School health and nutrition is about investing both in schoolchildren and adolescents’ health and well-being and in their learning, with benefits extending to their homes and communities. When children are sick and hungry, they do not learn well. When children do not receive a quality education, they are less likely to be healthy. Further, good health, good nutrition and good education are not only rights and ends in themselves, they are an investment in a country’s future and in the capacity of its people to lead productive and satisfactory lives. This inter-relationship between education, nutrition and health calls for a more integrated, systems approach to school health and nutrition, and coordinated action to bring effective, multicomponent policies and programmes to scale. UN and multilateral agencies have responded to this call, forming a new partnership ‘Stepping up effective school health and nutrition’, which aims to advance the health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents, so they are able to learn and grow, achieve their full potential and shape the future of their communities and countries. The partnership includes the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Standing Committee for Nutrition (UNSCN), the World Bank Group, the World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO).