Healthy school

Joep Kusters is a teacher and internationalisation coordinator at Pallas Athene College in Ede, a secondary school for VMBO, HAVO and VWO. They have been working for some time to make the school ‘healthier’. For example, the candy and soft-drink vending machines have been removed, and the unhealthy choices in the cafeteria are less visible or not visible at all. Candy, for instance, is kept in a drawer, while the wholemeal bread rolls are placed at the front. Most of the available food is now healthy.

Cultural change

Do these measures work? Are the students eating more healthily? Much research has shown that they are. “Of course, we know that some students now go to the supermarket during breaks or free periods,” says Joep Kusters. “We hear about that, but you cannot prevent it; we cannot prohibit it. For us, the basis is that we are working on cultural change. We want to work towards a culture in which health is important and eating mindfully is too. We want to serve as a role model and give students insight into nutrition and health. A school exists to transfer knowledge, so we can play an important role.”

Education

One of the ways in which some teachers at Pallas Athene address health in education is through challenges. “Recently, for example, there was a challenge to eat no sugar for one week or no meat for one week. We also provide information: why is it important, and what does it do to your body? In this way, we pass on knowledge that students can benefit from and that will hopefully also reach their families. Every student we convince and give something to take away is a gain. Sometimes only a few students in a class are immediately enthusiastic; we then use them to get the rest involved as well.”

Together with the students

“It is important to look at a healthy lifestyle at school together with the students. If you examine what needs to happen together with the students, you create much more support.” This is also the basis of the major European project led by Pallas Athene: ‘Healthy Inclusive Lifestyle through Schools’. Joep Kusters wrote this project, which guarantees exchanges for students from eight different countries over a period of three years.

Grant

Last year, his project received an Erasmus+ grant of half a million euros from the European Union. A substantial grant: “These kinds of grants usually go to municipalities or higher education institutions; we are the only school ever to have received such a grant. It has been years since such a large grant was awarded to a Dutch project. It shows how important this theme is for young people throughout Europe.”

Healthy Inclusive Lifestyle through Schools

The HILS project is an exchange project in which students from schools in eight different countries take part in exchanges (the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, France, Italy and the United Kingdom). Seven themes are addressed. In addition to nutrition and exercise, these are mental health, body image & social media, and alcohol, smoking and drugs. Within each theme, students from different countries discuss together, under the guidance of experts, what could be done in that area. “We will see what recommendations emerge from this and whether we can implement them. But the exchange itself, the conversations, contact with students from other countries and staying with a host family already have such a major impact on students that this alone makes the project worthwhile. You see students grow during such a period. We try to ensure that as many students as possible can take part in an exchange. We regularly receive many more requests than we have places available.”

A special experience

This is also evident from the story of Annemarijn (14), a fourth-year VWO student who went to Slovenia in 2019. “It was great; I really enjoyed myself. I thought it was such a special experience. It is a beautiful country and very hospitable too, which I found so special to experience. We covered the theme of ‘mental health’ in workshops, which we did with children from all eight countries. All kinds of tips came out of them, for example, how to sleep better or how to use certain scents to influence your mindset. We wrote a report about our whole experience when we got back. But what stayed with me most was the contact in between, speaking English and learning from one another. For example, about what everyday life is like in other countries and how things work at school there. The next exchanges will take place in Spain and Finland; other students will go there, so everyone gets a chance to participate. When the project is concluded, this will take place in the Netherlands, and the entire school can take part.”

Measuring impact

What Joep Kusters wants to achieve with this project is for students to develop a healthier lifestyle and for a knock-on effect to emerge. “For example, we would really like them to take their knowledge home, for parents to become involved, and for students to indicate at home what healthier choices are.” To measure this, each school conducts surveys for every theme. “We conduct around 200 to 300 surveys per school, and when the theme has been completed, we conduct the surveys again. This allows us to see what has changed.” The first two exchanges have taken place; they were to Slovenia and Spain. Due to COVID-19, the next exchanges have been postponed until at least after January 2021.

Results

For Joep, the most important result is that students develop a healthy lifestyle at a young age and grow into healthy adults. “Our ultimate goal is for all students to get the most out of their lives. With good nutrition and sufficient exercise, everyone feels better and can perform at their best, including in further education and work. Ultimately, a school alone cannot solve the problem; everyone is responsible, but we hope that we are making our contribution through this. We hope that the parents will also become involved through the students and take something away from it. And that the students will carry this knowledge with them into their adult lives.” The project will run for three years, but will take longer due to COVID-19 because a number of exchanges could not go ahead. The expected end date is now 2024. The results of this project will be shared at a major conference to be organised in Ede.

Tips for other schools

Would your school also like to start working on a healthier lifestyle? According to Joep, the most important thing is to connect with the motivation of teachers and the school management. “There are often teachers or a headteacher who are enthusiastic about this theme, and that works best. By connecting with someone’s personal motivation and with the ideas that teachers or students themselves come up with, the most successful projects emerge. It is also important to involve the students and set up a project together. It is very important that the school management is enthusiastic. There are quite many grant opportunities available for materials and other costs.”

More information

Source: Eetbaar Ede.