Cardiff Healthy Schools Team
7 key Health Topics
The Cardiff Healthy Schools team within the Cardiff Education Service supports all schools across the Local Authority to achieve a whole school approach to promoting health and wellbeing. There are seven key health topics:
- Food and Fitness (including aspects such as food and drink provision, healthy eating and practical cooking, hydration, physical education and active play)
- Mental and Emotional Health and Well Being (including aspects such as pupil wellbeing assessments, universal and targeted provision, staff wellbeing, and anti-bullying)
- Personal Development and Relationships (including Relationships and Sexuality Education)
- Substance Use and Misuse (including aspects such as medicines, smoking, alcohol and drugs)
- Environment (linking to the Eco Schools programme, Fairtrade and the school environment)
- Safety (including aspects such as safeguarding, e-safety, sun safety, road safety)
- Hygiene (including aspects such as infection control, oral hygiene, hand-washing, toilet hygiene, food hygiene)
A Whole School Approach
To develop and embed a whole school approach to each health topic, the following aspects are addressed:
- Leadership and Communication – Policy and procedures, staff training, linking with local and national initiatives
- Curriculum – Ensuring the use of relevant resources and linking to the new Curriculum for Wales, along with out-of-hours provision
- Ethos and Environment – Including pupil voice and participation, staff involvement and an environment that supports health and wellbeing
- Family and Community Involvement – involvement of parents/carers/families and governors, linking with local partner organisations
Every school in Cardiff has a designated Healthy Schools Officer, who directly supports coordinators in each school to actively promote and embed these key topics into the school community. Schools progress through the scheme by creating action plans and completing accreditations at the end of each phase. Schools then continue their progression by achieving the National Quality Award (NQA). The NQA is a prestigious, independently assessed award, celebrating a school’s commitment to health and wellbeing of their pupils, staff and whole school community.
How do the Healthy Schools team support schools?
- School support visits to action plan around the 7 key health topics
- Complete local phase accreditations, where schools achieve a plaque of recognition
- Working with partner agencies and signposting schools to relevant support
- Deliver and facilitate staff training on a range of health topics.
- Developing resources and toolkits to assist with curriculum delivery
- Developing relevant policy templates
- Sharing and loaning resources to support these key topics
- Organising networking events for schools and partner organisations
- Sharing information through e-bulletins, newsletters and social media.
If your school would like further help with the scheme, contact your Healthy Schools Officer.
Health and Well-being home activities for families
Below is a list of resources and support agencies which may help school staff, pupils and parents/carers, during this time of self-isolation at home. Please feel free to share and also tag the Cardiff Healthy Schools team on Twitter with any activities: @CdfHealthySch
Sections
1. Websites with health and wellbeing activities
2. Other Information hubs
3. Mental and Emotional Support for children and young people – Websites, phone lines, text services
4. Information and support services for parents/carers
A Directory to Support Healthy Relationships Education
The Cardiff Healthy Schools and Curriculum for Life teams within the Cardiff Education Service have developed a directory to help schools access support and services regarding Healthy Relationships education.
Download the resource in English (2mb PDF)
Download the supporting spreadsheet in English (43kb XLSX)
Talking to Your Child About Puberty and Relationships
Parents and carers across Wales are helping their children to do school work from home and this has been a learning curve for many of us! One aspect that may not have been thought about at the beginning is helping your child to learn about growing up, relationships and personal safety.
The Cardiff Healthy Schools team have pulled together some website links and suggestions for online resources that can help parent/carers access relevant resources to support these discussions.
Primary Age Resources
Download the primary age resource in English (0.7mb PDF)
Download the primary age resource in Welsh (0.7mb PDF)
Secondary Age Resources
Talking to Your Child About Puberty and Relationships
Parents and carers across Wales are helping their children to do school work from home and this has been a learning curve for many of us! One aspect that may not have been thought about at the beginning is helping your child to learn about growing up, relationships and personal safety.
The Cardiff Healthy Schools team have pulled together some website links and suggestions for online resources that can help parent/carers access relevant resources to support these discussions.
