Governments and school communities recognize increasingly that health, well-being and educational
outcomes are closely intertwined and that schools are important resources for influencing the health
and well-being of students, families and the wider community. The school closures due to the COVID-19
pandemic have made these links particularly clear.
A health-promoting school is “a school that constantly strengthens its capacity as a safe and healthy setting for living, learning and working”.
The concept of health-promoting schools (HPS) is a whole-school approach to promoting health and educational attainment in school communities by capitalizing on the organizational potential of
schools to foster the physical, social–emotional and psychological conditions for health as well as for
positive education outcomes. The HPS approach and related whole-school approaches to health have
been associated with considerable improvements in many domains of student health, well-being,
nutrition and functioning.