NEWSLETTER #7 - 2019
Seasons Greetings from SHE
The SHE board and the SHE secretariat would like to send season
greetings to all readers of the SHE newsletter as the end of December
approaches. Many thanks for your support and contributions in 2019. We
look forward to working with you in the new year and
meeting our members, both researchers and coordinators, face-to-face in
Finland 10th-11th and 11-12th June 2020. |
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| A SHE board meeting took place in Copenhagen 10-11 December 2019. |
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Last Chance to Have Your Opinion Heard
SHE is undergoing an external evaluation. We would appreciate if you,
the reader, could answer this brief questionnaire. The answers are
anonymous for SHE and the evaluator. The evaluation will ensure that the
newsletter continues to improve and meet the needs
of you – the readers. Thank you in advance! Follow
this link. |
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New SHE Publications
Sign up as a follower on SHEs Facebook profile to be notified of our new publications on the day of the release. Follow
this link. In the end of 2019, you will be able to read the Moscow
statement on Health promotion schools, the SHE mapping report, European
Standards & Indicators and a mapping report on the status on school
health promotion in SHE’s member countries. All,
a result, of collaboration between member countries. You can already see
Materials
for teachers. |
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What is 'State of the Art' School Health Promotion?
The SHE factsheet
no. 5 was recently published and is available on the SHE website.
The factsheet summarises the consequences of considering school context
when implementing health promotion. The take home message from the
factsheet is that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to health
promotion in schools. If school context is genuinely
considered when planning health promotion, it will give rise to a
variety of choices. These choices are succinctly described in this
factsheet. The authors of the 2019 factsheet are Nina Bartelink and
Kathelijne Bessems from the Netherlands both of whom are
members of SHE’s research group. |
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Succesful 5th European Conference on HPS
The 5th European Conference of Health Promoting Schools (HPS) was held
in Moscow from the 20th to 22nd of November. There were 160
contributions and 9 keynote speakers from 40 different countries who
discussed current developments and challenges in promoting
health in schools. There were opportunities for networking and informal
exchange including participating in a night tour of Moscow and a welcome
reception with musical accompaniment. The results of this conference
have been incorporated into the Moscow Statement
on Health Promoting Schools. The statement will be available on the SHE’s
website shortly. |
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Development of Life Skills for Students in Slovenia
A very important task of the school, beside formal education, is to
offer students activities where they can acquire different skills to
help them in life tasks. Therefore, the Slovenian Metca Laposa Primary
School conduct workshops in which students get acquainted
with successful strategies to learn how to solve different life
challenges not only in school but also in other areas of their lives.
When designing workshops, the teachers start from the needs, interests
and wishes of children and focus on topics such as self-image,
growing up, responsibility, emotions and developing social skills, etc. |
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News from the SHE Research Group
The aim of the SHE research group is to support the development of
school health promotion and health education in the WHO European region
by stimulating, facilitating, coordinating, upscaling and initiating
theoretical and empirical research. This means that
this group is an ideal first point of contact in generating and sharing
knowledge which could be implemented in schools and used as a basis in
decision-making processes. As of the beginning of 2020, short
descriptive profiles of the SHE research group members
will be added to the SHE website. This will ease contact to a relevant
SHE researchers and expert in the area of school health promotion and
health education – feel free to contact of the researchers! |
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Flemish Cooperation Partners
In 2016, the Flemish Government determined that by 2025 80% of Flemish
schools would be actively working with the five pillars of the whole
school approach that SHE promotes. To attain this objective, the Flemish
Institute for Healthy Living (funded by the
Ministry of Health) monitors policy in schools and develops tools to
help schools achieve this objective. In addition, the Ministry of
Education support this objective by updating policy frameworks. Have a
look at the Flemish video to promoting Healthy schools
and see a presentation from the Moscow conference 2019 here.
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Public Health Heping Schools in Hungary
In Hungary the holistic health promotion (HHP) for schools is prescribed
by law since 2012 and it means a holistic, whole school approach. HHP
comprises of four daily health promoting tasks for teachers
1. Healthy eating;
2. Daily physical education and other physical activities;
3. Use of appropriate pedagogic methods and the arts to enhance mental health;
4. Improving health literacy.
Teachers work daily with four health promoting objectives and other
health providers can help teachers achieve these tasks. The ‘Skin Guards
program’ assists them in improving health literacy of children. This
program is a series of 20-minute lectures designed
for 14 – 18 year olds covering topics of skin and sexual health. Find
more information on the Skin Health Program. |
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Healthy Eating Lifestyle Using Fruit - Slovenia
In September and October 2019, pupils in year 4 and 5 at Osnovna šola
Center primary school in Novo mesto acquired a lot of knowledge about
fruit in the form of project work at the Health-promoting school
extracurricular activity. The pupils themselves proposed
the idea for the topic. They learnt about all the positive effects of
fruit, made posters, prepared healthy and tasty fruit smoothies, visited
a fruit market, made fruit from modelling clay and created fruit dolls.
