The school has held the National Healthy Schools Accreditation since 2006.
The main aim of the Healthy Schools Programme is to support and encourage schools to develop and deepen their focus on health and wellbeing which will support the attainment, achievement and happiness of both their pupils, staff and wider school communities.
All children and young people have a right to be healthy and to achieve at school and in life. Healthy Schools provides opportunities for enhancing emotional and physical aspects of health that will lead to improved health, reduced health inequalities, and increased social inclusion and will raise achievement for all.
Healthier children do better in learning and in life. By enabling children and young people to make positive changes to their behaviour regarding health and wellbeing, schools help them reach their full potential in terms of achievement and fulfilment. They can also encourage good habits that will benefit children and young people both now and in the future.
Healthy Schools is not just about children and young people, it is about involving the whole school community together with local services and agencies. And it is not just what happens in the curriculum but about the entire school day.
Healthy Schools focuses on the following key areas:
Personal, Health and Social Education (PHSE)Healthy eatingPhysical activityEmotional wellbeing and mental health.
Healthy Schools promotes a more inclusive environment for learning to take place and is designed to encourage links with all other areas of the curriculum.
The health and wellbeing experiences and outcomes provide valuable opportunities to develop skills in literacy and numeracy.There are important links between health and wellbeing and the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils.Using the expressive arts as a medium for learning, for example role play, can engage learners in issues such as bullying in more engaging and accessible ways.There are clear connections between science and several aspects of health and wellbeing e.g. food and health.
Keeping Healthy
There is a wealth of information available on how to keep healthy. The following links will take you through to the interactive sites aimed at young people:
For Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14)
For Key Stage 4 (ages 14-16)
School Health Service
The School Health Team offers a universal service to children and young people aged 5 -19 years attending primary and secondary schools.
School nurses are qualified nurses, many with additional training, which specifically relates to the needs of this age group. Each school nurse is geographically allocated to a clinic and maintains a minimum caseload of four primary and one secondary school. This is dependent on experience.
The school nurses are a pivotal link between education and health services with the team providing guidance and support on a range of health related issues, working alongside parents, pupils and teachers.
Services provided by the school health team include:
- Offering routine health surveillance programmes including vision, audiology and growth monitoring.
- A comprehensive health needs assessment on reception aged children and those who are new into the country, enabling the child’s physical, emotional and social needs to be addressed.
- Offering drop in sessions to children and coffee mornings to parents.
- Providing an immunisation programme to school leavers
- Referring and liaising with a number of agencies including General Practitioners, Dieticians, Educational Welfare to mention a few.
- Providing information on health promotion including healthy eating, emotional well-being and management of medical conditions.