Health Consultation
Tauraroa Area School
Health Consultation 2021
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
At least once every two years, Boards of Trustees are required to inform and consult the community on the current Junior Health programme. This consultation will allow the school to refine and revise the Health programmes based on the needs of the students and provide opportunities for parents and whanau to contribute to enhancing the learning in Health education.
What is Health Education?
In Health education, students develop their understanding of the factors that influence the health of individuals, groups and society. Students develop competencies for mental wellness, resilience, change and loss, communication skills, promoting positive wellbeing, reproductive health and positive sexuality, safety management, and they develop understandings of nutritional needs.
What do we offer?
Year 9-10 health is allocated 2x hours of Health education per week.
Junior school is incorporated into their homeroom learning.
Senior students have the option to complete NCEA 1, 2, and 3 Health.
Across all year levels students receive health information through talks, classwork, guest speakers and seminars.
Key Areas of Learning
Our health programme currently reflects and addresses the needs of New Zealand students by covering a range of topics including; mental health, sexuality education, food and nutrition, and body care and physical safety. The spiral nature of learning in health education means that these areas are revisited at different levels and in different learning contexts throughout your child’s education.
Four concepts support the framework for learning in health education.
Well-being
The concept of well-being encompasses the physical, mental and emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of health. Hauora is a Māori philosophy of health unique to New Zealand. It comprises taha tinana, taha hinengaro, taha whanau, and taha wairua.
Health Promotion
Health promotion helps create supportive physical and emotional environments in classrooms, schools, communities, and society. The process involves collective action from all members of the wider community and will help students understand how their environment affects well-being, develop skills to empower them to take action to improve well-being, and to help develop supportive links and policies to ensure safety in the community.
The Socio-ecological Perspective
Students will be able to identify and reflect on factors that influence people’s choice and behaviours relating to health, recognise the need for mutual care and shared responsibility, and actively contribute to their own well-being, to that of other people and society, and to the health of the environment.
Attitudes and Values
Students will develop a positive and responsible attitude to their own well-being, respect for the rights of other people, care and concern for other people in their community and for the environment, and develop a sense of social justice.
Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand Curriculum. Ministry of Education.
Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand Curriculum
Health and physical education is one of the eight essential learning areas of The New Zealand Curriculum. Furthermore, it is a compulsory subject until the end of Year 10.
Although there are seven key areas of learning in the Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand Curriculum, the four areas specifically covered in Health education are:
- mental health,
- food and nutrition,
- body care and physical safety,
- sexuality education.
For more detailed information on Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand Curriculum please visit https://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum/Health-and-physical-education
Sexuality education in Years 6 – 10
Sexuality education at Tauraroa Area School is to provide students with the knowledge, understanding, and skills they need to develop positive attitudes to sexuality and to take care of their sexual health needs, both now and in the future.
We do believe that the family should be the primary educator in matters to do with sexuality but not all parents/caregivers discuss sexuality issues with their children. Sexuality education in schools may also enhance communication at home.
Due to sexuality education being a key learning area to be covered in the health curriculum, and yet of a controversial nature, provision has been made for individual parents of students enrolled in any state school to write to the principal to request that their child/children be excluded from specified parts of the health programme related to sexuality education.
The principal is required to ensure that the student is excluded from the relevant tuition and that the student is supervised during that time. This requirement does not extend to exclusion at any other time when a teacher deals with a question raised by another student that relates to sexuality education.
To provide parents with the information needed to make informed decisions, supplied in detail below are the unit overviews for each unit including sexuality education and the general overview of all units taught in Health from Year 0 to Year 10.
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