Page 1271 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 April 2019
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Physical education is important. The health and wellbeing of our students matter, and the tools are there. There are federal resources and local organisations ready to get involved and to help our kids get active. I commend this motion and I look forward to working further with sporting groups in the ACT to get our population moving and to give them the resources and the opportunities to do so. Hopefully, the ACT government can get on board and provide greater support and resources to enhance sport in our schools.
MS CODY (Murrumbidgee) (12.06): What a wonderful birthday present. Not only have I been able to move a motion today but also I get to talk about sporting and recreational activities in schools. I congratulate Minister Berry on some of her additions to Ms Lee’s motion. In an increasingly complex, sedentary and rapidly changing world, it is critical for all young people to be able to cope with life’s challenges, as well as flourish as healthy, safe and active citizens in the 21st century.
The health and physical education learning area of the Australian curriculum aims to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to enable students to take positive action to protect, enhance and advocate for their own and others’ health, wellbeing, safety and physical activity participation across their life span. This learning area offers experiential learning, with a curriculum that is relevant, contemporary, physically active, enjoyable and developmentally appropriate. Importantly, it teaches movement skills and strategies to enable students to confidently participate in activities.
Movement is a powerful medium for learning through which students can acquire and practise a range of personal, interpersonal, behavioural, social and cognitive skills. Students develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to become resilient, to develop a sense of self, to build and maintain relationships and to make health-enhancing decisions.
According to the Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority, health and physical education is uniquely positioned to provide opportunities for the education of students to adopt lifelong healthy, active living. The knowledge, understanding and skills taught through health and physical education provide a foundation for students to enhance their own and others’ heath and wellbeing in varied and changing contexts.
As students mature, they learn about key issues affecting the health and wellbeing of young people and the communities to which they belong, and learn how to apply problem-solving techniques to these issues. This is critical to maintaining and promoting healthy, active living. The Australian curriculum is a world-class, high quality curriculum delivered to students in the ACT.
In addition to the delivery of the Australian curriculum, schools make a range of school-based decisions in delivering additional programs to increase the health and wellbeing of their students. For example—and Mr Rattenbury has already talked about this briefly—many schools participate in the ride or walk to school program, which seeks to develop students’ skills and confidence to travel actively to and from school.
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