Health and Physical Education

​​​Rationale

Health and​​ Physical Education teaches students how to enhance their own and others’ health, safety, wellbeing and physical activity participation in varied and changing contexts. The Health and Physical Education learning area has strong foundations in scientific fields such as physiology, nutrition, biomechanics and psychology which inform what we understand about healthy, safe and active choices.

Health and Ph​ysical Education addresses how contextual factors influence the health, safety, wellbeing, and physical activity patterns of individuals, groups and communities. It provides opportunities for students to develop skills, self-efficacy and dispositions to advocate for, and positively influence, their own and others’ health and wellbeing.

HPE is split into 2 s​trands: Personal, social and community health; and Movement and physical activity.

At St Fra​ncis Xavier our aim is to create students that are able to live healthy lives long after they have left school. We do this by offering a variety of learning activities across both strands of the curriculum. Focus areas include:

  • Food and nutrition
  • Health benefit​s of physical activity
  • Alcohol and other drugs
  • Mental health and wellbeing
  • Relationships and sexuality
  • Safety
  • Active play and minor games
  • Challenge and adventure activities
  • Fundamental movement skills
  • Games and sports
  • Lifelong physical activities

These focus areas are not just covered in the hour lesson of HPE each student receives each week, but in numerous subjects as part of an integrated curriculum.​