The aim of this research was to identify the level of post primary school engagement in Health Promoting Schools in Ireland.

 Schools are an important setting for the promotion of health and well-being (WHO, 2010). The promotion of health in schools is believed to promote student health resources and to positively contribute to learning outcomes of students (Stewart-Brown, 2006, St. Leger et al., 2007). Traditionally health education focused on curing disease and behavioural change however, research has confirmed that knowledge alone is insufficient to empower people to make better lifestyle choices and behavior change (Klepp et al., 1994). Schools are recognised as important settings for health promotion (Mukoma & Flisher, 2004; St. Leger, 2010) because of the wide audience they encapsulate and also the length of time that children remain in school. They can have a huge influence on people’s decision making, and perception of health. Many behaviours that have a profound effect on health status, such as physical activity levels and dietary choices are established during the schooling years of many young people (Mohammadi et al., 2010). The foundation of health promoting schools has its origins in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (WHO, 1986), where schools were named as an important health promoting setting. The Ottawa Charter states that health promotion involves “enabling people to learn, throughout life” and acquire the competence to “exercise more control over their own health and over their environment” (WHO, 1986:3). The principles outlined in the charter were adopted by the World Health Organisation and became known as the Health Promoting School concept (Whitman & Aldinger, 2009).

The health promoting schools concept is a whole school approach to enhance health and educational outcomes of students through teaching and learning experiences initiated in school (SHE, 2009). It enables adolescents to take action themselves and this is partly done via curriculum and partly via a whole schools approach (Barnekow et al., 2006). Ireland was an early adopter of the HPS approach and was enthusiastically supported in the pilot phase (Lahiff, 2000). However, although progress in HPS has been widely documented across the European countries, Ireland has not gathered evidence on the progress of HPS nationally and this is a significant gap.

The Irish Education Act (1998) emphasises the need for schools to promote the social and personal development of students and provide them with health education. Ireland has taken a specific curricular approach to this and introduced the subject Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) into the curriculum in 2000. No research as yet has provided evidence of the link between SPHE and the health promoting school and this research aims to make this link explicit. 

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