Health and Physical Education Curriculum refresh

The Mental Health Foundation is pleased that Health and Physical Education is being retained as a learning area in the refreshed New Zealand Curriculum.

However, despite being a core part of learning for over three decades, mental health and wellbeing are barely mentioned in the draft curriculum, and the fate of the existing mental health guidelines is uncertain.

Compared to previous Health and Physical Education curricula, the draft new curriculum also removes a lot of content and conceptual grounding considered best practice in mental health education and relationships and sexuality education (RSE), and there is now much less emphasis on rainbow and cultural inclusivity.

Ideally, we would like to see the knowledge and practices in the new curriculum aligned with the 2022 mental health education guide, which is holistic, inclusive and addresses community and societal factors that affect our mental health and wellbeing.

At a minimum, we recommend naming mental health and wellbeing as a core concept of Health and Physical Education and acknowledging this in the purpose statement, introduction and the teaching sequence.