Fairhaven School strikes gold
A journey that began in 2011 when the school started work on achieving the Health Promoting Schools bronze accreditation ended last week when it was presented with the gold award.
It is one of just three schools across the Bay of Plenty and Lakes DHBS to reach the awards’ top level.
The first changes in 2011 were to introduce sunhats and start an immunisation register.
Head of Tawa Pod and the school’s health leader, Marianne Wilson, says the school has worked very hard with Health Promoting Schools adviser Kathy King to progress through the three levels.
“We have surveyed staff, students and families twice about how they feel about the school and any problems or celebrations they want to share,” she says.
“We have had many challenges to overcome such as becoming a milk-and water-only school, working on staff and student hauora and reconfiguring the layout of the senior toilets,” she says.
The toilets were changed in response to concerns raised by many students in the surveys that they didn’t like the old toilets so didn’t want to use them.
“The school is now a better place because we have only Fonterra free milk and filtered cold water on site and place a lot of emphasis on healthy eating,” says Marianne.
“We strongly believe in staff and student hauora and try to make sure Fairhaven School is a safe and friendly environment.
“The changes we have made have been for the betterment of the whole school community and have been done slowly, thoughtfully and thoroughly.”
The Health Promoting Schools initiative, delivered by Toi Te Ora — Public Health Service, supports school communities in the Bay of Plenty and Lakes districts to take action to improve their health and wellbeing needs.
Toi Te Ora — Public Health Service’s vision is for all schools, early childhood centres and kohanga reo to become health promoting environments, involving the whole school community in activities that promote health and wellbeing.
The programme has a community development approach which responds to the prioritised needs and solutions identified by the whole school community.