A look back at the now 30-year history of school health promotion in Germany reveals lines of development that are helpful in understanding the past and that open the view for future opportunities and challenges. In this article, school health promotion will be considered from three perspectives: as a field of practice, a field of research, and a field of policy.In the practice field, health promotion in schools is confronted with a situation characterized by long-standing restrictions that have been imposed on students, teachers, and heads of schools. These measures are many and varied, but three forms of implementation that have developed from common roots can be identified: (a) behavioural approach, (b) health promoting school, and (c) good healthy school. "Health literacy" and the "health literate school" represent recent developments. In the research field, it is apparent that opportunities for evaluation are often underutilized, but in settings-based approaches they also face significant hurdles. However, in questions of dissemination and implementation strategies, which are further important research fields, clear progress has been made. In the policy field, important milestones have been set with the Preventive Care Act of 2015, the prevention guideline of the GKV (National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds), the recommendations of the KMK 2012 (Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs), and with the concept of the DGUV (German Social Accident Insurance) in 2013. School legislation of the federal states and the quality concepts of good schools show how health management can be linked with the educational quality management in schools.In conclusion, it is evident that a framework for school health promotion that would guide and link theory-based research and practice is still lacking.