A new project in Coventry schools to inform children about vaccines and encourage them to get vaccinated has shown good results.
This is according to a new evaluation that the NIHR Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC) Coventry and Coventry City Council delivered together. Read the report in PDF or text format.
Dr Chloe Ryder, Research Fellow in Quantitative and Mixed-Methods Research at NIHR HDRC Coventry, led the evaluation with Rayyan Nasser, Programme Officer for Health Protection at Coventry City Council. Their partnership shows that Coventry is serious about making sure local decisions are based on research and facts. This helps ensure that public health projects stay effective and are based on solid evidence.
Coventry City Council's Public Health Team created the Vaccine Superhero Programme together with the NHS School-Aged Immunisation Service (SAIS). The goal of the programme is to address the fact that fewer and fewer children are being vaccinated and that health inequalities across the city are increasing.
The programme is used in primary and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) schools. It uses fun educational activities to help children understand how vaccines work and why they are important for protecting communities.
Schools taking part in the programme received a lot of different resources, like lesson plans, educational materials and Giant Microbe plush toys. Teachers used these resources to explain difficult ideas like germs, immunity, and vaccination in a way that was easy for students to understand.
The people who took part in the survey conducted as part of the report gave the resources particularly positive feedback. All of them said that the Giant Microbe toys were useful in helping children to understand health topics that they might find difficult to understand otherwise. School employees said that the programme was easy to deliver and could be used with other subjects like science and Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE).
Teachers and other school staff also said that the students were very interested and that they understood more about vaccines and how important it is to get vaccinated. Importantly, every school that replied to the survey said they would like to take part in more programmes like this in the future. This shows that they believe in the programme and think it will be a good use of their time.
The review also looked at how many children were vaccinated during the intervention and compared this with information on vaccinations from schools in Coventry between the 2022/23 and 2025/26 school years. Looking at the data on vaccinations, there are some good signs. Of the 31 schools taking part in the programme, 28 saw more people get vaccinated during the study.
Non-participating schools also improved, making it harder to know what effect the programme had on its own. The results therefore show that Coventry as a whole is making positive progress.
The report also identified practical lessons for improving school-based vaccine engagement, including greater involvement from healthcare professionals, additional support for schools delivering activities, and adapting resources for SEND settings and other educational contexts. It also highlighted the value of age-appropriate educational materials in helping children engage with health topics and build vaccination confidence.
Several recommendations have already been incorporated into the second phase of the intervention, which is currently being delivered in Coventry schools. Future evaluation will explore whether these changes lead to further improvements in engagement, understanding surrounding vaccinations, and vaccination uptake.
Rayyan Nasser, Programme Officer for Health Protection at Coventry City Council, said:
“The Vaccine Superhero initiative was developed during the height of the measles response in Coventry, and the evaluation has shown how valuable community-led approaches can be in improving vaccine confidence. We were delighted to see the importance of this initiative was recognised at the National Immunisation Conference 2025.
Working with NIHR HDRC Coventry provided an independent perspective on what worked well and where we could strengthen the programme in the future. It also encouraged us as a team to think more broadly about evaluation and to build research and evidence into our everyday work.”
The findings further provide useful learning for other local authorities, NHS services and Integrated Care Boards looking to improve childhood vaccination uptake. They demonstrate how schools can act as trusted settings for health promotion and how evidence can be used to strengthen community-based approaches to improving vaccine confidence.
The report also highlights the benefits of close collaboration between researchers and public health practitioners. By working together throughout the intervention and evaluation process, Coventry City Council and NIHR HDRC Coventry generated evidence that could be translated into practical improvements while also strengthening research and evaluation skills within the Council. This supports a culture of evidence-informed decision-making and helps build long-term capacity for research and evaluation within local services.
As Coventry continues to make decisions based on research, the findings show that it is important to carry on developing health promotion programmes in schools that give young people more power, help families, and make communities healthier in the future.
NIHR HDRC Coventry is keen to share learning from the report with others interested in developing or evaluating similar interventions. Teams are encouraged to reach out, with support available to strengthen evaluation approaches, identify opportunities for improvement and build evidence for impact. By making research accessible, practical, and embedded within everyday practice, organisations can develop their own research capability, support evidence-informed decision-making, and improve public health outcomes for communities locally and beyond. Contact NIHR HDRC Coventry at CoventryHDRC@coventry.gov.uk.