I am head of a west London primary school.

In 2001, I undertook a Fellowship in Australia on health education. Australia has always had a progressive health education programme and I was keen to learn whether any of the strategies used there would be of benefit to British schools. At the time I was the healthy schools lead in my own school and had undertaken a health mentoring role for other health education leads in the borough for which I work.

As a result of my Fellowship, I introduced (amongst other projects) a peer mentoring scheme in my school and I organised a variety of healthy eating initiatives, one of which is the annual international community food event, which exists to this day. I also led training across the borough. The peer mentoring programme had a very positive impact on my school community and the healthy eating education ideas remain part of my own school curriculum.

The Fellowship allowed me to work with a variety of health education professionals, including lecturers at Sydney University and the Board of Education for New South Wales. I worked in schools to see at first hand the impact of the health initiatives that had been introduced.