2024 Review and Implementation of Health &
Physical Education at Rewa Rewa School
July 2024
In health and physical education, the focus is on the well-being of the students themselves, of other people, and of society through learning in health-related and movement contexts. Four underlying and interdependent concepts are at the heart of this learning area:
- Hauora – a Māori philosophy of well-being that includes the dimensions taha wairua, taha hinengaro, taha tinana, and taha whānau, each one influencing and supporting the others
- Attitudes and values – a positive, responsible attitude on the part of students to their own well-being; respect, care, and concern for other people and the environment; and a sense of social justice
- The socio-ecological perspective – a way of viewing and understanding the interrelationships that exist between the individual, others, and society
- Health promotion – a process that helps to develop and maintain supportive physical and emotional environments and that involves students in personal and collective action
(New Zealand Curriculum Framework p 8)
Overview
The purpose of providing instruction in Health and Physical Education (P.E.) at Rewa Rewa School is to provide students with opportunities to accept challenges in health-related and movement contexts. As they develop resilience and a sense of personal and social responsibility, our tamariki will increasingly be able to take responsibility for themselves and contribute to the well-being of those around them, of their communities, of their environments (including natural environments), and of the wider society.
Our strategic goals for learners at Rewa Rewa School are to:
- Confidently apply the Active Learner Skills to support their academic success and engagement as learners.
- Actively demonstrate their R.I.D.E. values and Key Competencies to develop life- long competencies that enable them to contribute to their community.
- Build a strong sense of self, belonging and identity to confidently communicate and collaborate with others.
- Develop lifelong strategies to support positive wellbeing.
As part of our Health component teachers actively teach the R.I.D.E. values within their classrooms to support and maintain healthy relationships across the school. Our R.I.D.E. values (respect, integrity, diversity and empathy) are also reflected in the training of our Peer Mediators. Training with our Principal occurs on a regular basis so that in the playground they can help students to build their mediation and resilience skills. At the start of the year teachers discussed Active Learner Skills. We identified that no-one from the new teaching team had any input into these. We explored the skills that we felt were important for us to explicitly teach to our learners i.e. to build confident, curious and successful lifelong learners. In 2024, this is an area that we would like to develop so that our Active Learner skills are in alignment with the school’s Strategic Goals and Vision.
2024 Review of Health and Physical Education Opportunities:
Health & Physical Education Curriculum:
During 2024 Rewa Rewa School has provided opportunities for students to build their confidence and understanding within Health & PE through the following programmes:
2024 Health & Physical Education
- Swimming (Easyswim) – Term 1 & Term 4: Yr 1-6 (swimming carnival cancelled, but planned for 2025)
- Ki o Rahi Northern Zones Tournament – Term 1: selected team members Yr 5-6
- Northern Zone/Interzone/Regional Cross Country Running and Amesbury – Term 2: Yr 2-6
- RSE programme – Term 2 and 3: Yr 1-6
- Taonga Tākaro (Traditional Māori Games) programme – Term 1: Yr 1-6
- Anxiety & Resilience Trial Programme in NZ – Term 3: Yr 1-6
- Rewa Rewa Olympics – Term 3: Yr 1-6
- Dance Group Curriculum – Term 4: Yr 1-6
- Newlands Kapa Haka Festival – Term 4: Yr 2-6
- Futsal Festival – Term 3: Yr 1-4
- Basketball court development and basketball skills programme – Term 2: Yr 1-6
- Football/Futsal skills programme – Term 2 and 3: Yr 1-6
- Ako Tangi Sports Complex: Ki o Rahi Day, Term 3: Yr 5-6
- Northern Zone Athletics -Term 1: training / team selection, Term 4 interzone: Yr 4-6
- Gymnastics unable to be offered this year due to the Hall being unavailable
Kiwisport Funding/PE Resource Allocation
- Basketball/multisport Court Revamp Project – basketball hoops, backboards, line painting, mounting holes, basketballs
- Northern Zones Ki O Rahi Tournament – Equipment purchased for the school
- Primary Sports Wellington annual subscription
- Replacement sports gear
Community Health Consultation
Once every second year the school undertakes their MOE Community Health consultation to inform our programme content for the following 2 years. This is due to be undertaken in term 3 of this year. As part of this consultation, in mid 2023 we began reviewing how we could deliver a more robust programme for the topic: ‘Relationships and Sexuality Education’. Our health Lead Teacher (Avi Jayasekara) and principal (Jan Otene) undertook extensive readings and exploration with experts to develop a draft plan. This included support from Tanya Radford (current Board member) whose MOE Health background and advice was very useful. The success of this programme was heavily reliant on community buy-in and having a shared understanding. In term 4, 2023 we invited and consulted with our community at an evening hui. We shared the draft programme written for Rewa Rewa School, the process that we intended to use and took on board the feedback from our audience, who were a good representation of the different groups within our community. We also invited the Family Planning team to attend this event as their support and advice during this process has been invaluable. The feedback from the hui was extremely positive from the families who attended, as well as the experts in the room who said that our presentation / hui was outstanding. The response from everyone confirmed that the content and the process for teaching this topic as part of our localised curriculum, was seen to be a very inclusive and safe approach. The 2024 ‘even year’ 5 lessons programme was implemented in Term 2 with great success. Students were engaged in the programme content, the community continued to be heard and teachers felt confident and supported to teach the programme. Ongoing thoughtful and supportive emails / conversations have been received from families about how well the programme has been implemented as well as how families have felt their values have been totally supported without question. We have been very appreciative of this feedback. The next set of 5 lessons will be undertaken in term 3.
