Introduction

Welcome to the May newsletter for Health & Wellbeing Schools.  We hope you have had a great start to the summer term and are taking advantage of all the Active Recovery resources that were launched recently on the School Games website.  This edition will outline the plans for Health & Wellbeing Schools for the next academic year and highlight the forthcoming Coronavirus Support Live workshops.

ACTIONS

Sir Michael Marmot talks to Youth Sport Trust

We have the pleasure of Sir Michael Marmot for the opening session of our Coronavirus Support Live event on Monday 17 May at 12pm.  Sir Michael will spend some time talking to our CEO, Ali Oliver about the growing health and education inequalities facing children and young people, the widening of the inequalities gap due to COVID-19 and the role of sport and physical activity in an active recovery.  Make sure you secure your place here.

UPDATES

Health & Wellbeing Schools 2021-22

We have been revising our plans for Health & Wellbeing Schools next academic year based on some internal work we have been doing on school engagement.  A lead school for YST has to be one that can demonstrate a track record in delivery and impact, can become a centre for professional development and advocacy locally and helps YST to drive thought leadership in the areas of a child’s life that challenge us all the most.

On that basis, we will be coming out through the School Recruitment Window which will be accessed through our new website. This will allow you to apply to be a Lead Health and Wellbeing School next year, aligned to some very specific criteria and deliverables connected to Active in Mind and the new Boys Move programme. This will enable us to work with schools in a very specific way to reach more schools and the right young people that need these interventions the most. There will be funding connected to this alongside very specific KPIs.  Please look out for the new website and school recruitment process in the coming few weeks.

STORIES

Teens, tech and mental health: Oxford study finds no link - BBC

There remains "little association" between technology use and mental health problems, a study of more than 430,000 10 to 15-year-olds suggests.

Cardiff University team wants to change 'lad culture' perceptions - BBC

When Ben Marett saw a post on Facebook threatening women at a university with rape on a Saturday night, he felt scared and wanted to do something to help.

Why Regular Movement Holds the Key to Physical and Mental Wellbeing - The Carer

“Less exercise and more TV” is how some headline writers summarised University College London’s (UCL) survey on physical activity during the lockdown. UCL’s study, which included 70,000 people, found that 40 percent of them did less exercise in the last lockdown than in the first, while 19 percent said they watched more television.

Child obesity cases treated in NHS hospitals have more than doubled in two years and tripled since 2014

The number of obese babies and toddlers treated in NHS hospitals has more than doubled in two years, figures show.  Doctors say obesity was a contributory factor in 1,087 patients aged four and under last year, with 61 less than a year old.