How it Works

Teachers

The Healthy Heroes programme was the brainchild of Laury Sinclair, a member of the Rotary Club of Wellington North, who, with that club, researched and developed the programme, which is based on the policies of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education as well as Sport & Recreation NZ.

The objective was to improve the health and well-being of young children, at the same time safeguarding them against the threats of being overweight, obese, and type 2 diabetes.

The programme involves physical, mental and social/emotional challenges represented by five named characters.

Healthy Heroes is a team effort between the school, parents/caregivers and Rotary.  It is a flexible programme which can be implemented in whichever way teachers think is best.

Healthy Heroes

Curriculum Integration


Teachers: Decide when and which teaching units to integrate what the characters represent. Adapt/modify the programme to fit the curriculum focus.

What are the Healthy Heroes Challenges?

The challenges are a super fun way to build healthy habits within your family! They are about:

Eating well

three vegetables and two pieces of fruit a day

Exercising and being active

continuously for 30 minutes a day

Getting enough sleep

9 to 12 hours depending on age

Stretching your mind

reading, crafts, puzzles and the like.

Helping others

at home, at school, in the community

* Score points by meeting the five challenges.

The goal is to meet the five challenges, five days a week. Track achievement:

  • Earn five points per day (one point per day per challenge)
  • Use weekends to make up for any challenges not met during the week.
  • This means the goal is to score 25 points during the week.
  • The school will decide how many weeks the programme will run which can be between five and nine weeks.
  • If more challenges have been done more than five days a week,  scores up to 35 points per week (five points x seven days) can be achieved.

One point per day per challenge. The kids could draw a ladder or thermometer to record their points or they can be printed from Teacher Resources.

Arrange an event, e.g., shared lunch, movies to celebrate the end of the programme. Present a Certificate of Achievement to those who achieve the required number of points (number of weeks x 25) and a Participation Award to those who did not achieve the required number of points. These can be downloaded from Teacher Resources. If your school has an association with a Rotary Club, you could invite a member(s) along to present these.

Feedback from Teachers

It made the students aware of what they do at home, how they get to school, how much sport they engage in and what types of food they eat.

The junior staff found that “Helping Others” was a topic that the juniors found difficult but one that became the most talked about and valued by the school community.

We loved this programme and are planning to do this programme every second year in our school.

The programme complements the requirements of a Health Promoting School, and gets health practices into the homes.

The concepts were great. The programme fed into many health issues being dealt with at the school, especially with physical activities and nutrition.

We definitely have a winner. All parents and the four teachers all endorse the programme, and have no problems with it.

Healthy Heroes

Signing up – Getting started

If you are or would like to become a Healthy Heroes School, click the button to connect with us and we will get back to you.

Contact us

Resources

Support

The Teachers Resource area of the website provides:

  • Resources that you can take and edit as your own.
  • Links to websites providing relevant information in relation to the challenges.
  • Additional links are associated with each character.
  • Contact details of teachers who have successfully implemented the programme and are happy to help with any questions or advice.
Resources