Food and wellbeing: Health and Physical Education

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Health and Physical Education

Food and nutrition is one of the focus areas in the Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum and includes developing knowledge, understanding and skills that will support students to make healthier choices. Students learn about food and nutrition by exploring the influences on these choices and developing skills to access and assess nutritional information to support healthy choices. In HPE, students learn about different stages of life and take increasing responsibility for their own growth and development by exploring and learning how to manage the many factors that influence their identities. They also develop a practical understanding of how connections to friends, family, other people, culture and society influence what we eat and drink.

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Year 4

Personal, social and community health

Being healthy, safe and active

Content descriptions with elaborations

Explore how success, challenge and failure strengthen identities (ACPPS033)

  • examining factors that support personal achievement and development of personal identities, such as the influence of family, friends and school
  • suggesting ways to respond positively to challenges and failure, such as using self-talk, early help-seeking behaviours, and optimistic thinking

Explore strategies to manage physical, social and emotional change (ACPPS034)

  • discussing physical, social and emotional changes that occur as individuals get older, and exploring how these changes impact on how they think and feel
  • about themselves and different situations
  • exploring how friendships change as they grow older and identifying strategies to manage change
  • identifying people or sources of information that they can access if they have questions about the changes that are occurring

Identify and practise strategies to promote health, safety and wellbeing (ACPPS036)

  • examining their own eating patterns by researching The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating and identifying healthier food choices

Communicating and interacting for health and wellbeing

Content descriptions with elaborations

Describe how respect, empathy and valuing diversity can positively influence relationships (ACPPS037)

  • describing behaviours that show empathy and respect for the rights of others
  • creating an online connection with another school and identifying similarities and differences between students
  • predicting and reflecting on how other students might feel in a range of challenging situations, and discussing what they can do to support them
  • recognising that bullying behaviour can take many forms, not only physical

Investigate how emotional responses vary in depth and strength (ACPPS038)

  • recognising own emotional responses and levels of their response in different situations
  • understanding that emotional responses vary across cultures and differ between people and different situations
  • analysing scenarios and identifying possible triggers and warning signs to predict emotional responses
  • describing strategies they can use to identify and manage their emotions before making a decision to act

Discuss and interpret health information and messages in the media and on the Internet (ACPPS039)

  • accessing different sources of health information and examining the accuracy of these sources
  • examining health messages from different sources and exploring choices, behaviours and outcomes conveyed in these messages
  • investigating how health messages influence health decisions

Contributing to healthy and active communities

Content descriptions with elaborations

Describe strategies to make the classroom and playground healthy, safe and active spaces (ACPPS040)

  • establishing a small fruit and vegetable garden for the class that can be used to create healthy lunches or snacks
  • exploring and developing responsible and sustainable classroom practices such as recycling, composting and energy saving

Research own heritage and cultural identities and explore strategies to respect and value diversity (ACPPS042)

  • investigating how food practices differ between families, communities and cultural groups, and how food preparation and consumption are used to celebrate and pass on cultural beliefs, practices and values
  • planning a day that celebrates the cultural diversity of students in their class by sharing food, stories and games from their cultural background