Pupils were actively involved and interested
in all the activities. |
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Implementing Relationships and Sexuality Education in Ireland
Christina Murphy and Saoirse Nic Gabhainn from the Health Promotion
Research Centre at the National University of Ireland Galway have
released a new policy brief on implementing sex education in schools.
Drawing on Christina’s PhD research they call for a new
national co-ordinating committee to act as a policy lead, to drive
training and to provide support to schools and teachers. National
teacher preparation standards and improved processes to adapt national
processes to local contexts are also required. The brief
argues that improved teacher training and curriculum development must be
complemented by meaningful policy to plan, update and monitor Sex
Education. Read
more. |
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The Health Promoting School in France
School health promotion is taking on a new dimension in France with the
impetus of the Health Promoting School from January 2020. This impetus
is within the framework set out in France’s national health strategy.
The aim of this incentive is to encourage primary
schools and secondary schools to gather and merge all currently
implemented educational actions and pedagogical projects, particularly
those devoted to the development of life skills, as part of their school
project. The entire educational community is involved
by coordinating these actions in a project approach. Students will be
directly involved and can volunteer to be health ambassadors. More
information on this approach will be available after the 2020 launch. |
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Effective classroom-based Preventive Intervention from Estonia
The PAX Good Behaviour Game (PAX GBG) is a behaviour management strategy
that has demonstrated positive effects on children’s and teachers’
wellbeing. The intervention was adapted to Estonia in 2014 and has been
implemented in 108 elementary schools. The effectiveness
of PAX GBG was evaluated with a two-year, cluster-randomized controlled
trial conducted during 2016-2018. This study determined that the
intervention had positive and lasting effects on children’s mental
health. Read
an article about the effectiveness study. |
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Teacher-related and Environmental Factors
A nationwide survey was conducted in Estonia to assess the environmental
conditions in kindergartens and its impact on children`s development.
The results of this survey highlighted four teacher-related factors (i)
professional background of the physical education
teachers (ii) their participation in relevant training (iii) their
awareness of the recommended levels of physical activity for children
and (iv) their own physical activity habits. In addition, the frequency
and variation of physical education lessons affected
children’s physical development. More frequent structured lessons and
variation in activities (e.g. organized sports events, outdoor
activities in winter) had a positive impact on children’s physical
development. Environmental conditions such as presence of
suitable facilities and equipment also had a positive impact on
children`s physical development. More
can be read about this survey here. Although the report is in Estonian, the summary on page 50 is in English. |
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Chapter Argues for School Hours in Natural Environments
Teaching and learning outside the classroom should be considered an
effective and sustainable approach to health promotion and prevention of
sedentary behaviours and noncommunicable diseases, say authors to a
newly released book chapter. Nature offers great
opportunities for active play and exploration which stimulates
children’s daily movement behaviours and promotes wellbeing. But if
children do not naturally utilise the outdoor environment– which 21st
century leisure trends suggest – nature visits must be arranged
for the children. ‘Greening education’ involves relocating ordinary and
curriculum-based school lessons to natural environments and provides
great opportunities for health and for learning. For more information
see: Bentsen, P. et al. (2019). GREENING EDUCATION.
Physical Activity in Natural Settings: Green and Blue Exercise, 256 |
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Gala Awards Ceremony in Poland
The National Certificate of Health-Promoting School (HPS schools) was
established in 2008 in Poland in response to the needs and expectations
of kindergartens and schools from 16 regional HPS networks. This
certificate acknowledges the value of long-term, systematic
health-promotion activities. The latest Gala Awards Ceremony occurred on
the 27th November 2019 in Warsaw. Twenty-two kindergartens and
thirty-two schools were honoured for their achievements and all
nominated kindergartens and schools presented their health-promotion
achievements at the ceremony. |
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Danish School Health Education With Success
The SUUS project (Danish abbreviation for ‘School health Education with
Success’) is growing from a national to an international project. Based
on data from over 700 students over 4 years, the school has developed a
concept integrating physical training and
coordination skills, showing good results in many parameters. The school
is known for its efforts in ‘twinning’ with European partners and this
is concept will be further developed further in 2020. Contact the
project coordinator Jan Pedersen (Uvpnz8bt@hksk.dk)
for further information.
Read more about joining SHE’s twinning program with contact between classes within Europe
