Reference Material for Schools for Foreign Students: School Health Activities
Schools in Japan have been working on various school health activities to maintain and enhance the healthcondition of students, under laws and regulations.
This document summarizes and introduces some of the activities as reference, for schools for foreign students inJapan.

What is school health?
As features of school health in Japan, schools have been engaged in both health management, such as healthchecks, health counseling and guidance, and health education through related subjects including the Health andPhysical Education period; and also have used achievements of health education for health management.

Health education
Teaching of each subject(e.g., the Healthand PhysicalEducation
period, SpecialActivities, etc.)

Health management
For people
First aid, health checks,
health observation,
infection prevention,
health counseling andguidance, etc.

For object
Environmental
hygienemanagement
etc.

Individuals involved in school health
Various individuals such as teachers and those belonging to local related associations and organizations areinvolved in school health activities.This section indicates parties involved in such activities in public elementaryand junior high schools and their specific roles.

Within school
Yogo teacher
A yogo teacher is a teaching staff, who plays a pivotal role to promote school health activities. Yogo teacher’sfunction is first aid, health checks, health observation, infection prevention, environmental hygienemanagement, health counseling and guidance, school health room management, health organizational
activities, and teaching in each subject.

Health chief
A health chief is a teaching staff, who manages issues related to school health, such as coordinating school
health activities and whole school activities, developing a school health plan, and promoting healthorganizational activities.

Class teacher
As a class teacher always takes care of students in proximity, the teacher observes their daily health condition,
provides health counseling and guidance to them, and checks environmental hygiene daily. For promoting
school health activities, it is important for all teachers such as class teachers to work on activity together with ayogo teacher and a health chief as one team.

Principal, and vice-principal
School managers, such as the principal and the vice-principal, are responsible for organizing a school systemthrough an organization management bringing out the strengths of various specialties of school staff topromote school health activities.

School doctor, school dentist, and school pharmacist
Schools are required to have a school doctor, a school dentist, and a school pharmacist. A school doctor and aschool dentist are engaged in health checks and infection prevention measures. A school pharmacist works oninspections for environmental hygiene. They provide advice and suggestion from their professional viewpoints.

Development of school organizational framework

Principal (School manager)

Teacher in charge ofstudent guidance

Teacher in charge ofcareer guidance

Health chief

Yogo teacher

Teacher in charge ofeducational counseling

Teacher adjusting the school
curriculum for each grade

Class teacher

School doctor
and others

School counselor••

Teacher in charge ofthe school curriculum

School social
workerCoordinator for
special needs education

Understanding and leadership of school managers are essential for operating school systems.
Related school staff should be encouraged to have common understanding among each other and share theroles.

Beyond school premisesStudent’s family
It is important for schools to build relationship with students’ families daily since schools need to obtain theirunderstanding and cooperation to support students in terms of their health issues.

Locally related institutions
Schools need to tackle with students’ health issues in cooperation with their families and locally relatedinstitutions. Primary locally related institutions include a child guidance center, a support center for persons
with developmental disorders, a public health center, a mental health and welfare center, medical institutions,the police, and a juvenile support center.

What is a school health room?
Each school in Japan has a school health room for health checks, health counselingand guidance, and first aid; it is accordingly equipped with necessary instruments andmaterials to assist such functions.
All students can use this room at any time, and it also provides a safety place for them.

What is health management?
Schools in Japan provide health managements including first aid, health checks, health observation, infection
prevention, health counseling and guidance, and environmental hygiene management.Introduction of health management activities
First aidFirst aid in school is subject to all illness and injuries occurring under a school management, such as students’sudden disease events and injuries. However, a school is not a medical institution but educational one, andthereby, first aid in school is a temporary measure until a student can receive medical treatment in aclinic/hospital. Schools
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Health checks
Schools provide health checks in every school year and also on ad hoc basis as need-basis on laws.
The types of tests for health checks are specified in applicable laws. (Please refer to Fig. 1)

Figure1【The types of tests for health checks】

HeightNutritional status, skin,spine, thorax, extremities,
tuberculosis

WeightHearing acuity

DentalEars and nose,pharynx

Visual acuity

Heart

Urineetc.

