A health promoting school is one that constantly strengthens its capacity as a healthy setting for living, learning and working.

Health promoting schools strive to:

• Foster health and learning with all the measures at its disposal
• Engage health and education officials, teachers, teachers’ unions, students, parents, health providers and community leaders in efforts to make the school a healthy place
• Provide a healthy environment, school health education, and school health services along with school/community projects and outreach, health promotion programs for staff, nutrition and food safety programs, opportunities for physical education and recreation, and programs for counselling, social support and mental health promotion
• Implement policies and practices that respect an individual’s wellbeing and dignity, provide multiple opportunities for success and acknowledge good efforts and intentions as well as personal achievements
• Improve the health of school personnel, families and community members as well as pupils; and work with community leaders to help them understand how the community contributes to, or undermines, health and education