

The next step is to help schools to fully embed the new Healthy Schools enhancement model. This is a process that will closely support schools in developing strategies and interventions to tackle some of their most pressing local health inequalities, and to better support the physical and emotional development of all children and young people, including those who are most vulnerable. It emphasises continual development and will help the focus on additional school-based activities tailored to meeting the specific needs within a school.

Working in close partnerships, we want to continue to create school environments where every child and young person has access to the health and education support they need to reach their full potential in learning and life.

Richard Sangster is head of the Healthy Schools programme