Healthy school lunches, lessons about nutrition, school fruit, healthy treats, more exercise, active outdoor play: more and more primary schools are recognising the importance of a healthy lifestyle for their pupils and want to work with children and parents to promote health.

At the school gates, we can clearly see this trend reflected in the growing number of declarations, certificates and quality marks in which schools make clear that they consider health important and pay attention to nutrition, exercise and lifestyle in all kinds of ways.

The Healthy Primary School of the Future goes a step further and translates this approach into adjustments to timetables, teaching materials and agreements with childcare providers and municipalities. And what does this show? Healthy pupils feel better – literally and figuratively – and perform better (Maastricht University).

Nevertheless, the road to healthy and vital pupils is not without obstacles: the snack bar is just around the corner, the tablet beckons, unhealthy behaviour is persistent, parents do not always cooperate, teachers lack time, funding is difficult and some families have other things on their minds (poverty, illness, divorce, etc.).

Questions

The webinar ‘A healthy lifestyle for pupils: just get started’ provides facts and examples of how schools can work on (positive) health in an accessible way. The questions addressed include:

  • What does it mean in practice to be a school focused on health?
  • What are the advantages and disadvantages? Why should a school strive for this?
  • What tips are there for pupils, teachers and school administrators to keep moving forward?
  • How can the Positive Health Child Tool be helpful?
  • How can you get parents involved in health promotion?
  • What does the rest of the local collaboration look like (youth healthcare, municipality, childcare)?
  • How does national policy relate to regional initiatives?

Programme/speakers

  • Introduction: Hans Christiaanse (Education and Youth Network Adviser at Alles is Gezondheid).
  • Practical case: interview with Mariëlle Siebelt (Principal of De Regenboog Primary School in Enschede). About how a school can start small, how to organise it and what it can easily achieve (children exercise for one hour a day with the help of physical education teachers and sports interns).
  • Implementation: Elise Beket (Youth Physician at GGD Flevoland) explains how to give the Healthy School quality mark real meaning and which collaborative partners schools can approach to realise their health ambitions (who does what).
  • Innovation in the region: Maartje Willeboordse (lecturer and researcher at Maastricht University). She discusses the results of the Healthy Primary School of the Future, how worthwhile it is for schools to invest in health and what the costs look like.

Who is it for?

Professionals in primary education, childcare, youth healthcare, local government and the fields of sport, exercise and green spaces.

When

The (live) broadcast will take place on Thursday, 4 February 2021, from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. You can ask questions via the chat during the webinar.

Registration

Participation is free. You do not need to install anything: registering with your email address is sufficient. Register via this link.

Resilience and Education Movement

This webinar takes place in the context of #MissieVeerkracht and the Resilience and Education Movement, with support from the Netherlands Centre for Youth Health (NCJ), the Institute for Positive Health (iPH) and the Federatie voor Gezondheid.

The Resilience and Education Movement builds on an opinion article in Financiële Dagblad (4 July 2020) that endorsed Mission Resilience. We do not want to leave it at words. With small steps, we are continuing to work towards the larger goal: making greater use of education as a source of resilience and health.