Click here to return to the Student Tool Kit Home Page
Click for questions and answers and example scenarios in schools and how you can achieve change
Click for a step by step guide to achieving change in your school
Click for further resources to assist you in gaining equality in schools
Click for information on Gay Straight Alliances and how they work in schools
Click the link on any highlighted text for the meaning to appear in a new window
Click to visit the main Schools Out website
Click Here to see the full list of Laws and Guidance used in the Student Tool Kit
Click Here to see the full list of definitions used in the Student Tool Kit

4. Find out if your school has been awarded, or is working towards, Healthy School status.

The Healthy Schools Guidance outlines the criteria that schools must follow to become a ‘Healthy School’. Healthy Schools promote the health and well-being of all pupils.

The guidance calls for schools to identify vulnerable groups and establish appropriate strategies to support them. This includes LGBTQ pupils.

There are four themes of national Healthy School status:

  1. Personal, Social and Health Education including Sex and Relationship Education and drug education

  2. Healthy Eating

  3. Physical Activity

  4. Emotional Health and Well Being

In order to be rated as a “Healthy School” your school needs to meet a number of minimum requirements in each of these areas.

Where there are issues of sexism, biphobia, homophobia and transphobia it is unlikely that your school can meet the government’s criteria on numbers 1, 3 and 4 (see www.wiredforhealth.gov.uk for what these are).

To find out if your school has been granted Healthy School status you should ask your Head Teacher. You could also look at the most recent copy of your school prospectus or schools web page.

If your school has been granted Healthy School status and you feel it does not deserve it you should contact your Head Teacher, the Chair of your Parents/Teachers Association, Chair of Governors and the School Council or equivalent body(ies) (e.g. representatives from every class or year) explaining why.

Healthy status is re-evaluated every year so your arguments should lead to a withdrawal of the title if the school does not act to improve. Kevin Brennan, the government’s deputy minister for the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) said publicly that status should be revoked where schools failed to deal with gender based discrimination (Schools OUT conference, February 2008).