‘ChangeforLife’ – a way of life at Shalfleet School
Shalfleet has been officially recognised a number of times for its efforts in being a healthy school. In 2007 the school was awarded the prestigious National Healthy School standard and won the Isle of Wight Healthy Eating Alliance Award. In 2010, continued commitment to Healthy Eating was recognised at the Alliance evening celebrating those who have made a significant contribution to embedding healthy eating practices. In recognition of this, Lisa Nicolson, Headteacher, who appears in the Healthy Eating Alliance Award promotional video, was recently invited to attend a ministerial event at 1, Birdcage Walk in London, for a ministerial Change4Life reception where she met, and was photographed with, the Minister for Health, Andy Burnham.
Shalfleet has a thriving and proactive healthy schools committee (called ‘ChangeforLife’) who meet each half term to monitor the progress of Shalfleet as a Healthy School and to give a lead on many healthy school initiatives and activities taking place. The group includes representatives from the teaching staff, extended schools officer, parents, governors and pre-school, as well as the Head Teacher who personally takes an interest in the well being of each child. The aim of the group is to improve the standard of health and well being of all children attending Shalfleet School, through a whole child approach that encourages both understanding of a good diet (knowledge and awareness of food and nutrition) as well as the importance of regular exercise and relaxation.
There have been many, many healthy schools initiatives and activities taking place at Shalfleet in recent months, which culminated in the school being nominated for the Healthy Eating Alliance Award. Some of the recent activities include;
- ‘Bring your Parent to Breakfast Morning’ which was a great success. The children brought tasty nutritious breakfasts in to school and enjoyed sharing them together – attendees included Dads as well as Mums, Grandads and Grandmas, Governors and friends of the school.
- Healthy Lunch Box Week – the children entered a competition and judged it themselves to see who had the healthiest items in their lunchboxes! An award is given regularly each week in Collective Worship (assembly) to the child who has the Healthiest Lunch Box.
- A Family Walk took place in February in preparation for children entering Walk the Wight in May.
- Bike Maintenance classes – children enjoyed learning about the ‘M check’ which taught them how to run through their own bike safety.
- Sports Relief – celebrated the children’s sporting activities, achievements and awards. They brought in certificates from home and shared sporting stories and moments with the whole school in assembly. The school football team was celebrated, who recently made it to the semi final of the Island Primary Schools Cup.
- Exercise Diary – in which children record and recognise the activities they have engaged in during the Easter holidays.
- Fitness Friday – coming up soon!
Although the ChangeforLife events at Shalfleet help make healthy living lots of fun and accessible for all, it has really started to become a way of life for the school. The Head Teacher is involved in a training programme – Enhanced Healthy Schools -that looks at how to encourage and enable children and their families to make the change themselves, “that is so much more effective than having healthy ‘do’s and don’ts’ imposed upon you”, said Lisa.
For more information on any of the ChangeforLife activity at Shalfleet, please e-mail us Shalfleetpri@online.net, or call the school office, tel: 760269
