Member Article

Healthy living the lesson of the day

TEACHING has long been recognised as a high-stress profession and now one school in Newcastle is addressing the issue head on by working with Nuffield Health Newcastle Hospital to provide stress-busting sessions for its staff.

Newcastle School for Boys has joined forces with Nuffield, the UK’s largest healthcare charity, to offer health and wellbeing advice for its staff, covering topics such as healthy eating, exercise and dealing with pressure.

With recent research showing more than 40% of teachers in the UK plan to leave their jobs in the next five years, it is hoped the initiative will provide teachers with the tools to deal with stress and live healthier lifestyles.

School headmaster David Tickner said: “We have a real focus on health and wellbeing within the school and that is not limited to the pupils, it extends to the staff as well.

“There are occasions when teaching and the educational environment can be stressful, especially around exam time, and we wanted to give our staff some tips and tools on dealing with that to help them in their own lives and also to pass onto the pupils.”

The sessions were delivered by two of the top health and wellbeing physiologists in the country, Gavin Watt and Aidan Innes of Nuffield Health Newcastle Hospital, and follow a series of three lectures delivered to pupils at the school last year by staff from Nuffield Health, with the aim of promoting good health, tackling exam stress and highlighting careers within medicine.

Gavin, who was recently named Nuffield Health Physiologist of the Year, said: “Our work is all about helping people make sustainable changes to their daily routine which will improve their wellbeing and help them lead healthier, happier lives.

“Often just small changes such as not drinking caffeine from six hours before you go to bed, fitting in small amounts of exercise, cutting down on alcohol and adding extra vegetables to your meals can significantly reduce the risk of lifestyle-related diseases such as strokes, heart attacks and cancer.

“Having worked with the pupils at the school last year it was great to go back and speak to the staff. Hopefully they will be able to introduce some of the changes we discussed and really notice the benefits.”

The talks were organised by Chris Land, sales and services manager at Nuffield Health Newcastle Hospital, who added: “Following the success of the lectures last year we were keen to development our relationship with the school and working with the teachers seemed like a great next step.

“Health and wellbeing is a big priority for the school and we have a team of experienced health professionals working in Newcastle so if we are able to support David and his team to achieve their wellbeing goals we are only too happy to do so.”

Nuffield is the UK’s largest healthcare charity and has two sites in Newcastle – the Nuffield Health Hospital in Jesmond and Nuffield Gym in Gosforth. Nuffield delivers a wide variety of inpatient and outpatient private healthcare treatments and services using the best possible technological facilities.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Kelly Elliott .