Healthy Schools

We are starting our journey, working towards the ‘Healthy Schools Award’. This will build on work we have already been doing with the children on both their physical and mental health across the curriculum.

We encourage children and staff to develop positive attitudes towards health and well-being. Our aim is that teaching children about making healthy choices now will have a positive impact as they grow.

Food and nutrition is a key part to being a ‘Healthy School’. We expect all children to bring a clear water bottle, containing water each day. Access to additional water is available throughout the day (from water coolers).

Children are also asked to bring in a ‘Healthy Snack’ for break time. We ask that this should be fruits or vegetables, a cereal bar or rice cake. At lunchtimes, we would also encourage some healthy choices as well as an additional drink such as squash (nothing fizzy or and energy drink).

Our food provider, ‘Love Food’, offer a healthy lunch that is locally sourced and produced freshly for the children and staff.

Food nutrition also forms part of our curriculum, in particular Science, Design Technology and PSHE. Each year group also looks at designing and cooking healthy food items in their D.T. lessons. These lessons might inspire them to cook at home so there are lots of delicious recipes here that might be useful. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/collections/healthy_recipes_for_kids 

Physical activity is another important area of becoming a ‘Healthy School’. We have a large outdoor space which is used regularly throughout the day and across the curriculum. We use Premier Sports to teach much of the PE across the school, they also provide activities at lunchtime as well as before and after school. We also encourage the children to walk to school, holding an annual ‘Walk to School Week’. Whilst at Millbrook, the children get the opportunity to take part in Bikeability, learning how to ride on the road safely. They will also take part in swimming lessons.

As part of the PSHE curriculum, we also talk about mental health. Everyone has mental health. We often have ‘good’ mental health but sometimes, we need help, support or strategies to help to deal with things when there are challenges with our mental health or wellbeing. Children are taught strategies to help with this. We also have a wellbeing team who will work with individual or groups of children in different ways to help them deal with and manage their feelings.

Our learning environment is also crucial to this. We have been working on improving our learning environment by making it calmer and more inspired by nature. This was following research about the benefits and impact. We believe that bringing in natural elements has a positive impact on pupils’ mental health and wellbeing. There are many benefits from having plants in classrooms!