(An item from the ISHN Member information service)  Shape Up – a school-community approach to influencing the determinants of a healthy and balanced growing up (www.shapeupeurope.net) was a three-year project aimed at the development, implementation and assessment of an innovative approach to health promotion and health education concerning overweight and obesity in children and young people. The researchers report that ' Shape Up demonstrated that young people can be guided to successfully bring about health-promoting changes at the school and community level. For example, these chnages included healthier food consumption at school, new forms of physical activity, and increased interest, motivation and ability among children and young people to deal with health issues. More specifically, Shape Up has proven to be effective in initiating and bringing about health-promoting changes in the ecology of the school, including improvements at the school, parent, community/municipal and individual student levels. 

(An item from the ISHN Member information service)   This report evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education in primary and secondary schools in England. It is based on evidence from inspections of PSHE education carried out between January 2012 and July 2012 in 50 maintained schools and on evidence from an online survey of 178 young people conducted on behalf of Ofsted between October and November 2012. Read more>>

As part of the UNICEF and UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children, Romania has published its country report. The report notes that "most of the children out of school in Romania had a prior experience of attending school. This situation is indicated by the rather high enrolment rates in pre-primary and primary level and also by the drop-out rates registered in primary and lower secondary levels.Therefore, the focus of our study is mainly ondropouts and non-attendance, rather than children who have never gone to school". 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An updated systematic review of school-based smoking prevention programs paradoxically shows a long-term effect of those programs but only certain types had a short term effect within one year. The authors report that " We identified 49 randomised controlled trials (over 140,000 school children) of interventions aiming to prevent children who had never smoked from becoming smokers. At longer than one year, there was a significant effect of the interventions in preventing young people from starting smoking. Programmes that used a social competence approach and those that combined a social competence with a social influence approach were found to be more effective than other programmes. However, at one year or less there was no overall effect, except for programmes which taught young people to be socially competent and to resist social influences. A smaller group of trials reported on the smoking status of all people in the class, whether or not they smoked at the start of the study. In these trials with follow-up of one year or less there was an overall small but significant effect favouring the controls. This continued after a year; for trials with follow-up longer than one year, those in the intervention groups smoked more than those in the control groups.When trials at low risk of bias from randomisation, or from losing participants, were examined separately, the conclusions remained the same. Programmes led by adults may be more effective than those led by young people. There is no evidence that delivering extra sessions makes the intervention more effective. Read more>>

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #2, 2013 of Educational Psychology reports on the effect of a in-school team tea her development program to manage student conflicts in schools. The researchers report that " This study evaluated a professional learning approach using a core team (CT) model to assist primary (elementary) schools to develop whole-school collaborative conflict resolution processes. Thirteen schools were matched and randomly assigned to the enhancing relationships in school communities programme (n = 10) or a non-programme control group (n = 3). Programme schools provided a core (professional learning) team, who attended professional learning days, and disseminated programme content throughout their schools. Programme schools also received one full school staff workshop. After one year, CT participants were more likely to apply a collaborative conflict resolution model to problem scenarios and report greater knowledge and skills compared to non-programme-school control participants. Compared to the non-programme control group, non-core team programme school staff described using more cooperative approaches to handling conflict, especially when they had received more professional development from their CT. Programme school teachers taught more hours conflict resolution curriculum, and increases in hours taught by programme (but not control) teachers were associated with teacher reported increases in student understanding and use of cooperative methods. Patterns also supported a role of self-efficacy in implementation."  Read more>>

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #2, 2013 of the Journal of School Violence describes and argues for a focus on the connections/relationships made between adults and young people in order to improve their sense of school belonging. The authors suggest that " This article discusses the significance of adult connections for adolescents' sense of school belonging and identifies areas for future research and practice by (a) exploring the influence of adult connections on adolescents' sense of school belonging; (b) reviewing the literature regarding school belonging outcomes; (c) identifying potential barriers to building adult connections and school belonging; (d) presenting school improvement initiatives that hold promise for facilitating adult connections and school belonging; and (e) introducing a research and practice agenda that underscores the need for further investigation into the relationship between adult connections and school belonging. This proposed agenda represents an important addition to the literature by advocating for an increased focus on the process and significance of these relationships during adolescence". Read more>>

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #2, 2013 of Advances in School Mental Health describes the agendas and processes that form part of school team meetings about mental health. The authors note that: "School-based teams are central to referrals, problem solving and decision-making in school mental health (SMH). Although the use of teams in SMH appears commonplace, research on these teams, however, is much more limited in scope. Using best practice teaming principles as a conceptual framework, this exploratory study examined the purpose, structure and function of 41 school-based service-delivery teams from 19 schools. Descriptive analyses revealed wide variations in teaming practices. Challenges related to youth and family members being involved in teams, as well as varied team leadership, were noted. In addition, teams discussed numerous topics as part of meetings. The discussion of data, however, was a topic that a limited number of teams discussed."  Read more>>

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in the May 2013 issue of the Journal of School Health confirms a common sense understanding about the impact of the local community context on health and behaviours such as physical activity. Tge authors report that: "This study examined differences in students' time spent in physical activity (PA) across secondary schools in rural, suburban, and urban environments and identified the environment-level factors associated with these between school differences in students' PA. Multilevel linear regression analyses were used to examine the environment- and student-level characteristics associated with time spent in PA among grades 9 to 12 students attending 76 secondary schools in Ontario, Canada, as part of the SHAPES-Ontario study. This approach was first conducted with the full data set testing for interactions between environment-level factors and school location. Then, school-location specific regression models were run separately. Statistically significant between-school variation was identified among students attending urban, suburban, and rural schools, where school-level differences accounted for 4.0%, 2.0%, and 2.1% of the variability in students' time spent in PA, respectively. Students attending an urban or suburban school that provided another room for PA or was located within close proximity to a shopping mall or fast food outlet spent more time in PA. Developing a better understanding of the environment-level characteristics associated with students' time spent in PA by school location may help public health and planning experts to tailor school programs and policies to the needs of students in different locations. Read More>>