New initiative has a healthy outlook

One student scheme is a lesson not only in health, but in finance and community action.

If you choose to take the air in the grounds of Baylis Court, it is hard to avoid the sticky whiff of Mars Bar, churned out by the million on the industrial estate next door. It is not a healthy smell and certainly not an encouraging one for a school which is preparing to launch an innovative and potentially life-saving fitness drive.

The whiff of the famous Mars and Snickers production line is inescapable in Slough. But the pupils and teachers at Baylis Court girls school have much a greater health worry than the close proximity of so much sugar, chocolate and caramel – a concern which centres not on the pupils but their mothers. To put it bluntly, too many of the mums are falling ill and dying young – in their thirties and forties – from a fatal combination of poor diet, lack of exercise and heart disease.

Some four fifths of the pupils at Baylis Court have an Asian background and this, when it comes to health, is a significant factor. Not only are families with an Indian or Pakistani heritage vulnerable to cardiovascular disease, but Asian women have particular problems finding time and suitable places to exercise. Most community gyms or sports halls are mixed sex, with men lining up to pump, push or jog alongside the women. For the mothers at Baylis Court this is simply unacceptable.

When three of the students lost their mums in a single year, assistant head Vicki Chad felt it was time to act. With the support of the Barclays New Futures fund, the school decided to set up a free gym and health centre where the mothers would feel comfortable. And, under the banner of citizenship, it asked the students to devise and run it. From next month, Baylis Court will be offering free, women-only fitness sessions for two, possibly three nights a week. There will be aerobics classes in the main school gym, basic weights and some 20 different running and stepping machines in the school dance and drama studio. The first batch of equipment has only just been delivered, but already the school has been overwhelmed with interest and is concerned that not all the mums will find a place.

For the girls, meanwhile, it is a lesson not only in health, but in management, finance and, perhaps most importantly, in community action. A four-girl committee has drawn up the specifications and ordered the equipment using a £5,000 grant from Barclays. They have worked out appropriate exercise regimes, the likely health benefits to the women, and have devised nutritional leaflets to distribute at the classes. Younger pupils are involved too, scheduled to help out with the aerobics classes and child care. The hope is that the gym will become self-sustaining, run by willing staff and pupils

The responsibilities are divided four ways on the pupil committee, with finance and publicity officers, a health adviser, and a chairwoman, 14-year-old Jasmit Jagdey.

This is the first time that Jagdey, or fellow student Parminder Bhuie have taken part in such a major project, a process which has been an education in itself. They have advertised the sessions by printing and distributing posters and T-shirts, and as a group they have been out spreading the word in Slough's main shopping centre. It has also been useful for their GCSE course in PE, which involves studying the relationship between exercise and health.

Bhuie, the publicity manager, says she got involved because she feels there are not enough sports facilities for women around the town. Comparatively few women play hockey, as she does, and fewer still feel able to play football like Jasmit, so for many older women a gym can take on particular importance, providing their only chance to get some exercise.

The Barclays New Futures fund is now the largest single education sponsorship in the country, worth £10m over 10 years. It is run in collaboration with CSV (Community Service Volunteers) which has helped monitor the Baylis Court initiative. Barclays has been able to help some 1,300 schools since the fund started in 1995 and the bank reckons that more than 100,000 young people have become actively involved in their communities as a consequence.

Most of the Barclays schemes around the country plug directly into citizenship. At Ellis Guildford School in Nottingham, for example, the students are bent on transforming a set of vandalised allotments into a market garden with a view to selling fresh fruit and vegetables to pupils, parents and the surrounding community. Health is an issue here too: the school serves an area of some deprivation, and the project has been designed to fit in with its healthy eating programme. A couple of the housing estates nearby have been designated Health Action Zones.

Meanwhile in Liverpool the bank has sponsored an attempt to set up a local trading currency (a Local Exchange Trading Scheme or LETS) at Shorefields Community Comprehensive School. The idea is that businesses, parents and primary schools come together to meet community needs by pooling resources without relying on hard cash transactions.

Most major corporations run some form of schools programme and most have a history of involvement that long predates the arrival of citizenship. But they say that the emphasis on community involvement in the new subject has brought a new structure and focus to their work.

BT has worked with schools since its Post Office days. At present it is spending more than £4m a year sponsoring a theatrical road show and a series of educational competitions. The Cragrats theatre company has now visited 9,000 schools in the past four years with a play on the importance of clear and honest communication. BT also sponsors a series of ICT-linked schools awards, including one for citizenship.

Proctor & Gamble also has a history of working in classrooms. Just as BT likes to keep communication in the frame, so P&G – manufacturer of Tampax tampons as well as Tide, Olay and Crest – tends to concentrate on health. In particular it works in schools to promote an understanding of sexual health among teenage girls.

Back at Baylis Court, Vicki Chad says it is not just the mums who need help with health. Former pupils are also welcome at the new gym, she says, because many of them adopt a sedentary life as soon as they leave. And current pupils too should pay heed. The healthy eating sheets that Baylis Court is preparing to distribute are very much to the point. "They're not just aimed at the mums," says Chad. "Our girls have the worst of both diets. They eat pakoras and samosas at home, then they come to school and have chips. They get all the naughty things at home, then have more at school."