Health and Physical Education

Health and Physical Education emphasises the importance of learning opportunities that explicitly teach the knowledge, understanding and skills described in the standards and content through authentic and meaningful learning contexts. Teachers should be able to articulate what knowledge, understanding and skills they are developing, reinforcing and/or applying during a lesson or an assessment.

When this proposition is considered as part of the planning process, classroom programs:

• include purposeful learning experiences
• are developmentally appropriate and clearly articulate how the learning is aligned to achievement standards and content.

A strengths-based approach recognises that students have varying levels of access to personal skills, strengths, assets and community resources to maintain and promote their own and others’ wellbeing. Health and Physical Education recognises that contextual factors impact peoples’ decisions and behaviours in relation to their health, safety, wellbeing and participation in physical activity.

This proposition focuses on personal skills and community resources that can build students’ agency in various health and movement contexts. It recognises that the skills, resources and capacities each student has available to them will differ immensely. However, all students, no matter what their background or life situation, have capacities that can be drawn on to support them to make healthy, safe and active choices. Applying a strengths-based approach requires teachers to view health and physical activity participation as processes that students need to make sense of for themselves, rather than a single outcome students need to achieve.

When this proposition is considered as part of the planning process, classroom programs:

• support students to find solutions and plans of action that work for them as individuals rather than promoting a “one-size-fits-all” approach to being healthy, safe or active
• explore strategies to access community resources and the role individuals play in contributing to the health, safety and wellbeing of their families and communities.

Valuing movement promotes appreciation of how movement in all its forms is central to daily life. Movement meets functional requirements and provides opportunities for active living. Valuing movement means acknowledging participation in physical activity and sport as significant social practices. Health and Physical Education develops physical literacy through meaningful movement experiences to support ongoing participation in physical activity across the lifespan. It emphasises the development, transfer and adaptation of movement skills and understandings within and across different movement contexts. When planning movement experiences, teachers must consider how their decisions may value some movement skills and contexts over others and unintentionally privilege or marginalise some students in the process.

When this proposition is considered as part of the planning process, classroom programs:

• movement is identified not only as content to be taught, but also as a context for learning
• programs explore and value diverse ways of moving and reasons for moving
• programs engage and challenge all students.

Health literacy is an individual’s ability to access, understand, interrogate and use health information and services to promote their own and others’ health and wellbeing. Consistent with a strengths-based approach, health literacy is a personal and community asset to be developed, evaluated, enriched and communicated. Health and Physical Education focuses on developing knowledge, understanding and skills related to 3 dimensions of health literacy – functional, interactive and critical. The curriculum promotes the progressive development of health literacy skills. First, students can access and apply information to respond to a health-related question. Then, they can independently apply new information to changing health circumstances. Finally, they can selectively access, analyse, evaluate and synthesise health information from a variety of sources to actively promote their own and others’ health and wellbeing.

When this proposition is considered as part of the planning process, classroom programs:

• help students become critical consumers of health information, able to critique the reliability of published content from traditional and less-traditional sources
• provide opportunities to access, critique and use relevant and meaningful health information and support networks
• encourage students to apply their health knowledge and skills in a variety of complex and meaningful contexts.

Health and Physical Education promotes a critical inquiry approach to examining information, ideas and views that are commonly expressed in the media and society. Health and Physical Education recognises that contextual factors, which are often out of individuals’ control, influence decision-making, behaviours and actions in relation to health and wellbeing. This proposition encourages the development of skills in researching, analysing, applying and appraising knowledge to investigate meaningful, “real-life” situations and problems, and respond with creative solutions or alternatives. A critical inquiry approach develops and refines the skills needed to make sense of social, cultural and political issues from personal perspectives based on lived experiences.

When this proposition is considered as part of the planning process, classroom programs:

• provide frequent opportunities for students to challenge, question and interrogate knowledge and assumptions in the health and movement fields
• encourage students to use a critical lens when interrogating information and ideas commonly expressed in society
• recognise that being and staying healthy, safe, well and active are shaped by a range of contextual factors, some of which are out of an individual’s control.