School Health Profiling

Photographs of a primary-aged boy and secondary-aged girl

The School Health Profiling Tool was borne out of 'A Scottish Framework for Nursing in Schools' (Scottish Executive, 2003). The importance of school health profiling and the formation of school health plans were seen as the basis for directing the work of the school nursing team and a link to multi-agency working in schools.

In the past, approaches to health profiling have been complex and time-consuming for school nursing staff, and not widely used in schools. The framework recognised this work, but highlighted the need for a national tool which would take account of the diversity of the school population in Scotland.

The School Health Profiling Tool has been developed through a broad-based and widespread consultation with key partners across the country and has been piloted in schools across Scotland.

Purpose of the tool

The School Health Profiling Tool offers all agencies working within the school community a clear and concise way of gathering evidence of health-related practice and informing others what services are in place. The tool ensures health-related support services to children and young people are both focused and appropriate.

A school health profile should give a clear picture of the school community without having to search through other documents. Each school will have its own profile which reflects the life of that school community. While many schools have similar geographical locations and school rolls, for example, every school is unique. The tool recognises this and allows for differences.

The success of the tool is dependent on a multi-disciplinary approach to completing it. All of the information required should be available to the school through a range of professionals and partnerships. The tool should not require additional forms or pupil surveys. There could be an opportunity to engage with children, young people and the wider community. This could be carried out on an individual school basis as the tool develops.

For a profiling tool to be meaningful there has to be something in it for all relevant agencies. It should combine both qualitative and quantitative information to give both a statistical perspective of the school and detailed information about the school itself.

The tool can be downloaded in PDF or Word format. The guidance notes are provided to assist with completion of the school health profile.

For further information about the School Health Profiling Tool please contact Katie Paterson or Anne Lee at Health Scotland (tel: 0131 536 5500) or email: katie.paterson@health.scot.nhs.uk or anne.lee@health.scot.nhs.uk

Photographs of three children holding apples and boy working in class

Pilot phase

The School Health Profiling Tool was piloted in four schools and a Learning Community Cluster between December 2005 and January 2006. Schools participating in the pilot study were chosen to reflect a wide and diverse range of schools, taking account of:

type of school, for example primary
size of school roll
council
city, town or rural setting.

Two of the pilot schools have written about their experience of school health profiling and what it meant to them.

Scalloway Junior High School

Scalloway Junior High School in Shetland had already started working towards health promoting school status and had an enthusiastic working group seeing health promotion as a crucial feature of school life, when we were offered the opportunity to be part of the pilot. Keen to be seen not just ticking boxes, the working group soon realised that the school health profile had much to offer besides piloting its effectiveness as a research tool.

One of the biggest benefits for the school was the involvement of other agencies which brought with them a wealth of experience, allowing a fresh insight into the health of the school. They were able to identify examples of good practice we were unaware of ourselves.

The ongoing meetings to complete the school's health profile led not only to a better understanding of each other’s roles but also brought up ideas of how we could further the partnerships.

The results of the school health profile will allow us to examine the health of the whole school and to further health promotion in a focused way. Without the school health profile, the working group might have been well intentioned but could ultimately miss out on real priorities.

For example, if the statistics reveal that a significant number of our pupils and staff suffer from migraine, we will look closely at our lighting. Similarly if we identify a need to address mental health issues there are implications for staff training.

The future health of our school, and particularly its children and young people, will certainly be improved by our taking part in the school health profile pilot and the consequent strengthening of partnerships with other health promoting agencies.

Nairn Academy

The school health profile pilot proved to be very beneficial for the school in a number of ways. It encouraged meetings with all the agencies involved in young people's health to discuss issues and priorities in the delivery and management of the health of our school population.

The first meeting outside the workplace allowed people to meet and mix, and to discuss generally the problems of working with the tool, as well as identifying the fact that the information provided by a school health profile would be extremely useful to all agencies.

The second meeting, which followed the distribution of the final draft of the tool, was very productive. As a result, it was decided that there should be an annual meeting of agencies when development planning is taking place so that priorities can be set and tackled with a multi-agency approach.

An example of how this helps was demonstrated when the meeting identified the fact there had been no delivery of cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training to pupils recently. Two medical students at the meeting volunteered to set up a CPR programme for senior pupils and delivered it during lunchtime sessions the following week.

Whilst professionals identified areas where it was difficult to source information and where information might be inappropriate, the tone of the meeting was positive as people felt they were involved in an exercise which could ultimately make aspects of their job easier.