Health promotion can assist schools in meeting their targets in educational attainment and their social aims; young people that attend school having a better chance of good health and are likely to have better learning outcomes. Six essential components have been identified to develop health promoting schools (St Leger & coll., 2007): healthy school policies, the school’s physical environment, the school’s social environment, individual health skills and action competencies, community links and health services. Among the determinants of child health, the role of teaching practices was pinpointed.

Moreover, the influence of other determinants has been highlighted, such as the presence of a specific time allocated to these questions or the prescription status as defined in school curricula. Indeed, the status of health promotion in schools varies depending on the culture of each country. Health promotion can be considered as a subject (e.g. Ireland) or in a cross-curricular approach (linked to citizenship, e.g. France) or both (e.g.  Québec). But whatever the status of health education in the educational system, there are “differences” or a “lag” between the prescription and teacher practices (Jourdan, Piec, Aublet-Cuvelier, Berger, Lejeune et Laquet-Riffaud, 2002; O'Higgins, Galvin et Kennedy, 2007; SPHE, 2004; Tjomsland, Iversen et Wold, 2009).

How does the status of HE influence teacher’s task redefinition in HE? This communication aims at providing knowledge on the process which conducts a teacher to take health promotion issues into account in their teaching practices.

To understand this lag, we used tools from work analysis, especially ergonomics tools (Leplat, 1997) with which teacher activity could be defined as a succession of redefinitions: from prescription perceived as the Institution / to teacher's conception of the prescription / to activity conducted in class. The objectives are the following: to analyze the gap between the prescription and practices, to identify the aims underlying the teacher’s redefinitions and to identify the factors behind teacher’s redefinitions.

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