Bar Hill Primary School has become the first school in the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough region to achieve the Healthy Schools Ambassador Award.
The school, which is part of Meridian Trust, has been presented the Healthy Schools Ambassador Award for implementing a whole school approach to health and wellbeing for both pupils and staff.
The Ambassador Award is for those schools that are wishing to advocate the importance and benefits of embedding a whole school approach to health and wellbeing for both students and staff. All schools that have achieved the Healthy Schools Award are invited to upgrade to Ambassador status.
Bar Hill Primary School’s Principal, Charlotte Linden, said: “The award shows the whole school’s commitment towards healthy life choices. I want to thank pupils, parents and staff for working together to achieve this award, it is a brilliant accomplishment. The children were engaged in learning about nutrition and how to make a healthy plate of food which is so encouraging to see. Through working with the charity Living Sport, children created fantastic ideas for physical activity clubs. Since the start of the spring term, a trampolining club is now running, initially funded by Living Sport.
Environmental charity Peterborough Environment City Trust (PECT) initially demonstrated the benefits of school meals and nutrition to Bar Hill parents whilst the whole school benefited from assemblies about healthy eating and preparing meals safely.
Further workshops encouraged children to ‘sit less and move more’ and provided staff with practical ideas of building in physical activity into the day to reduce sitting time. Every child in the school, in Bar Hill, near Cambridge, will soon benefit from the ‘Growing to Love’ scheme whereby the planting of tomato plants will take place.
Charlotte added, “It is fantastic to be the first school to receive the Healthy Schools Ambassador Award in our region and recognised that healthy living is at the heart of our ethos. We are committed to developing and nurturing the whole school’s health and wellbeing going forward. We should all be very proud of our achievement and are pleased to lead the way for other schools in the area.”
Joanne Howling, the Healthy Schools Coordinator at Healthy You, said: “It has been a pleasure to witness the positivity of the staff at Bar Hill Primary School as they have relentlessly pursued the Healthy Schools Ambassador Award by seeking innovative ways to help their pupils gain the confidence, life skills and knowledge needed to make healthy life choices.
“An impressive range of initiatives and programmes have been pursued both locally and nationally to seek improvement and to embed a sustainable and impactful health and well-being agenda as a whole school approach.”
Healthy Schools is funded by a partnership between Cambridgeshire County Council, Peterborough City Council and the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and delivered by Everyone Health, a national public health provider.
