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Twelve percent of young people have hearing loss. From primary school onwards, children often listen to music for long periods, play games with headphones on, and watch films, series and TikToks with the volume turned all the way up. How harmful is that, really? Gezonde School spoke with Lisanne de Regt, a health psychologist specialising in hearing damage prevention at VeiligheidNL.
From 8 to 12 April, the third edition of School Garden Week will take place. An initiative of the School Garden Alliance and Jong Leren Eten. This year’s motto is: ‘Hieper de Pieper, dig a little deeper!’. On Tuesday 9 April, there will be a special edition of National Outdoor Learning Day, with the potato taking centre stage.
In the 2022–’23 school year, more than 2,000 reports were received by the Confidentiality Inspectors of the Dutch Inspectorate of Education concerning harmful behavior by students and staff. That is more than in the previous school year. A report gives the Confidentiality Inspectorate the opportunity to support the school and help create a safer climate. What can help your school make things safer? Stichting School & Veiligheid has listed it all.
Exercise Week took place from 6 to 9 November 2023. From 7 to 9 November, there were several webinars of interest to education professionals. They can all now be watched again. Part 2 features the two webinars from 8 November. The theme that day was ‘living environment’.
School gardening is becoming increasingly popular—not only in the Netherlands, but all over the world. There is now even a World Cup for school gardening! And you can take part! Does your school have a vegetable garden with children aged 3–18? Then you can register for free until the end of January.
Children and young people are experiencing increasing pressure from homework and school. According to Anita Kraak of the Netherlands Youth Institute, this performance pressure is a symptom of today’s society. “The balance has been lost. We need to let go of the idea that everything can be controlled and accept that the future is also uncertain.” Performance pressure was also the topic of the ninth episode of the NJi podcast De Jeugdkantine.
Schools wishing to create healthy, climate-resilient and naturally adventurous grounds can submit an application from 1 May 2024 through the ‘Schoolyards of the Future’ scheme. The Province of Noord-Brabant, the Brabant water authorities and the Cultuurfonds Noord-Brabant are jointly investing 1 million euros; €250,000 will be available annually for distribution over the next 4 years.
Wednesday, April 17, 2024, is the day: Stichting School & Veiligheid is organizing the annual With All Due Respect! conference for the ninth time. Once again, the conference will be held in a hybrid format, both on-site and online.
On Tuesday, 9 April, you can attend the knowledge event More physical activity throughout the school day in primary education. This event is organised by the Knowledge Centre for Sport & Physical Activity, in collaboration with the KVLO. This year, it will take place at Calo (Windesheim) in Zwolle.
From 4 to 8 March 2024, it is Spring Fever Week once again! This year’s theme is ‘Resilient online’. Children learn how to use the internet and social media safely. In the upper grades, they also learn how to protect themselves from unintentionally encountering nude images.
Students all have unique perspectives and stories about their place in the world. In the learning network ‘Citizenship & Stories’, you will explore how to create a classroom climate in which students share these stories. And how to use these stories to design citizenship education that suits the students’ context. The Citizenship Expertise Centre is organising this learning network from 21 March for primary school teachers.
All children in the Netherlands should be able to play and learn in a green and healthy schoolyard. To achieve this, IVN Nature Education director Jan Dijstelbloem presented the petition ‘All schoolyards healthy and green by 2030’ to the Education, Culture and Science (OCW) committee in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, 16 January. With the petition, which has been signed 15,677 times and is also supported by more than twenty civil society organisations, IVN is calling on the national government to take charge of the nationwide approach to schoolyards. TV nature presenter Tim Hogenbosch (KRO-NCRV) and three pupils from the Zuidwalschool in The Hague were also present at the presentation.
Teaching media literacy at school is difficult enough as it is. But how do you involve parents so that media literacy does not disappear completely from the agenda outside school hours? Linda van Aalderen of Myndr, a partner of Netwerk Mediawijsheid, collected their best tips in three separate steps.
This school year, you can once again request free vegetable garden seeds, because discovering and experiencing a vegetable garden for yourself is effective, fun and educational! Are you a teacher of Year 1, 2, 3 or 4? From Thursday, 11 January 2024, you can request a free vegetable garden package containing ten types of seeds. Order now and get started with the Vegetable Garden Taste Mission! The packages will be delivered to the school at the beginning of March.
No more sharing photos via Snapchat or sending a TikTok video during class. As of 1 January 2024, the guideline in secondary education is that smartphones may only be used for educational purposes. Primary and special education will follow in the new school year. How can your school deal effectively with this change? Gezonde School spoke, among others, with Freek Zwanenberg of Bureau Jeugd & Media.
Sufficient, varied and intensive physical activity has a positive effect on children's physical and mental development. But how do you ensure that your school playground meets this need? With the Toolkit for School Playgrounds from the Knowledge Centre for Sport & Physical Activity, you gain insight into the extent to which your school's playground challenges children to be physically active and receive concrete tips to help children move sufficiently, in varied ways and intensively. The toolkit is intended for professionals in primary education.
Playing outside in winter should become second nature. While children have been playing outside less and less over the past few decades, the lack of fresh air and exercise is especially severe during the winter months. To turn the tide, IVN Nature Education and childcare organisation Humankind are organising the ‘In the Heart of Winter’ campaign for the third time this year. From Monday 8 January, more than 3,100 childcare locations and around 100,000 children across the country will take part.
In 2023, Breda had been a JOGG municipality for 12.5 years. To mark the occasion, Glos Educatief created a beautiful magazine on behalf of the Municipality of Breda, JOGG Breda and GGD West-Brabant. The publication shows how the collaboration has helped place health higher on the agenda in Breda.
Thanks to the Jong Leren Eten programme, a one-year pilot will start in three provinces in 2024, with a regional school gardening coordinator getting to work. They are Daniek Bosch (Limburg), Wieke Bonthuis (Gelderland) and Hannelore Börger (Overijssel).
Charge Your Brainzzz has recently been recognized as the first Healthy School activity for the theme of Sleep. New Healthy School activities are recognized regularly. You can use Healthy School activities to work on a healthy lifestyle at school. All Healthy School activities are of good quality and easy to implement in practice. They have been assessed on these criteria by an independent committee. There are Healthy School activities for primary education, specialized education, secondary education, and vocational education. In addition to Charge Your Brainzzz, The Lab of Life, Food Challenge, and Move a-Head 1 + 1 = 3 were also recognized as Healthy School activities.
The theme of the 2024 Week of Spring Fever is ‘Resilient Online.’ This is about making children resilient online. In the upper grades, it also covers the influence of social media and how to protect children from unintentionally encountering pornographic nude images. Normally, the national project week takes place in the third week of March, at the start of spring. Due to Ramadan, the national Week of Spring Fever will take place from 4 to 8 March in 2024. The Week of Spring Fever is organised by Rutgers in collaboration with the regional GGD public health services.
Professionals in education, healthcare and policy work together on well-being from the basis of a sustainable, shared vision: that is the message of Well-being at School. Why is this integrated approach so important? And why does it work better than choosing separate actions and solutions? The short answer: we know this from scientific research.
Can bullying be prevented in the classroom?! School & Safety is organising a free webinar on 10 January 2024 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. During the webinar, teachers will receive five tips that really work in the classroom. In conversation with scientists and teachers, teachers will be given practical tools to create a safe and pleasant atmosphere in the classroom, where bullying has no chance.
From 8 to 12 April 2024, the third edition of School Garden Week will take place. It is organised by the School Garden Alliance, on 9 April in collaboration with IVN Outdoor Lesson Day. Especially for supporters, the School Garden Alliance is organising an online information session on 23 January 2024 from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Margarethaschool (Arnhem) and CBS De Waterhof (Delft) have been nominated for the Most Sporty Primary School in the Netherlands 2024. The winner will be announced on 9 April 2024. This is the twelfth time that KVLO (Royal Dutch Association for Physical Education) and the Knowledge Centre for Sport & Physical Activity have organised this competition, this time in close cooperation with CALO Windesheim.
Motor Skills Week took place from 6 to 9 November 2023. From 7 to 9 November, there were various webinars of interest to education professionals. They can all now be watched again. Part 1 contains the 2 webinars from 7 November. The theme that day was ‘life stages’.
Friday, 8 December is Purple Friday. This day is celebrated every year on the second Friday of December. Purple Friday celebrates that everyone can be themselves, regardless of gender (identity) or sexual orientation. Schools that participate turn the school purple, with sweaters, flags, posters and more, for example. Many schools also organise special lessons or other activities. Healthy School has listed six initiatives.
Are you a mainstream primary school where at least one class in the upper grades (groups 5–8) is taking school garden lessons for the first year? Then Wageningen University & Research (WUR) is looking for you!
Many teachers cook with their students during the month of December. Are you also looking for inspiration and information for this? The Netherlands Nutrition Centre provides tips for cooking healthily, sustainably and safely in primary and secondary education.
In the Irish town of Greystones, just below Dublin, all eight primary schools, together with sports clubs and parents, have agreed that primary school pupils may not have smartphones: not at school, not at home and not in their free time. The reason for the experiment is that the parties are concerned about the mental health of primary school pupils.