1. Check and plan

Is your school a Healthy School? Then you can check whether you are still on track with the action plan you drew up. For example, conduct a quick evaluation to gain insight into this. Or retrieve the plan and define new actions for the coming period.

Not a Healthy School yet, but do you aspire to become one? Then get started with the Healthy School approach. There is a useful step-by-step plan for primary education, special education, secondary education and vocational education. If necessary, call in a Healthy School adviser!

2. Involve the entire school

Share the plans with everyone at school, as well as with parents and carers. For example, make room for Healthy School news in every newsletter. This creates greater clarity and support. Even better is to involve pupils or students, parents, carers and colleagues in drawing up the plans or carrying out actions. Do they have any ideas or wishes for this year? You can also ask this through the newsletter, at a parents’ evening or at a meeting of the student council, for example.

Would you like to know more about creating support and involving pupils or students and parents and carers? Check the success factors in the step-by-step plan for primary education, special education, secondary education or vocational education.

3. Incorporate a healthy lifestyle into lessons

If you teach a class, you can prepare how a healthy lifestyle will feature in your lessons. For example: your school is working on the Wellbeing theme. You can then schedule extra activities around the Anti-Bullying Week. Would you like to incorporate the Exercise and Sport theme into your lessons? Then consider adding more movement: have your pupils or students move during the lesson. There is often a way to link the lesson material to a theme. For more inspiration, read, for example, 7 ways to incorporate nutrition into the school day.

4. Organise a spectacular launch

The start of the school year can be a festive occasion that you celebrate in a healthy way. Consider classroom activities focused on group formation (the Wellbeing theme). Or a school opening with exercise games (the Exercise and Sport theme), healthy snacks (the Nutrition theme) and sowing seeds (the Environment and Nature theme). Has progress been made with the Healthy School approach over the past year? That can be celebrated too, during a school opening or at another time at the start of the school year. Share your pride and, for example, invite local media or the Healthy School editorial team to take a look behind the scenes. Perhaps quite literally!

Would you like to organise something but are not yet sure what activity would suit the school? Get inspiration from the stories of other schools.

5. Keep developing

A school becomes and remains healthy more easily when its staff also know how to work effectively on a healthy lifestyle. The Healthy School e-learning course can help with this: in 45 minutes, you will learn how to work towards becoming a Healthy School. It is useful for ‘beginners’ and as a refresher course, making it ideal to share with colleagues. Training is also available through incentive schemes. So check what options are available.

Is your school already working on a particular theme? Take the opportunity to explore it in greater depth. You could, for example, organise a workshop on a theme for the entire team or take a training course that fits a particular Healthy School activity. Healthy School activities are available for primary education, special education, secondary education and vocational education.

6. Stay up to date with Healthy School

Would you like to know how other schools are working on a healthy lifestyle at school? Or how best to work on a particular health theme? Healthy School regularly shares advice, tips, background information, practical stories and news. Want to stay up to date? Then sign up for the newsletter and follow the social media channels: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.