International partnerships are becoming an invaluable way for schools to promote healthy lifestyles to young people

We are facing a health crisis, it seems. Not only are we seeing soaring rates of obesity and diabetes, but a reported one in five adults in Britain is overweight, with nine per cent of boy s and 13 per cent of girls between the ages of five and 16 classified as obese.

The result? As a nation, we’re creating a ticking time bomb of health problems. These overweight children and young people are at greater risk of contracting conditions such as coronary heart disease, cancer and type II diabetes later in life, and even dying prematurely.

So what can schools do to help work these flabby statistics into better shape? Many teachers are discovering just how effective a focus on international activities can be. Take Chalfont St Peter Church of England School in Buckinghamshire, for example, where an international dimension has been added to an allotment project that was initially established to encourage children to learn about healthy eating and environmental issues.

Sharing culinary traditions promotes healthy eating

“Our gardening club – which includes parents as well as staff and pupils – dug the allotment ground over and planted all sorts of food, from potatoes to cabbages and rhubarb,” saysHeadteacher John Underwood. “Now, though, we’re also sharing our gardening successes and failures with a partner school – the Bluebells School in Delhi – as part of our DCSF International School Award work.”

Using ‘food’ as a central topic, students communicate with their counterparts in Delhi using e-mail and a remote control whiteboard. “The big plus to having an international dimension here is that it enriches the healthy eating message both schools are trying to promote,” John says. “Students really enjoy sharing information on the different tastes and culinary traditions in their respective countries, and on how their schools promote healthy eating.

“It’s also opened our students’ eyes to the difficulties and similarities in providing food for the population in both India and the UK, and has proved a great cross-curricular opportunity for staff, involving life cycles and environmental issues as well as health.”

Sporting events with French partner improve fitness and languages

At the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe, a joint curriculum project through the Anglo-French programme is in progress with a partner in France, covering sport, languages, ICT and Citizenship. Students from both schools are invo l ved in exchanging information by e-mail about their nations’ cultural similarities and differences, all through the common vehicle of sport.

“In November 2007 students from the French School [the Lycée Arago in Perpignan] visited us, staying with host families,” explains programme co-ordinator Shradha Tan. “During their stay they took part in joint rugby and cricket training sessions, held in English as the language of the host country, and visited cultural and sporting venues. Our own students took part in a similar programme in France in February this year, trying their hands at badminton and handball, with all the coaching sessions being held in French.”

The project has enhanced both teaching and learning in the curriculum areas concerned and widely promoted the merits of both sport and language learning. Shradha says: “Because sport’s a common language in itself, the programme’s worked really well as a way of promoting a better cultural understanding between the two schools. And of course, the students who took part got plenty of healthy physical exercise, too.”

An added benefit for both the Royal Grammar School and Chalfont St Peter is that both their projects closely address the National Healthy Schools Programme, which promotes a whole school approach to health. Schools need to satisfy criteria in the programme’s four core themes: healthy eating, PSHE, emotional health and well-being, and physical activity.

Schools fulfil health initiatives by encouraging involvement in physical activity

Thanks to the increasing government emphasis on children and health, initiatives like this are helping to build a momentum for change in schools. Every Child Matters has been a key initiative in this regard, putting children’s and young people’s health firmly in the spotlight and emphasising that being healthy is essential if young people are to get the best out of life and fulfil their potential. Then there’s the Children’s Plan, launched in December 2007, whose goals for enhancing well-being and reducing obesity include an investment of £225m over the next three years in activities, facilities and parks for children and young people.

Similar schemes are in place throughout the UK. In Scotland, the Health Promoting Schools scheme places a duty on local authorities to ensure that all of their schools are health promoting environments. Wales has the 5x60 programme, which aims to increase the number of secondary age pupils taking part in sport or physical activity for 60 minutes, at least five times a week.

“Getting involved in international part n e r s h i p s with a focus on sport obviously benefits schools looking to create an awareness of health and physical activity, but there’s more to it than that,” says Nick Pink of the Youth Sport Trust. “Because sport is such a great enabler, allowing people to articulate universal themes and feelings in a safe space – winning, losing, being p a rt of a team, giving of your best – it’s especially suitable as a tool for cultural relations.

“One of our most successful initiatives is Dreams + Teams, which is managed by the British Council in collaboration with the Youth Sport Trust. It aims to develop leadership skills, active citizenship and international awareness through sport and international educational links, and what’s so positive about the programme is that everybody can participate. It’s not about sport for sport’s sake, but about being inclusive, about involving girls as well as boys and people of different ages and empowering them to take a lead and develop more life skills.”

Outdoor games cross the border in Ireland

Using a school partnership as a way to encourage pupils to get more involved with sport has certainly worked well for Millburn Primary School in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Through the NCompasS Project, Millburn recently undertook three programmes with two schools across the border in Donegal, Republic of Ireland.

“Our aim was simply to introduce students to healthier foods and give them the opportunity to try new sports and outdoor activities,” explains Headteacher John Platt. Part of the focus was to involve parents and grandparents in a look at healthy living through the generations, which, John reports produced some fantastic responses from the children and reaped dividends in terms of parental involvement in the school.

“ We also devised special activity programmes so that when we hosted the children from Donegal on cross- border visits, they got involved with what they would normally call ‘ P rotestant’ sports, such as cricket and rugby. Conversely, our students tried such things as hurling and Gaelic football,” says John. “All this produced some fascinating explorations of how diversity can be seen as a strength. Sport is a common language, after all, no matter what your religion or background happens to be.”

Melissa de Villiers is an independent education journalist

More information & getting started

Find out more about how international programmes can support healthy living themes, get project ideas and discover funding opportunities at www.globalgateway.org/healthy

For information on accreditation through the DCSF International School Award, visit www.globalgateway.org/isa

For links with France through the Anglo- French programme, visit www. britishcouncil. org/ schoolpartnerships- france The NCompasS project offers p a rtnerships between schools in N o rthern Ireland and the border region of Ireland. To find out more, visit www.ncompass.org

For information about Dreams+ Teams, visit www.britishcouncil.org/dreams

To find out more about the Youth Sport Trust, visit www.youthsporttrust.org