Primary Age Resources
Download the primary age resource in English (0.7mb PDF)
Download the primary age resource in Welsh (0.7mb PDF)
Secondary Age Resources
Healthy Lunch Boxes for Us
The Cardiff Healthy Schools Team have put together some useful information to support students / parents / carers to prepare healthy packed lunches. This information is being provided as some schools will temporarily stop providing school meals due to COVID-19 and some families may be new to making packed lunches.
Useful websites and apps
The whole school community of staff, students and parents/carers may find it useful to look at some recommended websites and useful apps. Students may like to carry out some research and create a leaflet of information for their school, as a home/school activity.
‘Change 4 Life’ Healthier Lunchboxes
www.nhs.uk/change4life/recipes/healthierlunchboxes
The website has good images of lunch box ideas. It refers to the Eatwell Guide and encourages families to choose a main dish, add some fruit or salad, add a little something else, as well as a drink. There are useful tips for example ‘ever green’ always add salad to sandwiches, as it counts towards your child’s 5 A DAY. ‘Swap the fruit bars’, ‘swap the sweets’, ‘watch the teeth!’.
‘Change 4 Life’ Food Scanner App
Find out how much sugar, saturated fat, salt and calories are in food and drinks. Just find a food or drink barcode and scan it to see what’s inside. It also identifies healthier snack choices you could make. Once you have downloaded the app you can use it at home or whilst out shopping for items to be part of a lunch box.
British Nutrition Foundation – Food a Fact of Life
www.foodafactoflife.org.uk/
Great website with resources on healthy eating in general, the Eatwell Guide and healthy lunchboxes. Includes ‘The Amazing Lunchbox’ story and
resources. See specific information about healthy lunchboxes on this page.
Veg Power
If you’d like to encourage your child to eat more vegetables, have a look at the Veg Power UK website where there are downloadable activities and recipes.
Hygiene considerations
Top tips for keeping your lunchbox clean and cool:
- Wash your hands before making the packed lunch
- Wash fruit and vegetables
- Clean and dry your lunchbox properly every day
- If sandwiches / food is prepared the previous evening, always store in a fridge overnight
- If possible, use an insulated lunch bag and keep it clean with antibacterial spray
- Use ice packs or a frozen bottle of water to keep food cool
- Don’t forget to keep the lunch box cool at school; make sure it is stored in a place that is away from radiators and warm/sunny areas.
- Children must follow the school’s guidance for COVID-19 when eating their packed lunch in school e.g. washing hands before eating and not sharing food
Recipes
- Crunchy coleslaw
- Basic tomato salsa
- Cheese and herb scones
- Easy pizzas
- Fruit and savoury muffins
- Fruit crumble flapjacks
- Fruity cheesecake pots
- Healthy wraps
- Homemade tortillas chips
- Me Size pizzas
- Rainbow couscous salad
- Sunshine pasta salad
We are pleased that Cooking Together Wales will be producing videos on how to make a range of these recipes. These videos will be available on the Cooking Together Wales website: www.cookingtogether.co.uk/healthy-lunchboxes and you can also check out the ‘Cooking Together Wales’ Facebook page, and Twitter (@cook_together1). The Cardiff Healthy Schools team will promote the videos on our Twitter page @CdfHealthySch – Tag us in with any recipe photos you post on social media!
Useful Information
Cardiff Healthy Schools – Healthy Lunch Box Info (Primary)
Cardiff Healthy Schools – Healthy Lunch Box Info (Secondary)
‘Change 4 Life’ Lunchbox leaflet (pdf 0.5mb)
This leaflet is suitable for families with children in Key Stage 3.
Welsh Government Healthy Lunchbox leaflet 2019
The Welsh Government A4 leaflet links to the Eatwell Guide and food labelling. This can be shared with the whole school community.
The Cardiff Healthy Schools team is a part of the Council’s Education Service and Public Health Wales’ – Welsh Network of Healthy School Schemes (WNHSS). The WNHSS was launched in 1999 and ‘The World Health Organisation (WHO) recognises the WNHSS as playing a key role in promoting the health of children and young people’.