School health checks have mainly two roles.
1．Check whether or not students have any problems to spend their school lives by screening for any
diseases and confirming the health condition of students.
2．Identify health issues in school and use these in health education.
Schools announce the results to students and may offer recommendation to seek medical examinations at
medical institutions or give consideration to their daily activities in school.

Health observation
All teachers, especially class teachers and yogo teachers conduct health observation through whole education
activities. A class teacher, especially, has important activities to check a latecomer and an absentee to confirm
the reason in every morning as well as to check students’ physical and mental health conditions. Healthobservation plays an important role in detecting and addressing student’s physical and mental health issues
early, preventing infection from expanding, and executing infection prevention controls.

Infection prevention
When a student is infected with an infectious disease, other students may be
infected with the disease. It is likely to affect educational activities, and a school
will suspend the student attendance. In addition, if an inflectional outbreakoccurs, the school will, after receiving opinions of a school doctor, takemeasures such as suspension of attendance, temporary school closure,disinfection, and other measures as well as will contact local public healthcenters.
To prevent infectious diseases, teachers strive to detect an infection onset and atransmission trend in an early phase through daily health observation and use ofa school health room.

Health counseling and guidance
Health counseling and guidance cannot be separated specifically, rather they should belinked and developed mutually. Through counseling requests from students or theirguardians, health observation and health checks, responses in school health room,
schools determine the necessities of health counseling and guidance and screen target
Athealth
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Healthguidance
aims to make target students identify their own
health issues, to deepen their understanding and attentions to them, and to execute voluntary and practicalactions to solve such issues proactively on their own. It is also important for schools to cope with healthcounseling and guidance organizationally as a whole in cooperation with not only school staff such as yogo
teachers, class teachers, school managers, school doctors, school dentists, and school pharmacists but also
local related associations and organizations.

Environmental hygiene management
In Japan, there are recommended standards related to environmental hygiene in schools(e.g., ventilation, temperature, lighting, and noise level for classroom environment and water
quality for drinking water, maintenance and control status of facilities, and equipment, etc.) to
maintain good health of teachers and students.
Schools regularly inspect them every school year based on the standards and also on ad hocbasis as needed as well as a daily inspection. These inspections, thereby, achieve
maintaining and improving environmental hygiene in schools.

What is health education?
Objectives of health education in schools are as follows: students foster Competencies for enhancing their own
mental and physical health in response to new health issues associated with any changes in their life situation;and they will develop the foundation necessary to live safely, healthily, and actively throughout their entire lives.
Elementary, junior high, and high schools provide health education through related subjects such as the Healthand Physical Education period as well as Special Activities by taking into account the developmental stages.

The Health and Physical Education period in elementary, junior high, and high schools
Elementary school
•
•
•
•
•

Healthy daily lives
Physical growth anddevelopment
Mental health
Injury prevention
Disease prevention

Junior high school••••

Healthy daily lives anddisease prevention
Development of mental andphysical functions andmental health
Injury prevention
Health and environment

High school••••

Current society and health
Safe social life
Life-long healthEstablishing anenvironment for a healthy life Issued on 2024 / 03 / 22
 Issued by the Office for a Professional Platform of Health and Hygiene Environment in Schools for Foreign Students
provided by MEXT (mediPhone Inc.) Collaborators
・ASANO Akemi： Adviser, National Liaison Committee of Yogo Teacher
・KAMEI Megumi：School Nurse, Tokyo International School
・KURAHASHI Tomu： Vice president, Association of Brazilian Schools in Japan・TAKEHANA Yukari：Professor, School Health Care and Health Education, Arts and Sports Sciences Division, Tokyo Gakugei University