Views & Opinion Hands up for hygiene Comment by James Clark, Group Commercial Director for hand dryer manufacturer Airdri


Staff in schools and colleges will be all too aware of the way coughs, colds, flu and other illnesses spread through educational establishments – especially at the beginning of the school year as new students come together for the first time and the weather begins to cool. A number of factors contribute to children and young people’s susceptibility to picking up communicable diseases and viruses; inevitably regular close contact with each other in schools, colleges and other seats of learning, is high on the list.


Educating young people about healthy hand hygiene behaviour is crucial to limit the spread of infection. The benefits of focusing on hand hygiene are widespread, not just confined to the pupils themselves. They include:


Better academic results – lower levels of absenteeism mean more chances to learn, resulting in higher grades, better exam results, more favourable Ofsted reports, and higher placings in school ‘league tables’


Financial efficiencies – lower staff absenteeism reduces the need to bring in supply teachers, keeping costs down


Happier parents and businesses – often when children are ill at least one parent needs to take time off work to care for them. This affects their employer too.


Embedding the hygiene message It is important that hand hygiene becomes embedded in everyday behaviour and the message should be reinforced throughout schools and colleges. PSHE (personal, social, health and economic) lessons are a great time to cover the topic in detail; there’s more to effective hand washing than you might think! The Global Handwashing Day website ( http://globalhandwashing.org/global- handwashing-day/) has resources for schools, including activities, games and posters.


Providing the facilities


Raising awareness of hand hygiene, and the correct methods to use, is crucial – but is just one part of the equation. Unless schools or colleges are equipped with effective, easy-to-use hand hygiene products and equipment the lessons will be wasted.


By making such products available to use at all the ‘critical points’ during a school day, and


during any extra-curricular activities, educational establishments can demonstrate their commitment to safeguarding the personal health and well-being of their pupils, students and staff.


Completing the process


As well as properly washing hands, an important part of hand hygiene is drying them thoroughly afterwards; germs are happy to find a home in wet or damp hands. High speed hand dryers are ideal for school and college washrooms as they remove the danger of discarded paper towels being strewn across washroom floors or even being thrown into toilets with the resultant blockages and expensive repairs. They also remove the risk of cross-contamination from soiled towels.


New models of hand dryers are much quieter than their predecessors meaning children aren’t scared to use them, and they can also be customised with logos or friendly characters to make them more appealing. Another important consideration for schools and colleges is that dryers can cope with high traffic and ‘high spirits’; robust and vandal proof models are now available.


Boosting students’ confidence with cross-curricular computing Comment by Emma Darcy, Director of Technology for Learning at Denbigh High School


Computing is often regarded as a subject reserved for ‘techie’ students, so those more interested in humanities can be quick to disregard it. Realising that the idea of computing as a ‘standalone subject’ was disengaging pupils, we have introduced cross-curricular initiatives to challenge this. At Denbigh High School students’ behaviour is, on the whole, very good thanks to our ‘step for success programme’. During lesson time, pupils are scored from 1-4 depending on their behaviour, helping us to track overall performance across the board. We have also introduced initiatives to counteract instances where attendance or engagement has not been as high as desired. To encourage students to engage with computing, we introduced Apps for Good, a free course that allows pupils to work in groups to solve real-world issues they feel strongly about, by learning how to design and create an app. We decided to run the course as a club for Year 8 pupils. Since the students don’t have any major exams to focus on they can often become disengaged and feel uninspired. We targeted students


October 2015


with a range of ability levels including some of our most able and others at a higher risk of disengagement. They were able to really get stuck in over the seven months we ran the course and worked together towards creating an actual product. They don’t just learn the theory behind app development, they learn how to create and market real, fully-functional apps, so it was important for them to realise the purpose of the course and how it linked with the computing curriculum.


The attendance and behaviour during these sessions were very good, largely down to the fact that participation in the course was boosting students’ confidence. Although they may not have been doing well in every subject, this was something they were excelling at and wanted to shout about. When it came to our second year running the club, we felt that a leader for each team, other than the teacher, could be really beneficial, so we selected a handful of Year 9 pupils who were assigned mentoring roles to guide and support the Year 8s. This was a good opportunity to give groups


responsibility for themselves and collaborate with their mentor. Again, the course had a really positive impact on behaviour within the sessions, with the students working together, engaging with their peers and mentors to design and present their apps.


Apps for Good is now being offered as an after school club as well as additional non- timetabled days to focus on other aspects of the course including marketing, business planning and presentations. The project really gets students thinking creatively and technically, while linking with other subjects across the curriculum.


The programme has been a great success. It’s not just about learning ICT skills and it isn’t just aimed at kids who are already more than capable. Giving pupils the opportunity to identify issues they care about and turning them into an app teaches them important skills including teamwork, considering different opinions and taking responsibility. This has contributed to improved engagement levels and behaviour, and has transformed even the most unlikely students into digital entrepreneurs.


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