Junior Health Education
Students are encouraged to develop an identity that fits with their cultural values and are challenged to look at other students’ lives and cultural perspectives. Year 9 Health focuses on ‘self’ and the choices that individuals make and the consequences in a range of situations that impact on the health and wellbeing of our student community. A key focus at Year 9 and Year 10 is to examine health issues within our school and wider community. Units of work within the junior Health Education programme are dynamic and relevant and aim to ensure that our students are able to make informed choices in relation to their own wellbeing and that of others. Topics discussed include identity, self esteem, mental wellbeing, drugs and society, building and maintaining relationships, resilience, relationships and sexuality, managing change and bullying.
Activities and projects include investigating media influences that contribute to health problems of people in New Zealand, taking collective action for the care and safety of other people in their school and in the wider community, investigating how social messages and stereotypes can affect feelings of self-worth, investigating community services that support and promote people’s well-being. The junior programme ensures that students have a good grounding in Health Education and are able to transition into senior Health Education should they wish to do so.
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Senior Health Education
The senior Health Education programme focuses on researching a range of current health issues that particularly affect adolescents and also significant health issues within the general New Zealand population. Students will study determinants of health, ethical issues and various models of health promotion both within New Zew Zealand and also on a global scale. Students develop critical thinking skills when assessing how the major determinants of health and the social determinants of health are involved in various health issues in New Zealand. Considering how individuals, their relationships with other people and the whole of society can be affected by various health issues and analysing effective strategies for enhancing health is an important aspect of this course. Understanding how health promotion models such as Te Pai Mahutonga and the Ottawa and Bangkok charters can be applied to effective collective actions within communities or across the whole of New Zealand is a key aspect at Level 3.
Teaching and learning includes elements of sociology and social science and students learn to apply the concepts of hauora, health promotion, social justice and mental health to the specific health and social issues that they choose to study. Activities include case studies, debating, cooperative projects, research assignments and discussion groups. This programme is designed lead on to a wide range of careers including nursing, medicine, public health, community health work, social work, psychology, sociology, alcohol & drug counseling, health promotion and charity work.
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