1. Learning area overview
This presentation supports understanding of the Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education (HPE) from F(Prep)*–Year 10. It gives an insight into the position of HPE within the Australian Curriculum and the structure of the HPE learning area.
This presentation can be used in your organisation as the basis for professional learning about the HPE curriculum. It includes information about the key aspects of the curriculum as well as activities that can be used to build familiarity with the curriculum. Opportunities for activities are identified through the use of the icon in the top right corner of the slide. Presenters are encouraged to customise this presentation to suit the needs of their audience.
The Australian Curriculum content referred to in this presentation is available from:
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) 2017, Australian Curriculum Version 8 Foundation to Year 10,
*Prep (P) in Queensland is the Foundation Year (F) of the Australian Curriculum and refers to the year before Year 1. Children beginning Prep in January are required to be five years of age by 30 June.
Prep–Year 10 Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education (HPE)

2. Learning goals This presentation aims to:
build understanding of the Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education
provide an overview of the structure of the HPE learning area.
This presentation aims to:
build understanding of the Australian Curriculum, with particular reference to the HPE curriculum
provide an overview of the structure of the HPE learning area, including the curriculum content and achievement standards.

3. Three-dimensional curriculum
The Australian Curriculum is a three-dimensional curriculum made up of:
learning areas
general capabilities
cross-curriculum priorities.
The Australian Curriculum sets the expectations for what all Australian students should be taught and have opportunity to learn as they progress through their school life. In Prep–Year 10, the Australian Curriculum provides teachers, students, and parents with access to the same content, and consistent national standards for determining the progress of student learning.
All Australian students across all education settings and contexts can be supported in their diverse learning needs through the three dimensions of the Australian Curriculum: the learning area content, the general capabilities and the cross-curriculum priorities.
This diagram shows the relationship between these dimensions of the Australian Curriculum. Teachers emphasise one or more dimensions to develop learning programs suited to the strengths, interests and diverse needs of all students.
This presentation provides a brief overview of the general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities; however, the focus will be on the HPE learning area.

4. Structure of the HPE learning area
Rationale
Aims
Key ideas
Band descriptions
Focus areas
Curriculum content
Strands, sub-strands and threads
Content descriptions
Content elaborations
Achievement standards
The Australian Curriculum sets out what all young people should be taught by specifying the curriculum content, and identifies the learning expected at points in their schooling by specifying the achievement standards. The content and achievement standards are supported by additional information which describe the curriculum intent (rationale), aims of learning (aims), and focus for the learning within each band (band descriptions and focus areas).
The following sections of the presentation will provide an overview of each of these key aspects of the curriculum.

5. Rationale
Summary
HPE develops healthy and active citizens with critical inquiry skills to analyse and understand the influences on their own and others’ health, safety, wellbeing and physical activity participation in varied and changing contexts confidently, competently and creatively.
Video
Health and Physical Education: An introduction for teachers
The rationale defines the learning area and describes the importance of the learning area within the curriculum:
Why is it important?
How is it shaped in the curriculum?
The HPE rationale promotes:
healthy, safe and active citizens
critical inquiry skills to engage with emerging knowledge about health, safety, wellbeing and physical activity
resilience, empathy and active engagement to advocate for and enhance their own and others’ wellbeing
a sense of self, as well as the capacity to build and grow respectful relationships
movement skills and physical activities with confidence, competence and creativity
an understanding of how the body moves and positive attitudes to participation in physical activity.
The rationale is available from:
Suggested activities:
Read the learning area rationale or watch the introductory video. Partner with a colleague to discuss:
What were the key aspects of the rationale?
Why is the learning area important? What important contribution does the learning make to a student’s education?
Which aspects of this rationale matched your current understanding of the learning area? Which aspects were new understanding?
Watch and listen to the video.
What were the guiding principles that informed the development of the HPE curriculum?
Are there any messages that you will need to be mindful of when planning your teaching, learning and assessment programs?

6. Aims
Summary
Students develop knowledge, understanding and skills to take positive action to protect, enhance and advocate for:
regular movement-based activity
personal identity and wellbeing
respectful relationships.
The aims flow logically from the rationale and define the big picture objectives for the learning area.
The HPE learning area aims to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to enable students to:
access, evaluate and synthesise information to take positive action
build on and use personal, behavioural, social and cognitive skills and strategies
acquire, apply and evaluate movement skills, concepts and strategies
engage in and enjoy regular movement-based learning experiences
analyse changing personal and contextual factors for engagement with health and physical activity.
The aims are available from:
Suggested activities:
Prepare a brief statement/overview that would help you describe the aims of the learning area to a parent group.
Identify two or three big ideas in the aims. How do they inform:
your understanding of the learning area?
what is valued in the Australian Curriculum for the learning area?
your teaching and learning approaches?

7. Key ideas Health and physical education propositions
Focus on educative purpose
Take a strengths-based approach
Value movement
Develop health literacy
Include a critical inquiry approach
Importance of a healthy school environment
Enables students to practice and reinforce their learning in a healthy and supportive school environment with supportive and health-promoting policies, processes and partnerships.
The key ideas represent key aspects of the learning area content and frame the development of knowledge and skills in the learning area. In HPE, there are two key ideas:
health and physical education propositions
importance of a healthy school environment.
The key ideas are available from:
Health and physical education propositions: HPE has been shaped by five interrelated propositions that are informed by a strong and diverse research base for a futures-oriented curriculum.
The five propositions are:
focus on educative purposes ― the HPE curriculum provides a progression for the development of disciplinary knowledge, understanding and skills. The priority for the HPE curriculum is to provide ongoing, developmentally appropriate and explicit learning about health and movement.
take a strengths-based approach ― rather than focusing only on potential health risks or a deficit-based model of health, the curriculum has a stronger focus on supporting students to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills they require to make healthy, safe and active choices that will enhance their own and others’ health and wellbeing.
value movement ― HPE is the key learning area in the curriculum that focuses explicitly on developing movement skills and the concepts students need to participate in physical activities with competence and confidence.
develop health literacy ― health literacy can be understood as an individual’s ability to gain access to, understand and use health information and services in ways that promote and maintain health and wellbeing. The HPE curriculum promotes the development of health literacy through functional, interactive and critical dimensions.
include a critical inquiry approach ― engages students in critical inquiry processes that assist students in researching, analysing, applying and appraising knowledge in health and movement fields.
Importance of a healthy school environment: supports students to make decisions about their health, wellbeing, safety and physical activity participation, which ultimately enhances the broader school environment.
Suggested activity:
What are the key ideas, and how do they impact on your reading of the content?

8. Banded curriculum
Each band includes the following structural components:
band description
curriculum content
achievement standards.
The curriculum is developmentally sequenced across the bands.
The HPE curriculum is structured into bands of year levels. This banded curriculum provides flexibility for the delivery of HPE across P–10.
Suggested activity:
What are the implications of the banded curriculum for the planning of your teaching, learning and assessment program?

9. Band description Knowledge, understanding and skills Focus areas
Each HPE band description identifies the:
focus of knowledge, understanding and skills for student learning in that band
interrelatedness of the two strands
changes in students’ physical, cognitive, social and emotional development attributes from Prep–Year 10
focus areas to be addressed in the band.

10. Focus areas Alcohol and other drugs Food and nutrition
Health benefits of physical activity
Mental health and wellbeing
Relationships and sexuality
Safety
Active play and minor games (P‒6)
Challenge and adventure activities (3‒10)
Fundamental movement skills (P‒6)
Games and sports (3‒10)
Lifelong physical activities (3‒10)
Rhythmic and expressive activities
In HPE there are 12 focus areas and these provide the breadth of learning that must be taught to acquire and demonstrate the knowledge, understanding and skills described in the achievement standard.
Some of the focus areas are relevant to specific year levels (identified on the slide in brackets).
Information on focus areas is available from:

11. Curriculum content Content description Content elaborations
The curriculum content is presented as content descriptions which specify the knowledge, understanding and skills that young people are expected to learn and that teachers are expected to teach across the years of schooling.
The content descriptions are accompanied by content elaborations. Content elaborations provide illustrations and/or examples that teachers may choose to use in the classroom or as inspiration for their own activities. The content elaborations are not a mandatory aspect of the curriculum and as such are not required to be taught.
Suggested activity:
Use the Health and Physical Education: Sequence of content to build an understanding of the sequence of content of the curriculum across bands:
Consider the content descriptions for the band before and following the selected band.
In a small group, discuss how the curriculum develops in increasing complexity of cognition and skills across the bands.

