No frikandel rolls, energy drinks and chips during the break, but healthy sandwiches, salads and soups. Something you don’t expect immediately when you think of a high school. But at the Berkenhof College in Breda it is the reality. They are a ‘healthy’ school there, even one of the healthiest in the Netherlands. “Ninety percent of our offer is healthy,” says teacher Josée Hoogstad.
The 185 students from the Berkenhof College, a school for special secondary education, mainly notice that the canteen is healthy. Brown baguettes, salads, pokebowls And soups are made fresh every day by students, often with products from the vegetable garden of the school.
Cola, chips and energy drink, on the other hand, have been banned from the school. And anyone who thinks that students go to the Supermakt to score some goodies is wrong: the students are not allowed to leave the school without supervision. “And they don’t have to leave the school either, because the sandwiches cost a maximum of two euros,” says Josée, initiator of the Healthy School. “Only on Friday is there a somewhat unhealthy snack, such as a croquette sandwich.”
“And if they have forgotten something, we always have ’emergency bread’ here at school.” Moreover, there is free fruit, tea and milk for the students all day. “And during the summer holidays they get a box of fruit home. You notice that many children hardly get any fruit at home.”
Resistance to students
With this approach, the Breda School has won five ‘Healthy School’ certificates. Special, because only seven other schools in the Netherlands have also achieved that number. These schools do not only invest in healthy food, but in a healthy lifestyle. A broad approach, so there is also attention for relationships and sexuality, smoking, alcohol and drug prevention, well-being and sports and exercise.
Teacher Fenne Tak hardly notices any resistance to the students. “At the start of the new school year it is always scanning, but I have not seen a bag of chips at school for months.” The students who walk around on Monday afternoon in the school think it’s fine and especially fun to work in the vegetable garden of the school.
In addition to attention to a healthy diet, for example, at the school in Breda, attention is paid to smoking prevention. According to teacher Josée smoking ‘only’ 3 or four students. And when teachers notice that someone uses drugs, there are short lines with Novadic. “We are not doing bad, bad. We are not going to point out with the finger. But we are going to see the conversation to see what someone uses and how to deal with it. And that helps, usually it still comes to a treatment.”
Josée has been working for years to get the school healthy. And now with the five certificates she can say that the school is one of the healthiest schools in the Netherlands and she is very proud of that.