In January 2010, the Department of Children Schools and Families and the Department of Health launched a new approach to health in schools, the enhancement model for health and well being in schools.
This new model is driven by the needs of children and young people, particularly those who are most “vulnerable” and focused on delivering improved outcomes.
It builds on the foundations set by national Healthy Schools status,emphasising a whole school community approach to health improvement, including the active involvement of children and young people and making wider links to the local school community.
Piloting enhancement in Kirklees
The Health in Schools enhancement model has been designed to help schools develop the wider thinking and planning needed to be done, in order to achieve better outcomes for children and young people around health and well-being. In Kirklees this will be supported at school cluster level through the active involvement of children and young people to gain a broad picture of need and to engage children and young people in the planning to meet those needs.
The Kirklees Health in Schools partnership with the support of the local developing Children’s Trust have set out a model to pilot enhancement in Kirklees with support from the Health in Schools team and partnership.
This initial pilot approach will commence from April 2010 with presentations to schools to take part in the pilots in the summer term. The Health in Schools team will keep all schools informed of the work in these school cluster areas as it is developing. This will be done via the Health in Schools website and the newsletter sent out every term.
There is also the on-going support we will be offering to all schools still working to National Healthy Schools status (NHSS) and to schools working on their annual review, designed to maintain the foundations established through the NHSS. This support will involve peer/network support meetings each term. Information and dates of these ‘Twilight sessions’ will be posted to the website when they are finalised, and will also be e-mailed to schools.
Letters were sent out to schools in December 2009 to outline these changes, and all letters can be accessed here.