12. Strands, sub-strands and threads
Personal, social and community health
Movement and physical activity
Sub-strands
Threads
Being healthy, safe and active
Identities
Changes and transitions
Help-seeking
Making healthy and safe choices
Moving our body
Refining movement skills
Developing movement concepts and strategies
Communicating and interacting for health and wellbeing
Interacting with others
Understanding emotions
Health literacy
Understanding movement
Fitness and physical activity
Elements of movement
Cultural significance of physical activity
Contributing to healthy and active communities
Community health promotion
Connecting to the environment
Valuing diversity
Learning through movement
Teamwork and leadership
Critical and creative thinking in movement
Ethical behaviour in movement settings
In HPE, the curriculum content is organised through strands, sub-strands and threads. The two strands are (included in the slide in bold):
personal, social and community health
movement and physical activity.
These strands are interrelated to inform and support each other. Both strands must be taught each year from Prep–Year 10.
Each strand is organised into three sub-strands (included in the slide in italics).
Personal social and community health
Being healthy, safe and active
Communicating and interacting for health and wellbeing
Contributing to healthy and active communities
Movement and physical activity
Moving our body
Understanding movement
Learning through movement
The threads provide further organisation of the HPE content, emphasising opportunities for practical application across health and movement focus areas. Students should be provided with the opportunity to participate in physical activity on a weekly basis, as a minimum, as part of the HPE curriculum.
Suggested activity:
What is the relationship between the content strands of HPE?

13. Achievement standards
Foundation Year achievement standard
By the end of Foundation Year, students recognise how they are growing and changing. They identify and describe the different emotions people experience. They identify actions that help them to be healthy, safe and physically active. They identify different settings where they can be active and demonstrate how to move and play safely. They describe how their body responds to movement.
Students use personal and social skills when working with others in a range of activities. They demonstrate, with guidance, practices and protective behaviours to keep themselves safe and healthy in different activities. They perform fundamental movement skills and solve movement challenges.
Understanding
Skills
The achievement standard is a statement of what students should know and be able to do at the end of the band. In HPE, the first paragraph of the achievement standard relates to understanding and the second paragraph relates to skills.
Work sample portfolios provide examples of student work which are reflective of achievement levels at, above, and below the achievement standard.
Suggested activities:
Using the Health and Physical Education: Sequence of achievement discuss how the evidence that students need to provide of what they know and can do, increases in complexity across the bands, available from:
For a given year level, map the achievement standard to the content descriptions.

14. Three-dimensional curriculum: General capabilities
Support students to be successful learners
Literacy
Numeracy
Information and communication technology (ICT) capability
Critical and creative thinking
Develop ways of being, behaving and learning to live with others
Personal and social capability
Ethical understanding
Intercultural understanding
The seven capabilities are divided into two groups:
capabilities that support students to be successful learners ― literacy, numeracy, information and communication technology (ICT) capability, and critical and creative thinking
capabilities that develop ways of being, behaving and learning to live with others ― personal and social capability, ethical behaviour and intercultural understanding.
Continua of learning have been developed for each capability to describe the relevant knowledge, understanding and skills at particular points of schooling.
The content outlined in the general capabilities continua is embedded in the content descriptions for each learning area, where appropriate. The icons shown on this slide are used to identify where the general capabilities are embedded in content descriptions.
A summary of the focus of each of the general capabilities in the HPE learning area is available from:

15. Three-dimensional curriculum: Cross-curriculum priorities
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and culture Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia Sustainability
The Australian Curriculum promotes three cross-curriculum priorities that young Australians should learn about. Each of the priorities is represented in learning areas in ways appropriate to that area.
The three priorities are:
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures ― to ensure that all young Australians are given the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, their significance for Australia and the impact that these have had, and continue to have, on our world
Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia ― to reflect the importance of knowing about Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and to encourage better understanding of the countries and cultures of the Asia region so that young people appreciate the economic, political and cultural interconnections that Australia has with the region
Sustainability ― to allow young people to develop an appreciation of the need for more sustainable patterns of living, and to build capacities for thinking, valuing and acting that are necessary to create a more sustainable future.
Each of the cross-curriculum priorities contains a set of organising ideas. These are consistent across the curriculum and are reinforced in learning areas. Each of the cross-curriculum priorities can be relevant to teaching and learning in HPE and explicit teaching of the priorities should be incorporated in teaching and learning activities where appropriate.

16. Find out more
Find out more on the QCAA Australian Curriculum webpage at
More information about the implementation of Australian Curriculum in Queensland is available on the QCAA website. In the Australian Curriculum section of the QCAA website, you will find the Learning area overview: Prep‒Year 10 Australian Curriculum — Health and Physical Education (HPE):
Send any further questions to:
Information about requests for further professional learning is available from:
Suggested activity:
What did I learn?
What was confirmed?
What was new?
What challenged my thinking?
What else do I need to do?
What is our plan as a teaching team?