Workshop on health-promoting primary school work
Eight of Hafnarfjörður's ten primary schools are currently Healthy Promoting Schools. This involves creating a school environment that promotes the mental, physical and social health and well-being of pupils and staff, in collaboration with their homes and the local community.
Health-promoting primary school representatives in Hafnarfjörður share health-promoting ideas and experiences.
Eight out of ten of Hafnarfjörður's primary schools are currently healthy schools. In the run-up to Easter, the City of Hafnarfjörður, in collaboration with the Office of the Chief Medical Officer, held a workshop at Hafnarborg where representatives from all primary schools were invited to participate. Ingibjörg Guðmundsdóttir, project manager for the Health-Promoting School Programme at the Office of the Chief Medical Officer, delivered the opening address. In her opening address, she discussed the value and benefits for the entire school community of participating in the Healthy School project, and also introduced participants to how easy it is to begin the process of becoming a healthy school. Following this, representatives from most of the primary schools presented various interesting projects related to health promotion. Each school is undertaking numerous health-promoting projects, whether it is a participant in the project run by the Chief Medical Officer or not.
Healthy diet, exercise, well-being and measurement of status and progress
Öldutúnsskóli introduced an outdoor activity option for the school's oldest pupils, where they get to experience the great outdoors, and also introduced the elective course "Fimmvörðuháls". NÚ presented several carefully selected school projects, one of which is about increasing healthy eating and exercise and measuring the results. What made the project even more interesting was that pupils earned points for taking part, but if parents also joined in, extra points were awarded, so that, in the end, the project became a health boost for the whole family. Skarðshlíðarskóli presented its Mile Project, where pupils walk and run for 10-15 minutes every day, and the benefits of such a project are considerable for the pupils. Hjördís Jónsdóttir, Head of Department at Áslandsskóli, presented the findings from her master's thesis, 'The vision and priorities of headteachers regarding the well-being of teachers in primary schools', and Sigurlaug Rúna Guðmundsdóttir from Hraunvallaskóli presented the European project, health promotion in school life and quality assessment. Ragnhildur Einarsdóttir from Lækjarskóli presented Lækjarskóli's secrets regarding the 2023 Life Course, as the school won this year's primary school competition. Ragnheiður Ólafsdóttir and Hreiðar Gíslason spoke about Víðistaðaskóli's focus on health promotion.
A school environment that promotes mental, physical and social health and well-being
Health-promoting schools are intended to support schools in working purposefully towards health promotion in their work.. This involves creating a school environment that promotes the mental, physical and social health and well-being of pupils and staff, in collaboration with homes and the local community. Schools develop a holistic and well-structured health policy that considers the entire school community as a whole. Implementation also includes access to a website on www.heilsueflandi.is, which is an electronic system where each primary school manages its health promotion work.
An approach for future use in school work
A health-promoting school is not a project with a beginning and an end, but an approach that can be used in the work for the future. Each primary school works at its own pace, and it is anticipated that the school will take up to a year for preparation. The preparatory work involves forming a steering group, reviewing the school's situation, establishing a health policy, and completing a checklist on a private online portal to which participating schools have access. There, each school can assess its own position and subsequently monitor its targeted health promotion work. Participation is free of charge for primary schools and no preparatory work is required before applying. The Healthy Promoting School is the result of development work carried out in collaboration with numerous stakeholders. In developing the Healthy Promoting School, material from the Association of Schools for Health in Europe (SHE) was used as a basis.