Healthy Lifestyles – A Theatre in Education Project By Secondary Students for Primary Students, rooted in Staff Development and Training. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Healthy Lifestyles – A Theatre in Education Project By Secondary Students for Primary Students, rooted in Staff Development and Training.

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Health and wellbeing; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

It is of growing concern for all countries that future generations live healthy lifestyles. Healthy eating contributes to an overall sense of well-being, and is a cornerstone in the prevention of a number of conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, cancer, dental caries and asthma. For children and young people, healthy eating is particularly important for healthy growth and cognitive development. Eating behaviours adopted during this period are likely to be maintained into adulthood, underscoring the importance of encouraging healthy eating as early as possible. Guidelines recommend consumption of at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, reduced intakes of saturated fat and salt and increased consumption of complex carbohydrates. Yet average consumption of fruit and vegetables in the UK is only about three portions a day. A survey of young people aged 11–16 years found that nearly one in five did not eat breakfast before going to school. Recent figures also show alarming numbers of obese and overweight children and young people. Discussion about how to tackle the ‘epidemic’ of obesity is currently high on the health policy agendas, and effective health promotion remains a key strategy. This picture isn’t just confined to the UK but is of concern across the EU. However, it is not just diet alone that promotes Healthy lifestyles. Exercise, wellbeing and an awareness of self-image are just as important.
Getting this message across to young children at an EARLY age is important in order to develop these positive habits.

We believe such messages are more effective when delivered by children just a little older than the recipients, rather than by teachers. This is why we are using older secondary students to teach these behaviours to younger primary children through a Theatre in Education Project.
This project is rooted in the most effective ways in which children learn, which isn’t always the way teachers want to teach. It therefore contains a considerable proportion of staff training/ development and then trying out the hypothesis with real Theatre in Education packages taken out into primary schools.
Each mobility will deal with ONE aspect of Healthy Lifestyles. By the end of the project each school will have a package of 4 performances which combined give a full programme on Healthy Lifestyles that can be delivered to younger children by their slightly older peers. Teachers will be trained in the concept and processes of Theatre in Education at short term staff training events. These will be further developed through short term staff training events in partner schools working with older children to plan and rehearse a performance based upon one aspect of Healthy Lifestyles – for example Exercise; Body Image; Obesity; The media; Healthy Eating….
These performances will then be taken out into primary schools and follow up work based upon the performance seen will be left with the primary school for them to follow up if they so choose. It must be emphasised that the performance will be very interactive and primary children will NOT be passive observers in the events that unfold.
Teacher training will be done in English, the performance planned in English but performed in the mother tongue.

We would wish for all involved to:-
• See creativity as a powerful tool in it’s own right to challenge, engage and motivate students.
• Understand the power of theatre as a learning medium.
• Establish education communities and learning groups across the school and across schools in the area.
• Establish education community groups across the EU through this project.
• Raise the profile of the teaching profession by engaging with parents and marketing the project as effectively and as widely as possible.
• Use ICT to promote the work we are doing.
• Provide staff with a methodology, philosophy and skill set that will help them develop future projects of a similar nature.
• Create a risk taking culture within staff in the way they approach topics and work.
• Appreciate how Healthy Lifestyles are of major concerns to all communities participating and in fact across the globe.
• Consider what changes may need to be made at an organisational level to facilitate such work on an ongoing basis.

We believe such a project would require educators to take risks and senior leaders to be innovative in the ways they organised learning.
The approach adopted is very powerful and provides challenge for both creator and recipient but it is VERY flexible and can be used to explore a variety of difficult contexts and allow for some highly effective teaching and learning to take place. For example such areas could include bullying; cyber safety; migration and mental health. It can be used across ALL departments in schools.
Actively and Practically Involve – 60 staff; 270pupils; 12 schools; 4 countries.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 110450 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ysgol Bryn Alyn & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Zespol Szkol w Redzikowie
• I.C. FRANCESCO PETRARCA
• Lycée polyvalent Jean Lurçat