Health and Physical Education curriculum refresh

For example, we are concerned that:

• There are almost no direct references to mental health and wellbeing in the draft curriculum, in contrast to mental health being a key area of learning in Health and Physical Education in Aotearoa New Zealand since 1993.
• The limited mental health content in the new curriculum appears to be much more focused on the individual than the previous curriculum. The previous curriculum acknowledged that our mental health can be affected by community and societal factors as well as our individual choices.
• It is not clear if the new Health and Physical Education curriculum will be embedded in a "whole-school" approach (i.e., an approach that considers how school-wide policies and practices — such as adequate bullying prevention policies, school health services, bathrooms and uniforms — also contribute to mental health education and RSE). Whole-school approaches are considered best practice by educators and entities like UNICEF and the World Health Organization.
• References to mātauranga Māori, te ao Māori and te reo Māori have been almost completely removed. This is a huge step backwards compared to the previous curriculum, which was explicitly grounded in hauora (as represented by Te Whare Tapa Whā). This is a loss for students — Te Whare Tapa Whā is a well-known, culturally relevant and useful tool for teaching about holistic wellbeing (i.e., how our physical, social, spiritual and mental health are connected). It is also a loss for Māori students in particular, who do better in school when Māori ways of being are valued and affirmed.
• References to other cultures' perspectives on health and wellbeing (e.g., Pasifika and Asian worldviews) have also been removed, which is exclusionary and does not reflect the cultural diversity among students in Aotearoa New Zealand.
• There is almost no information on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender diversity, or intersex variation in the new draft content, meaning young people miss out crucial knowledge to understand themselves and the world they live in, in an evidence-based and inclusive way.  

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.