Health Beats: Keeping Healthy is aimed at laying the foundations for an understanding of healthy living for children between the ages of 7 and 13, and more specifically Upper Primary children. It covers a wide range of information that ties in with both PSHE, as well as with the healthy eating aspects of food technology in the National Curriculum.

The format is a series of ‘interactive textbooks’ or pages giving information on each topic. The areas covered are: healthy eating; body health; tobacco, alcohol and other drugs, and disease prevention. These are then followed up with educational games that allow children to check how well they know each topic.

The animated program centres around a house, including different rooms occupied by young characters with their own names and interests. As you pass from room to room, you can click on different parts of the house and bring up the different aspects of healthy living. In addition, there are extra sections that allow older children or teachers to find Health Services and information on these topics via the web.

The information contained in the textbook sections is clear and well-presented. Their subject matter is appropriate for the target age group and is set out using fun animated characters.

The activities available included timed quizzes (with instant feedback), interesting scenario games that allow the children to affect the outcome of a scenario according to the choices they make, and even a Space Invaders-type game where children get points for clicking on the healthy options out of the food that flies past. Unsurprisingly, this was a firm favourite with the children.

When used with students, they particularly enjoyed the fun cartoon-style presentation, and felt that this was a real bonus.

All in all, this is a novel and interesting resource that gets the message of healthy living over in a positive way, with good reinforcement of what they have learned. Moreover, the children were positive about using it, and it is certainly a lot more fun than some old-fashioned book resources for teaching this topic.

Schoolzone

This is an excellent program, within a highly effective series of CD ROMs which should be on the shelves of every PSHE department.

Healthbeats is a set of seven CD ROMs, and the material addressed ranges from an understanding of body parts, to keeping healthy, to feelings and worries. Each of these CD ROMs is then further divided up into sub categories: Emotions and You, School Stuff, Family Fare, Relationships and Communication. Each of these sub-sections is then dealt with within the PSHE framework in the form of a cartoon. This is a highly effective, colourful and fun method of dealing with the issues contained within the CD ROM and can be used in conjunction with worksheets or as a follow up discussion based on the information covered within the cartoon.

The main purpose of the program is to provide a fun, bright and enjoyable format to aid the delivery of PSHE within the Key Stage 3 format. The program is part of a series that covers a number of topics. For example, the Feelings and Worries CD ROM delivers a cartoon and a number of key questions are asked which can either be completed through a simple worksheet devised by the classroom teacher, or can form the focus point for a class discussion.

The content contained within the program is more than appropriate to the target audience. The program is aimed at Key Stage 3 students and the combination of bright, simplistic, colourful and funny characters with a cartoon creates a fun atmosphere that can enhance the teaching and learning of the PSHE curriculum.

The Health Beats CD ROM series is an excellent program to be used in the Key Stage 3 teaching of the PSHE Curriculum. Each CD ROM deals with a different aspect of the framework and is presented in a bright, colourful and user-friendly environment. The main body of the program takes the form of a cartoon, which centres on a group of friends and their adventures. This enables the students to identify with the characters and they learn without realising it.

The quality and content of the material contained within the program is excellent.

TEEM (Teachers Evaluating Educational Multimedia)