The Whole School ApproachTo achieve the Healthy School Status a whole school approach must be adopted which includes the following:
- Leadership and management
- Managing change
- Policy development
- Curriculum development
- Teaching and learning
- School culture and environment
- Giving pupils a voice
- Pupil support and services
- Continuing professional development
- Parents and the local community
- Assessing, reporting and recording pupils’ achievements.
The Path to AccreditationThe requirement of the local programme is for schools to work on the
four core themes over a period of two years.
The key elements shown in the diagram are that:
- A task group should be set up.
- The audit should be used for the whole school and chosen themes as a baseline assessment.
- Targets and an action plan should be written during the first term after the school has registered.
- A copy of the action plan should be sent to the local programme co-ordinator.
- NHSP should be written in the School Improvement Plan.
- Monitoring should take place to show impact of the programme and progress to achieving targets.
- A portfolio of evidence collected from the whole school to support the accreditation.
- At the end of the first year a review of progress will be made between the school co-ordinator and the programme co-ordinator. New targets and action plan may be written if required to ensure the school continues to make progress.
- Final accreditation meeting.
The AwardSchools that achieve accreditation receive:
- Healthy schools status; recognised by Ofsted in their awards section.
- A certificate from the Leicester health/education partnership which is an accredited body
- Use of the NHSP logo on letterheads and other school stationery
What Happens Next?
The accreditation is valid for three years after which this ceases and re-accreditation should be sought.
The Task Group
The task group should involve as many as possible of the following:
- The co-ordinator
- The school nurse
- Staff, including teachers, office staff, maintenance and premises officers, learning support assistants, mentors
- Senior management
- Governors
- Member of local community, parents
- Outside agencies as appropriate
- Voice of young people.
The purpose of the task group is to ensure:
- The audit is complete
- SMART targets written
- Action plan written and implemented
- Monitoring and evaluation of the themes
- Collection and presentation of evidence for the final accreditation.
Target SettingTargets are important to the promotion of good practice and the raising of expectations and standards in education. SMART Targets are used to give a quantifiable measure of the achievements so that improvement can be seen.
SMART Targets should:
- raise awareness of the issue being tackled
- change practice as appropriate so that targets can be achieved
- be sustainable for the foreseeable future
| Specific | A clear understanding is needed of exactly what you are trying to do and with whom, e.g. pupils / parents and carers. |
| Measurable | To check you have achieved your target you need to measure what is happening now, e.g. how many pupils attend school meetings, how many people attend PTA meetings, and then you can measure at the end if you have achieved your increase. |
| Achievable | You need to agree a target that you can feel confident with. It needs to be challenging but achievable. You need to ask yourself ‘can you make it happen’? |
| Realistic | You need to agree a target that is realistic, taking into account the context of the school and resources of the team. You need to ask yourself ‘is an X% increase realistic’? |
| Time limited | You need to decide whether you can achieve this target and set a date for completion. |
The Action Plan should contain the target(s) and break down the actions to be taken over the two year period into a series of elements that clearly show the changes that are to take place.
Monitoring and EvaluationMonitoring progress ensures that the targets set at the beginning of the process are addressed, changes identified and progress measured. Evidence will support the success of the monitoring procedure. The programme co-ordinator will review progress towards meeting the targets at the end of each year with the school co-ordinator.
Evidence will show:
- measurable progress towards achieving the standard
- impact on the school and community
- improvements as a result of the achievements of the school
- increased awareness of health issues in the school and community
- other issues that have arisen from work at the school.
Evaluation gives the opportunity to reflect on achievements and progress and to establish whether targets have been achieved. Next steps can then be addressed so that informed decisions can be made about future activities.
