A new 18-month longitudinal research study, funded by The Leverhulme Trust is exploring the impact of an innovative health education programme, developed by the University of Southampton, on teachers’ attitudes, confidence and competence to teach and promote health and well-being in schools. The study is being led by Dr Jenny Byrne at Southampton Education School, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, in collaboration with Southampton Health Technology Assessments Centre (SHTAC) and Primary Care and Population Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton.

Teachers are in a prime position to influence and improve the health and well-being of children and young people and it is important that teachers are adequately trained for this role. Yet previous research led by these teams found that the extent to which new teachers receive training in health and well-being issues during their initial teacher education (ITE) is variable in England. A literature review conducted as part of the same project also found that few studies had examined the impact of health training in ITE on teachers’ later practice in school, once they had qualified. The new study aims to address this gap.

The innovative health education programme includes a Health Day (partly funded by Health Education Wessex), with sessions delivered by health experts from external agencies, the completion of a health portfolio and the opportunity for teachers to achieve the PSHE Association’s Chartered Teacher status. The programme was developed by Southampton Education School and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton and has been delivered annually to over 1000 postgraduate pre-service primary and secondary teachers since 2010.

As part of the new study, researchers distributed a questionnaire to previous and current trainee teachers in summer 2014 and will send the next questionnaire to three cohorts of previous trainee teachers in the third week of January 2015. If you trained as a teacher at Southampton University in the past three years, please watch your inbox for a link to the online questionnaire. Your responses are very important to us. They will not only help to improve the training at Southampton but may have potential to impact nationally within the changing landscape of PSHE and health education. Furthermore, there is also a chance to win one of 15 Amazon vouchers. A subsample will also be invited to participate in interviews.

The aims of the study are to assess the impact of the training on the teachers’ attitudes, confidence and competence to teach and promote health and well-being in schools, and to explore the factors that influence teachers to teach and promote health and well-being during their training and early career. The study will also assess the feasibility of following-up teachers post qualification, to inform the design of a future controlled study.

More information about school-based health promotion research at Southampton can be found on the website of the multidisciplinary School Health research group, which is part of the Population Health University Strategic Research Group.