Winter 2006

Photographs of a girl with a teacher and senior pupils in a lecture theatre

A very well attended meeting of the National Health Promoting Schools Network took place at Stirling Management Centre in November, with representation from almost all councils and NHS boards.

Scottish Health Promoting Schools Unit director, Wendy Halliday, welcomed everyone to the meeting and invited participants to stop and reflect on a successful year which saw all councils receiving national endorsement for their local approaches to health promoting schools. She stressed the importance of celebrating this milestone and congratulated all those who made it happen.

Speakers during the morning addressed a range of elements which will build on existing approaches and will be involved in helping to embed and mainstream health promoting schools in the future.

Frank Crawford, HM Inspectorate of Education, demonstrated how the key characteristics of health promoting schools can be found both explicitly and implicitly through the 10 dimensions of ‘The Journey to Excellence’ (HMIE, 2006) and stressed the importance of health for any school aspiring to excellence.

Dan McGinty, leader of the A Curriculum for Excellence engagement team at Learning and Teaching Scotland, provided an update on developments with a particular focus on progress of the health and well-being strand.

Health Promotion and Nutrition Bill

Maria McCann, Scottish Executive Education Department, provided an update on the Schools Health Promotion and Nutrition Bill and used the opportunity to seek feedback from network members both on the bill and related issues.

The morning concluded with a look at the work of the new Area Advisers team at Learning and Teaching Scotland. Eddie Broadley shared his experience of this work so far and also that of being a headteacher of two health promoting schools to assure network members of this team’s commitment to health promoting schools work.

The afternoon was run using open space, with an invitation to raise issues of mutual interest and concern. Four conversations followed on the topics of staff welfare, involving parents, implementing and sustaining accreditation and measuring impact. Each conversation group recorded key points which were fed back at the end of the day.

Wendy Halliday closed the day by thanking all those who had made a contribution and with a note of optimism for the future inspired by the existence of such a dynamic network.