To All Australian Political Parties

National Curriculum and the health of Australian Children

The Australian Council for Health Physical Education and Recreation (ACHPER) urges all Australian Political Parties to recognise the need to further promote physical activity and healthy eating initiatives in school and community settings at a time when the health, well being and participation of Australian children demands our closest attention.

ACHPER acknowledges that the Department of Health and Ageing and the Australian Sports Commission are currently involved in initiatives (to promote physical activity to children and youth but we would like to see an increased collaborative cross agency commitment led by the Department of Education, Science and Training. It is important that the general public perceive this to be an education as well as health issue and we urge you should you win government to consider this.

More direct intervention
We believe there is a need to more directly support the delivery of quality health and physical education programs across primary schools and junior secondary schools in Australia. We believe that the Election educational policies should not be confined to literacy, numeracy, Australian history, broadband ITC and skills training but involve a commitment to ensure that our primary schools in particular are able to deliver quality health and physical education programs and that these programs are considered part of a core curriculum.

Given the trends and concerns in relation to the health of our children and youth, in government you may have a once in a lifetime opportunity to ensure that all young Australians develop the skills, knowledge and attitudes that will mean they are able to lead healthy and active lives. The absence of such an education may clearly prove extremely costly sooner than is anticipated.

National Curriculum
ACHPER is concerned for the future of all Australian children and believes that the concept of a National Curriculum should take account of the critical role a school plays in the day to day health and the physical and social skills development of children. The popularity and capacity of a learning area such as Health & PE to engage students in schooling and then retain students at the senior school Certificate level is significant and should not be under-estimated. We believe that Health & PE requires a National Statement of Learning due to the important contribution this active form of learning makes to the healthy behaviours of Australians.

Core / Essential learnings
ACHPER recognises the integrity of the State and Territory Personal Development, Health and Physical Education Curriculum/Syllabus Frameworks but we are concerned about recent statements made by government and shadow ministers about a national curriculum that on first examination would exclude any ‘core status’ for Health and Physical Education. This seems to mirror the recently released Charter for Primary schools from the Australian Primary Principals Association (APPA). This is a dangerous path to tread and our experience is emphatic–unless a learning area is core or essential it will be taught less often, if at all, and often badly. ACHPER has responded to the recent Australian Primary Principals Association (APPA) New Charter on primary education for your information.

It is worth noting that the Victorian Department of Education established Health and Physical Education as part of a core strand of the VELS during their most recent review of the curriculum. We urge you not to adopt the APPA charter as a basis for any core national curriculum you might be considering.

Specialist support
We also urge you to consider a commitment to comprehensive staffing support and professional development funding to schools to enable them to maintain Health and Physical Education as a priority learning area K-10 in any future National Curriculum. We would be more than happy to assist in the formulation of a National Plan around this matter.

ACHPER advocates strongly for investment in the provision of specialist health and physical education support for every primary school as well as training and development incentives for teachers K-12.

We expect that the designated learning outcomes of the curriculum will be delivered by qualified, competent and confident teachers and not by external providers.

ACHPER believes it will be an important challenge for government to strengthen the delivery of health and physical education in our schools within an integrated education, health, sport and recreation policy.

Continuing involvement
As a lead organisation ACHPER has been involved in initiatives and embraced frameworks that help to achieve learning outcomes for children in health promoting settings. These have been positive initiatives but without an accompanying assurance of quality Health and Physical Education for all, their impact may be notably compromised.

• Australian Health Ministers National Obesity Task Force Recommendations for Children and Youth
• Physical Activity Recommendations for Children and Young People (Department of Health and Ageing)
• Advisory Committee Active After Schools Community Program (Australian Sports Commission)
• Health Promoting Schools Framework
• The Mind Matters Mental Health in schools program (Mental Health Branch, DHA)
• Rethinking Drinking Alcohol Education Program (DEST)
• Junior Sport Policy Framework designed to improve environments and raise coaching standards and improve pathways for all children.(Australian Sports Commission)
• The Schools Network that we also manage for the Australian Sports Commission, ‘connecting schools and sport’.

ACHPER is a partner - orientated organisation that can tap expertise and bring to the table more creative and supportive initiatives that could go hand in hand with your party’s policy should you commit to a healthier, more educated nation.

Commitment to Standards
ACHPER believes in quality teaching and learning at every educational level. We advocate for improved professional teaching standards in schools and pre-service courses in universities and we actively provide training and development programs for teachers through all of our branches. While we are respondents to the Teaching Australia Consultation we do have concerns that teachers in our areas of interest have been de-skilled and ignored in the distribution of funds from previous government programs established for revitalizing teaching skills (eg the Quality Teaching Program).

We look for support from future Australian and State and Territory governments in this area.

External provision of School Programs
Finally, while ACHPER supports the right of schools to make local decisions about how to enrich and enhance the curriculum, we do not support the replacement of teachers with external providers where additional costs are passed on to families.

ACHPER is concerned at the quality of physical activity programs being offered by an increasing number of external providers. Some offer services such as benchmark fitness testing and most offer programs claiming to “have the answers” to remedy the “obesity epidemic”. ACHPER does not support the use of fitness benchmarks in the same way that literacy and numeracy benchmarks are used but we certainly believe in ‘physical literacy’ and ‘health literacy’ as foundation stones of the curriculum.

Some external providers are clearly misguided and do not provide a systemic approach to the inactivity/obesity problems in children or the social development outcomes that are the core business of schools. We recommend a more discerning approach to government funding of external providers.

Take the opportunity now
Our Officers are available to further assist you in policy formation in regard to promoting healthy and active living for our children and youth, particularly in school settings and to be a key partner in future work across the community.

There is an opportunity here to invest in the health and education of children and youth and to leave a lasting legacy for all Australians.

Yours sincerely

Jeffrey Emmel
National Executive Director
ACHPER
Ph: 08 83403388
ned@achper.org.au
www.achper.org.au