Purpose: The main aim of the paper is to explore whether health theatre as a school-based health promotion initiative communicates relevant health knowledge to children and the interrelated processes of identity development, knowledge acquisition and participation. Development of the definition of "health identity" was a subsidiary objective of…

Purpose: This paper aims to present the process evaluation for a two-year (2008-2010) participatory action research project focusing on home-school partnership in health learning, undertaken within the Schools for Health in Europe (SHE) in Eastern Finland. Design/methodology/approach: Two intervention schools and two control schools (grade 5…

Purpose: This paper aims to describe Australian children's perceptions of healthiness and sources of health knowledge in order to develop an understanding of young children's perceptions, knowledge and sources of influence to guide future behaviour change and health promotion strategies. Design/methodology/approach: One-hour interactive focus…

Purpose: This paper seeks to report on the evaluation of Zippy's Friends, an international emotional wellbeing programme, for primary school children in disadvantaged schools in Ireland. The paper aims to present case studies of the profile and ethos of two specific schools participating in the programme, their links with the local community, the…

Purpose: Schools are widely accepted as having the potential to make substantial contributions to promoting healthy eating habits in children and adolescents. This paper aims to present a case study from an Australian school of how a whole-school approach, planned and implemented through a health promoting school framework, can foster improved…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore educational perspectives towards the concept of health promoting schools and its potential benefits for schools in more depth. Design/methodology/approach: This paper presents the results of a qualitative study based on interviews with school staff including principals, and teachers with…

Purpose: Parents are important agents in the physical activity socializing process in children. The present study aims to examine the parental mediatory role in children's physical activity participation via a youth physical activity promotion (YPAP) model. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 872 Hong Kong Chinese children (aged ten to 13) in…

Purpose: Social, physical and temporal characteristics are known to influence the eating experience and the effectiveness of nutritional policies. As the school meal service features prominently in UK nutritional and health promotion policy, the paper's aim is to investigate the characteristics of the primary school dining context and their…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to gauge how the perception of smoking by children has evolved since the last primary schools survey in Guernsey in 2007 and to investigate whether there is an increase in the percentage of smoke-free homes since the last survey. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 377 Year 6 (aged 10-11 years) primary…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of a structured programme on handwashing which has taken into account of the developmental stage of children. Design/methodology/approach: This is a pilot study using a structured handwashing programme as intervention. The intervention group (n=15) receives the structured…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to show how children's health and wellbeing are continuously influenced by violence, divorce, family transience, environmental concerns, terrorism within and outside the country's borders and, most recently, threats of and acts of war. This study investigates the perceived needs of fourth-grade elementary…

Purpose: This paper seeks to examine the way sex and relationships education programs, as part of Health Education extra curriculum activities, have been implemented in the Greek primary schools. Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents and discusses data from an anonymous survey research questionnaire distributed to the 68 Elementary…

Purpose: This paper aims to determine educators' perceptions about the benefits of contact with nature for children's mental, emotional and social health. Design/methodology/approach: The approach was exploratory using qualitative methods. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with school principals and teachers as well as professionals from the…

Purpose: A medicine education web site was developed during a research project in 2002-2004 to help teachers in primary and junior secondary schools to teach children the proper use of medicines. However, there was a need to develop further the assignments for the youngest schoolchildren. The aim of this study is to evaluate the usefulness of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show how the intervention mapping (IM) protocol could be applied to the development of two school-based interventions. It provides an extensive description of the development, implementation and evaluation of two interventions which aimed to increase fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption among primary…