Schools - local supporter case studies

English region: South East

Activities

Shalfleet Primary formed a Change4Life group comprising parents, governors and staff to focus on healthy eating, sports and leisure and general wellbeing.

The group organised a variety of activities - a Change4Life week, with skipping workshops, a healthy snacks afternoon and nutrition board games.

It also extended lunch breaks by an extra five minutes so that there was time for fun exercise activities, such as pom-pom dances.

In addition, a ‘Packed Lunch Challenge’ and a ‘Bring your own breakfast’ day put the focus on food and nutrition.

More information:
More about Shalfleet Primary School

English region: South West

Date: Ongoing

Activities

Primary school children, teachers, parents, siblings and friends took part in a mass participation dance to a special Heart FM remix of Michael Jackson’s ‘Black or White’.

The hugely successful event, co-branded with Let’s Dance with Change4Life, was promoted on the Plymouth Dance, Heart FM and Plymouth City Council websites and covered by a host of local radio and TV stations and newspapers, as well as Heart FM itself.

Reach: Around 7,000 primary school children, teachers, parents, siblings and friends

More information:
More about Plymouth Dance Explosion

English region: West Midlands

Activities

Key to the success of the Brownhills Cluster Healthy Living Project has been having parents involved in improving their children’s lifestyle.

Kicking off with a massive Fitness Festival, incorporating a mass aerobics session for parents and children, the activities involved children from the Brownhills part of the borough.

The day was a fantastic experience for all those involved and inspired both children and parents to get active! Following on from the success of the Fitness Festival, projects designed to get pupils to be more active have been commissioned across six schools in the Brownhills area.

Reach: 1,300 children, and their parents

English region: Lancashire, North West

Date: Ongoing

Activities

Healthy Heroes has been developed by the Lancashire Healthy Schools Programme. The aim is to raise awareness within primary schools of the importance of healthy eating and physical activity amongst families, which is done in a fun, interactive way with a clear incentive at the end.

Four Healthy Heroes and their side kick ‘Freddie’ are used to introduce and reinforce healthy eating and physical activity key messages through a range of activity cards. At school, kids select one or two of the activity cards to take home and work on together with their family. Each activity card contains information relating to a key message, fun activities to carry out together at home, and a ’This Week’s Challenge’.

Every time a family completes an activity, they receive a sticker to put onto a postcard to build up their ’Healthy Hero’. On completion of their hero, each family receives a reward chart to help them to continue with future activities. Each family could also be given a suitable reward, for example a family pass to use at their local leisure facilities.

The scheme has received very positive feedback from everyone involved – from pupils to parents and carers. It has also been used at Brownies.

Schools within Lancashire can contact the Lancashire Healthy Schools Programme to loan the Healthy Heroes resource box for a term. The resource box includes a teacher’s guide, class sets of the activity cards, Healthy Hero bags and equipment.

More information:
Find out more about Healthy Heroes, including resources to use at your school