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Partnerships with schools are vital for public health research, providing access to diverse groups of children and young people and enabling researchers to study health behaviours, identify health needs and opportunities for early prevention and health promotion, and to evaluate interventions in real-world settings. Collaboration with teachers, ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½, and families helps ensure research is relevant, practical, and impactful, while supporting evidence-based practice, improving health outcomes, and reducing health inequalities.

Engaging schools can be challenging due to competing priorities, limited time and resources, and teacher concerns about disruption to teaching, administrative burden, and alignment with educational goals. To address these challenges and develop a truly collaborative approach that is mutually beneficial for both the research and the school, Dr Bina Ram was commissioned by the NIHR Research Delivery Network (funded by the Department of Health and Social Care), to create a toolkit aimed at researchers on engaging with schools. Collaborating with a School Stakeholder Group comprising 17 teachers from schools across 11 Greater London boroughs (Hounslow, Greenwich, Enfield, Brent, Wandsworth, Havering, Lewisham, Haringey, Sutton, Ealing, and Harrow), she co-produced Engaging with Primary Schools for Public Health Research: A Practical Toolkit for Researchers.