HEYA - Gold award

To move on to this level, you will have completed Bronze Mental Health and Wellbeing, and Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Healthy Mouth at Silver level within the last three years.

By working through all of the awards, settings will progressively make positive changes impacting on the setting, the practitioners, the parents and families. This helps everyone to make healthier choices and changes for life. 

Completing the gold award will enable settings to take this further, really making a measurable difference to families and helping them to make healthy lifestyle choices. The Gold award is an overarching award, incorporating one or more aspects of the award and demonstrating an ongoing commitment to all aspects:

  • Nutrition
  • Healthy mouth
  • Physical activity
  • Mental health and wellbeing

The focus of the Gold Healthy Early Years Award will be centred on Parental Engagement in the form of a project and must:

  • Show an impact on parents and families
  • Take a holistic view of wellbeing incorporating all aspects of the award
  • Demonstrate how the activity or project impacts on the families and has made a measurable difference

The setting will also develop an action plan identifying steps to further improve nutrition, healthy mouth, physical activity and mental health and wellbeing opportunities in the future.

The assessment involves the HEYA team reviewing your project and action plan, and, if required, carrying out a brief telephone ‘interview’ with you to confirm all requirements are met. The self-assessment forms for the Bronze and Silver awards will have already determined your ‘baseline’ provision/practice, and the team will be on hand to confirm a suitable project with you. We anticipate the Gold level to be worked on over a period of one term, but may take longer, depending on the focus of your planned project.

Following successful completion of the award, HEYA leads are expected to become mentors for other settings, progressing through the awards, and this will be reflected in the Gold renewal process.

Achieving the award will support the positive changes to healthier choices for all. It will also assist with providing evidence to demonstrate to Ofsted how settings work in partnership with parents and other professionals and have high aspirations for children and families.

The Gold renewal process

This will focus on maintaining all HEYA Silver criteria as well as an ongoing commitment to work with families, helping them to make informed, positive lifestyle choices.

The renewal will require you to work on the actions you identified in your Gold submission and to evaluate their impact. You will also be required to support other HEYA participants in their journey as well as develop a new action plan to continue the work you have begun.

It is expected that you will take a holistic view to all aspects of HEYA and incorporate as many areas as possible in your future objectives. You will complete the Gold renewal self-assessment form to demonstrate that the setting still meets all of the HEYA criteria, as well as the work you have been undertaking, and the resulting impact on children and families. You may also choose, if you wish, to undertake another project.

Document Type Size
Gold Award Structurepdf165.9 KB
Gold Renewal Flow Chartpdf167.7 KB
Gold Renewal Self Assessment Formdocx129.5 KB