The Manchester Healthy Schools Partnership is a partnership between Education and Health whose aim is:
- To support children and young people in developing healthy lifestyles
- To help to raise pupil achievement
- To help to reduce health inequalities
- To help promote social inclusion
- To support the development of healthy learning communities
Currently 163 schools in Manchester are involved in the Manchester Healthy Schools Partnership programme and many have been accredited their Bronze, Silver and Gold awards for their hard work. |
The Public Health White Paper (Choosing health: making healthy choices easier, 2005) outlined the Governments intention to introduce a more rigorous and nationally consistent criteria through the introduction of the National Healthy Schools status.
In order to satisfy the requirements schools are required to meet criteria in all four of the following core themes:
- Personal Social Health Education (Incl Sex & Relationships Education & Drug Education, including alcohol, tobacco and volatile substance abuse)
- Healthy Eating
- Physical Activity
- Emotional Health & Well-being
The criteria relate not only to the taught curriculum but also to the emotional, physical and learning environments that school provides. |
Manchester Healthy Schools Partnership develops its work in schools using a ‘whole school approach’
The whole school approach:
- Aims to develop an ethos and environment that supports learning and promotes the health and well being of all
- Consults and encourages participation of all within the school community; and
- Is an extremely effective, evidence-based school improvement mechanism which brings about and embeds cultural change in schools
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Achieving National Healthy Schools status enables schools to demonstrate their contribution to the 5 national ‘Every Child Matters’ outcomes for children and supports schools with their targets for the following national priorities:
- Improving behaviour and attendance
- Improving performance in national standards attainment tests
- Reducing and halting the increase in childhood obesity
- Promoting positive sexual health and reducing teenage conceptions
- Reducing young people’s drug, alcohol and tobacco use
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