demography but very different levels of obesity indicates that the schools’ own interventions are not likely to be having an impact on weight. Ethos and management Across the sample of schools we visited, the overwhelming balance was towards schools that considered themselves to have an ethos that emphasised the importance of healthy lifestyles: school as a whole are totally behind the ethos of preparing ‘The children to be resilient and make good choices in life, including having healthy lifestyles.’ subject leaders see the bigger picture, not simply their own subject, ‘All and consider that PE and sports and healthy eating have a high profile in the school because of the determination to support each child’s physical and emotional well-being and understanding of a healthy lifestyle.’ Of all the schools visited, there was only one where the inspector noted that enthusiasm was not shared across the school: is not a very sporty local community… Whole-school leadership and ‘It coordination is lacklustre; middle leadership is enthusiastic.’ More than half (59%) of the schools said they had a food plan. All but two of the schools had a named person with specific responsibility for healthy eating or PE. Most commonly, the named individual responsible for the area of healthy eating was a middle leader (79%). Similarly, all but two schools indicated that had provided their staff with training on some aspect of healthy living over the past two years, primarily either health and well-being (37% of all training) or sports/PE (52%). One quarter of training was offered to all staff. A slightly smaller proportion of teachers/teaching staff and specialist staff were provided with training opportunities. Most schools’ training took one to two days. Some training sessions were reported to have been up to three hours long and happened as one-off training. In two schools, training was long as three to five days. Most schools said that when training or development activities had been offered this had had an impact. Commonly, when schools had offered specialist training on particular physical activities (such as gymnastics, swimming, dance), this had increased teachers’ confidence to teach. Some schools reported that teachers being more knowledgeable had increased take-up of that sport.
demography but very different levels of obesity indicates that the schools’ own interventions are not likely to be having an impact on weight. Ethos and management Across the sample of schools we visited, the overwhelming balance was towards schools that considered themselves to have an ethos that emphasised the importance of healthy lifestyles: ‘The school as a whole are totally behind the ethos of preparing children to be resilient and make good choices in life, including having healthy lifestyles.’ ‘All subject leaders see the bigger picture, not simply their own subject, and consider that PE and sports and healthy eating have a high profile in the school because of the determination to support each child’s physical and emotional well-being and understanding of a healthy lifestyle.’ Of all the schools visited, there was only one where the inspector noted that enthusiasm was not shared across the school: ‘It is not a very sporty local community… Whole-school leadership and coordination is lacklustre; middle leadership is enthusiastic.’ More than half (59%) of the schools said they had a food plan. All but two of the schools had a named person with specific responsibility for healthy eating or PE. Most commonly, the named individual responsible for the area of healthy eating was a middle leader (79%). Similarly, all but two schools indicated that had provided their staff with training on some aspect of healthy living over the past two years, primarily either health and well-being (37% of all training) or sports/PE (52%). One quarter of training was offered to all staff. A slightly smaller proportion of teachers/teaching staff and specialist staff were provided with training opportunities. Most schools’ training took one to two days. Some training sessions were reported to have been up to three hours long and happened as one-off training. In two schools, training was long as three to five days. Most schools said that when training or development activities had been offered this had had an impact. Commonly, when schools had offered specialist training on particular physical activities (such as gymnastics, swimming, dance), this had increased teachers’ confidence to teach. Some schools reported that teachers being more knowledgeable had increased take-up of that sport.
Obesity__healthy_eating_and_physical_activity_in_primary_schools_170718.docx