Oasis Academy Wintringham has become the first site in North East Lincolnshire to gain the Gold Smokefree Schools Award.
The award, which is promoted by the North East Lincolnshire Smokefree Alliance and the Stop Smoking Service, is given to sites which devise, develop, consult on and implement a smokefree policy for their whole site.
Councillor Mick Burnett, North East Lincolnshire Council’s portfolio holder for health and wellbeing, said: “This award is given to Oasis Academy Wintringham in recognition of their work and their policy which makes their whole site smokefree. It is essential for the health and wellbeing of everyone that sites such as this are kept completely free of smoke. I am pleased that this first site is now leading the way on keeping everyone safe, and I very much hope that many more schools and academies will follow suit and develop a policy for their sites.”
The new policy means that every part of the Oasis Academy Wintringham site, including all buildings, footways, playing fields, playgrounds and car parks, should be smokefree at all times. The ban applies equally to staff, students, parents, visitors and contractors. All members of staff who smoke are being offered help towards quitting. Smoking and health also feature in many areas of the academy’s curriculum.
The Academy’s principal, Jane Bowman, said: “As a sport and health Academy, we feel that it is our duty to promote a ‘smoke free lifestyle’, not only for the Academy community but for the whole community. We are extremely honoured to receive this award and proud of our achievements. We hope that others will follow our example.”
The award has now been presented to the academy. In attendance were Councillor Burnett, Dave Cook, the council’s deputy director of health and wellbeing, Geoff Barnes, deputy director of public health.
Aye mate! And welcome to limbo! Problem: I have no idea what page you're trying to work on. You need to define a body ID in the template, then turn on the necessary rows and columns in layout.css. Arrrrgh!
