Building Healthy Schools to Foster Positive Educational Outcomes 2024 - 2025

Background

With the support of Drs. Richard Charles and Esther Yewpick Lee Charitable Foundation and The Education Services of Caritas - Hong Kong, a two-years programme named "Building Healthy Schools to Foster Positive Educational Outcomes" has been launched in 2023/24 academic year. Based on the Global Standards for Health-promoting Schools (HPS) established by the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2021, it aims to develope a set of performance indicators and assessment tools for local preschools and to extend the concept of HPS to the preschools. The program will be implemented in 10 preschool and 10 secondary schools.

Project Objectives

Training for students of the Caritas secondary schools to become "Health Promotion Stars" to join hands with CHEHP in health education and health promotion.
Training for preschools parents to empower them with health knowledge and skills as well as positive parenting practices for growing healthier kids.
Capacity building for preschool teachers of Caritas Pre-school Education Service with the concept of HPS derived from HPS Core Performance Indicators.
Establishment of a model of secondary school students serving preschool students in various aspects of health education and health promotion.
Development of a set of HPS Core Performance Indicators for preschools in Hong Kong based on the Global Standards of HPS. The preschools will be supported to receive the HPS Foundation Award upon project completion.

Implementation Strategies

Pre-school institutions:

Teacher Training would be provided to teachers at the Joint School Staff Development Day and online videos to enhance teachers’ understanding on the “Health Promotion School Performance Indicators”, assessment tools and HPS development and implementation.
Parents’ online workshops for parents of the preschools to enhance their knowledge, skills and positive parenting practices in nurturing their children's health.
Early childhood health education activities would be conducted through the service-learning model, allowing those secondary school students who have been trained as “Health Promotion Star” to organize health promotion activities for young children in preschools.
School visits to have a better understand on the implementation of HPS model in preschools.

Secondary School:

Students’ training to enhance their knowledge on promoting health of the young children; the students will be prepared to plan and organize health education activities in preschools. Topics included eye health, no picky eating of fruits and vegetables, understanding whole grains, and health education promotion. Students who complete the training and organize a health education activity will be awarded as "Health Promotion Star".
Early childhood health education activities would be conducted through the service-learning model, the “Health Promotion Star” will put what’s learned into practice and organize health promotion activities for young children in preschools

Project Outcomes

11 pre-schools were successfully recruited to join the project, with providing service-learning opportunities for secondary school students. Among the participating preschools, 10 were recognised with HPS Foundation Awards.
Provided online training for preschools parents on the themes of healthy eating and eye health. The healthy eating training was conducted in a hybrid mode, allowing parents and young children who attended in person to participate in watching the demonstration and tasting session.
Over 170 students from 11 secondary schools were successfully recruited to participate in training covering eye health, no picky eating of fruits and vegetables, and understanding whole grains.
A total of 19 service-learning activities were completed by 117 secondary school students across 11 preschools, benefiting 416 preschool children. Common health promotion strategies implemented by the students included drama, games, Q&A sessions, songs, exercise, drawing, and handicrafts.
A total of 115 students completed and submitted reflective journals and were recognised as Health Promotion Stars, with 38 receiving gold awards, 67 receiving silver awards, and 5 receiving bronze awards.
94.8% of the Health Promotion Stars agreed that participation enhanced their self-confidence, and 97.4% expressed satisfaction with their overall performance.
After joining the programme, the Health Promotion Stars self-reported improvements in several areas of health literacy, including information acquisition, comprehension, application of health knowledge, communication with healthcare professionals, and self-efficacy. Notably, significant gains were observed in information reading, application of health knowledge, and self-efficacy.
Over half of the Health Promotion Stars also showed an upward trend in resilience scores compared to before the programme.
The “Health Promotion Stars Training Programme for Secondary School Students” achieved outstanding recognition in the ”Tell the Good Story of Social Welfare Competition 2025”. The story of our service-learning initiative was selected as one of the fifteen winning entries among 204 projects from various organisations.

►Download the Programme Achievements Collection (Chinese version only)

►Photo of Exhibition of Health Education 2025 (Chinese version only)

►Video of Exhibition of Health Education 2025 (Chinese version only)

Participating Schools (Pre-school)

Caritas Nursery School - Ta Kwu Ling
Caritas Nursery School - Yau Tong
Caritas Zonta Club of Hong Kong Nursery School
Caritas Ling Yuet Sin Kindergarten
Caritas Nursery School - Kennedy Town
Caritas St. Francis Kindergarten
Caritas Nursery School - Tsui Lam
Caritas Nursery School - Lei Yue Mun
TWGHs Liu Yan Tak Memorial Kindergarten
Heng On Baptist Nursery School

(in alphabetical order)

Participating Schools (Secondary School)

Shatin Pui Ying College
Caritas Ma On Shan Secondary School
Caritas Chong Yuet Ming Secondary School
TWGHs Mrs Fung Wong Fung Ting College
PLK Laws Foundation College
Hong Kong Teachers' Association Lee Heng Kwei Secondary School
AD&FD POHL Leung Sing Tak College
St. Catharine's School For Girls
St. Teresa Secondary School
Chiu Chow Association Secondary School

(in alphabetical order)

Co-organizers

The Education Services of Caritas - Hong Kong

This Programme is supported by Drs. Richard Charles and Esther Yewpick Lee Charitable Foundation

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Updated on 3 March 2026