Wellbeing at Rewa Rewa School
To support the wellbeing development of all of our students at Rewa Rewa school we have continued to teach the school’s RIDE values. We see a need for the explicit teaching of Resilience skills (the absence of TRP which unfortunately is no longer offered in NZ) and in term 3 are participating in partnership with a local NZ author who works alongside different health agencies to create resources that support Anxiety and Mental Health wellbeing. We will be part of a group of 80 schools in NZ trialling this new Resilience programme in Term 3 (free for the school). It will involve us gathering student voice to monitor the effectiveness of this programme which will hopefully demonstrate that our tamariki are becoming more actively resilient.
One of our Strategic Goals is to support staff wellbeing at Rewa Rewa School this year. Wellbeing teams have been actively creating opportunities for staff to have fun and get to know each other and we have had 3 successful events to date. Outsiders to our school are regularly communicating how cheerful, friendly, and cohesive they find the staff at our school and that it is such a pleasure to work here. We need to continue to work on building an inclusive, welcoming working environment for all.
Life Education Trust 2024
The Life Education Trust and Harold have yet to visit Rewa Rewa School due to unforeseen circumstances within the Life Education team. We are in communication with them to reschedule this in Term 3 or Term 4.
RIDE Values and Active Learner Skills
After consultation with the teaching team we have adjusted the RIDE values and Active Learner skills documentation in order to align with the new NZ Curriculum’s Understand, Know, Do model. We have matched the Active Learner Skills with the RIDE value that each skill embodies. The Active learner Skills may possibly become part of our ERO goals when we start to look more deeply at the alignment between learning and the key competencies that we want our tamariki to leave Rewa Rewa school with in their kete.
Ministry of Health Services for Schools
Each year the dental hygiene practitioners visit our school. Each child has a dental health with referrals for follow-up work at the Raroa Dental base, sent home to parents. Our year 1 students also have an annual check for hearing and vision screening and contact is made with whanau where an issue needs to be addressed.
We also work with other practitioners such as the Attendance Service, Public Health nurse, SLT, counsellors, Oranga Tamariki, family court agents and Special Education to support our tamariki and their whānau.
Recommendations For 2024
- Continue to purchase physical education equipment so that different skills can be taught and practised using equipment in the playground
- Support the development of an athletics track on the top field
- Rewa Rewa School will provide regular opportunities each week for tamariki to learn and practise their physical education skills. This will include using our new bike track on the top field
- Continue to use selected lessons from the ‘Navigating the Journey’ suite (offered by NZ Family Planning) to support yr 1 – 6 teachers when teaching the new Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) programme as part of our Health programme (Odd Year programme to be introduced in 2025)
- Continue to actively utilise a wide network of providers who offer a range of free / user pays Health and P.E. opportunities for our students to learn new skills, develop their engagement and stay fit
- Actively continue to implement ways to develop hauora and positive wellbeing practices to support both our tamariki and staff within their working environment
These recommendations will enable us to meet our strategic goals including that all students have equitable access to age appropriate experiences. It will also mean that our curriculum is able to be more localised in that it will meet the immediate Health & PE concerns that our tamariki may need support with i.e. anxiety, building resilience strategies due to living in a COVID-19 setting, keeping a healthy mind and body.
Report prepared by
Avi Jayasekara and Ian Svela
(Health & Physical Education Lead Teachers)
Date: 11 July 2024
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