RCGP/SAPC Elective Prize Winner - Primary care in Primary schools

With very little emphasis on lifestyle choices and their health consequences in the primary school curriculum, The Junior Health Society was created with the aim to be a preventative intervention to ultimately lower the prevalence of lifestyle induced conditions in children approaching secondary school entry. Children aged 9-11 years of age are invited to take part in our interactive sessions via school liaison.

An evaluative study into the impact of The Junior Health Society is currently underway. This involves completion of a baseline questionnaire designed by behavioural psychologists and a follow-up review post-intervention from the Junior Health team. Questions relate to each session covering topics such as dementia awareness, living with a disability, exercise, food choices and obesity, living with a long-term condition, alcohol and smoking. These topics were designed with specific learning outcomes and resources to aid learning. Trained university student volunteers teach small groups via an interactive circuit of activities.  

This project has now been running for 18 months now having reached over 700 students so far. At present, feedback from teachers and students is gained via evaluation forms that are completed at the end of the interactive stations which last for up to three hours. Feedback has provided evidence via verbal and written responses, highlighting a change of mindset with health decisions. This is then used to adapt the resources and materials applied to fit the cohort of students in the geographical area. Furthermore a sub-project has emerged to help resource our stations, in particular living with childhood asthma. We are now developing our own semi-structured interview videos of children with and without asthma. This method of child led interviews and videos, we have found to be the most engaging and impacting amongst this age group.

With over a quarter of children aged 2-10 years being overweight or obese, it is imperative to create a positive behaviour change to prevent further co-morbidities such as diabetes, asthma and heart disease. The Junior Health Society is a unique scheme reaching a large community to do just this: helping to educate primary school children to prevent future health problems in future years.