Meet the Teachers Behind Healthy Harold

By Alana McCorry, Education Strategy Manager, Life Education Trust

I think that detail gets lost sometimes, tucked away behind Harold the giraffe and the novel experience of the mobile classroom. However, it matters, and as we move into next year, that qualification and experience as teachers will matter more. Schools will be working with a knowledge-rich curriculum, and we know that will bring both opportunities and added pressure for teachers. Finding natural ways to connect learning across different areas will help make that content more manageable for schools, and meaningful for students.

Teachers will increasingly be looking for ways to connect learning areas, bringing health and wellbeing, financial education and other social sciences topics, and weaving in science where it naturally fits. This is so that students encounter important ideas in more than one context. That isn't a new skill our educators need to learn, as it is already what they do.

We’re not here to give schools another subject to fit into an already busy day. Healthy Harold helps bring learning areas together, supporting teachers with meaningful connections across health, wellbeing, social science, science and other parts of the curriculum, delivered by teachers who understand the classroom, and how students learn.

We’re also incredibly proud of the experience within our educator team. Many have been part of Life Education for ten, fifteen and even twenty years, building trusted relationships with schools and communities along the way. One of our longest-serving educators in Whangārei has been teaching the Healthy Harold programme since 2009 and now leads her wider regional team. That depth of experience, connection and genuine commitment to tamariki is a special part of what makes Life Education, and Healthy Harold, what they are.

Our educators often share moments that remind us how important trust, patience and connection can be. Recently, one of our team worked with a non-verbal autistic child who spoke during a visit to the mobile classroom, a special moment for everyone involved, and one that reflected the safe, supportive environment created around that learner.

Being a Life Education educator is about much more than delivering a session on healthy choices. Our educators are registered teachers who work alongside schools and teachers, build relationships with tamariki and help connect learning across the curriculum in ways that are engaging, relevant and memorable. And every now and then, they’re privileged to be part of a moment that stays with everyone long after Healthy Harold has left the school.