Supporting Healthy Lives - 2022 Finalist
Mathilde Anneke Comprehensive School
Münster, Germany
Placing students at the core with their strengths and talents
Mathilde Anneke Comprehensive School, a secondary school in Münster, Germany, believes that the individual student should be in the centre with their strength and talents. The school enables their students to participate in every area so that they experience their self-efficacy, a requirement for a healthy lifestyle.
To develop self-efficacy the school focuses on physical activity and sees it as a basic human right. It ensures at least four hours a week of PE lessons, and that students take physical free play breaks throughout the school day. The school cooperates with the University of Muenster and together they developed the “Sportpaten”- Project. Through this one to one mentoring program the children are empowered to be physically active, which serves as a resource for their healthy overall development. Moreover most of the lessons start with physical exercises “Schule mit Schwung“.
To promote healthy lifestyles and build resilience, the school has lessons on social and emotional health, a food programme that focuses on good nutrition, and counselling sessions for students experiencing poor mental health and stress.
Students are endowed with a great deal of personal reasonability and their thoughts are considered for major projects that are about to be implemented. The school allows its students to monitor and plan their own learning independently.
Together with parents and teachers, pupils design their own food plan every week and record their reflections about what they’ve learned about healthy eating and sustainability. The learning journal is used to promote positive reinforcement and centres around small achievements students build up – often they are asked to start with the phrase: “I am very proud of my self because of…”.
SIf Mathilde Anneke Comprehensive School were to win the World’s Best School Prize for Supporting Healthy Lives, it would use the funds to help share its good practices with other schools.
