Leading Healthy and Thriving Schools in Hong Kong: Theory and Practice

Author / Editor
HKD198.00
In stock
Add to Wish List
The academic setting has a significant influence on the well-being of children and teens. Effective school leadership is, therefore, essential in promoting a healthy school environment. This book, the first of its kind in Hong Kong, establishes the kind of leadership a health-promoting school needs to be successful. It explains the steps school leaders should take to promote health, beginning with an explanation of the link between health and education and then moving into a discussion of how schools can be transformed and what sort of leaders are required for such a transformation. These changes can be applied in individual classrooms and schools as well as more broadly across whole education systems.

The theoretical healthy school framework outlined in the main text by Dr Robin Cheung, a seasoned scholar-practitioner in the field of school health promotion, is complemented by success stories written from interviews conducted by Dr Cheung’s co-authors, which are included in the supplemental material of the book. These anecdotes and quotes from these stories enliven the text and narrate how principals in Hong Kong have transformed their schools into successful and thriving health-promoting educational settings. This volume draws particular attention to the role of leadership and management in promoting health and learning in educational and academic settings that will be of interest to school leaders, policy makers, and educators alike.

Leading Healthy and Thriving Schools in Hong Kong: Theory and Practice is the first book in the Healthy Settings Series, which focuses on the upstream, midstream, and downstream approaches for improving population health and reducing health inequity in various settings and contexts.
ISBN
978-962-937-416-7
Pub. Date
Apr 24, 2020
Weight
0.51kg
Paperback
208 pages
Dimension
178 x 254 mm
What prompted me to write this book was the time I have had to reflect following my retirement as a school principal in 2010. I previously headed a secondary school in Hong Kong, which commenced its journey towards health promotion in 2001 and has continued its search to date, though in a relatively less rigorous way. During my time in the position, I was actively involved in the Hong Kong Healthy School Award Scheme, first being a beneficiary of it, but later a contributor too. That level of involvement gave me a lot of opportunities to share my experience with health promotion in schools in local arenas as well as international forums. After leaving, I fortunately still have the privilege of continuing to promote health in schools, thanks to the invitation of Professor Albert Lee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to be vice-chairman of the steering committees for school networking projects on healthy schools, which are funded by the Quality Education Fund (QEF) of Hong Kong. Over the years, at meetings and on visits to local and overseas healthy schools, I have observed how local projects develop and how they bring in new blood for school health promotion. Through this all, I have also reflected on how a school leader can take the whole school party on the journey towards total health. Looking back, I can see successes, setbacks, and unfinished tasks on this journey, and assume all this might contribute to the knowledge base for the healthy schools movement.

Over the course of my career, I have found a dearth of literature on how to lead healthy schools. There is a great need for stories of real-life struggles to build healthy schools from scratch and of how to sustain them, as well as for a more academic investigation of the issue. I have also found Hong Kong has been doing well in school health promotion and is a strong, if not leading, voice in this part of the world. We have success stories as well as good theory-based advice to offer that may inspire schools in other regions to engage more in this worthy endeavor. Since my retirement, I have been teaching master’s courses in educational leadership and management at CUHK’s School of Education, so it feels natural for me to try to blend my understanding and practice in both domains.

Chapter 1 Education and Health

Chapter 2 The Hong Kong Context for School Health Promotion

Chapter 3 How to Prepare the School for the Health Promotion Journey

Chapter 4 Setting Out on the Journey

Chapter 5 Leadership of the Healthy School

Chapter 6 Preparing for the Leadership Role

Chapter 7 System Leadership and the Healthy Schools Movement

Chapter 8 Concluding Remarks

Appendix A The WHO’s Definition of a Health-Promoting School

Appendix B The Healthy School Model in Hong Kong

Appendix C Accounts of School Leaders who Succeeded in Leading their Schools towards Health Promotion

Appendix D Promoting School Health as a Christian School Head

Robin M. B. Cheung
Adjunct Associate Professor at the Centre for Health Education and Health Promotion and Honorary Professional Consultant to the Department of Educational Administration and Policy, School of Education, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Former Masters Course Instructor in the Department of Education Policy and Leadership, Education University of Hong Kong

Amelia S. C. Lo
Health Promotion Officer in charge of the Centre for Health Education and Health Promotion, Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Vera M. W. Keung
Health Promotion Officer at the Centre for Health Education and Health Promotion, Jockey Club School of Public Healthy and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Amy C. M. Kwong
Registered Physiotherapist at the Centre for Health Education and Health Promotion, Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong