Healthy schools

At Ysgol Nantgwyn, we are pleased to be part of the Welsh Network of Healthy Schools initiative which aims to promote physical, mental and social health and wellbeing of children, young people and the whole school community in schools across Wales.

  The programme focuses on 7 key health topics which schools are required to demonstrate a whole school approach towards. These topic areas are:

• 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 well-being assessments, universal and targeted provision, staff well-being, 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 and road safety).

• Hygiene (including aspects such as infection control, oral hygiene, hand washing, toilet hygiene and food hygiene)

Schools participating in the Healthy Schools programme are required to promote and embed these key topics into the school community and schools progress through six phases of the scheme by creating action plans and completing accreditations at the end of each of the phases.

Here at Ysgol Nantgwyn, we are delighted to announce that we have recently successfully completed Phase 5 of the Healthy Schools Scheme.  To achieve our Phase 5 award we focused on the health areas of Food and Fitness and Safety. 

During the assessment day our assessors spoke to members of staff, members of the pupil leadership team and pupils that have been involved in new projects and initiatives linked to our focus areas. Within our report our assessors commented that ‘the highlight of the visit was most definitely meeting with the delightful Pupil Leadership Team and representatives from the Playground Leaders. The Playground Leaders spoke eloquently and with pride about their active role in developing and introducing the new outdoor games at break times. They delighted in taking on this responsibility and explained the positive impact it has had on the well-being and behaviour of their peers’.

The assessors also carried out a tour of the whole school and visited lessons throughout the day.  They were impressed to see how the ‘passion for health and wellbeing permeated through the whole school.’  Another positive highlighted on the day was that as a school we have a ‘real knowledge and understanding of the families within the community’.  They commended staff on the work that has gone into supporting our community through fundraising and directly supporting families.

On achieving the accreditation we received a report highlighting some of the key features they identified during the visit which can be found here Phase 5 Healthy Schools Report.

Our next steps on our Healthy Schools journey are towards Phase 6 of the scheme and the National Quality Award.  Our next focus is on Environment and as part of this we are working towards our first Eco Schools Green Flag award.