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As some of you have already pointed out, in my opinion, the first important challenge for the HPE learning area is that its curriculum contains twelve focus areas. As stated in the Victorian curriculum (VC), These focus areas are the context within the content descriptors and achievement standards will be taught and assessed. That means that there are many topics to be addressed in the HPE lessons. Besides, some of the focus areas included in HPE are socially controversial and extremely sensitive. Teaching about mental health and wellbeing, relationships and sexuality or alcohol and other drugs should be considered from a comprehensive perspective and within a whole-school approach. However, the reality is that HPE teachers are not always specifically trained to address these topics, many educators don’t plan for a holistic and collaborative approach across the years, and there are not enough teaching hours to effectively address the content of all these focus areas.
(Post by Eva Méndez)

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The future citizens were considered to be fit male soldiers. Sports and games were considered to be injurious to females. This statement was argued by Kirk, 1998, who discussed that apart from physical pleasure and healthful character of military exercises, the males should develop the smartness and quickened attention and the prompt obedience which military discipline begets.

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There are a few challenges that occured to me regarding the challnges for HPE.  One is that as the government becomes more and more concerned with the current state of young people's health and obesity/sedentary lifestyles, health promotion has been pushed upon schools and teachers may feel it is not in their job description to tackle such a huge issue without proper support and guidance.  Furthermore, teachers may not feel well eqipped or comfortable with the content and aims of the HPE learning area.

Another challenge is that each child is in a different state of health and their health is affected by different factors including their environment, culture, family and friends and the media. For the HPE learning area to be successful, it would have to cover many health influences and make sure content is relevent to all students so as to ensure equal opportunity and outcomes for all.

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From the Week 1 readings the challenge that stood out for me was the need for health literacy and health education in the classroom to incorporate approaches that are contextually relevant for each classroom and each community . A one size fits all approach when it comes to health and physical education may not account for the vastly different issues affecting a given school. The influence of government in setting the agenda for HPE in schools including ambitious goals for 'future citizens' may not account for the local expertise that exists in an individual school. A challenge for HPE is for principals, staff and local stakeholders to have input in setting the agenda for their school so that important goals are achieved for students as well as local knowledge being applied.  (Catherine Croft)

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One challenge the learning area of HPE encounters is how to make the 'right' citizen using the new contemporary curriculum. What defines the 'right' citizen? And who defines it? This can vary from country to country, and even state to state and metropolitan to rural cities!  The focus on making the 'right' kind of citizen during Primary school HPE is a serious issue in many countries, mainly due to external influences that young people are exposed to. These influences, such as media, technology and family, are highly evident in  young people's lives. The challenge HPE faces today is to remain a key player in making healthy, active citizens
- Jana de Jager

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High Expectations VS limited time, PD and resources 

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High Expectations VS limited time, PD and resources 

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The current outlines for teaching H&PE in both the National Curriculum and Victorian Curriculum are indeed progressive and lend themselves to developing lesson plans that are inquiry base, relevant, timely and centred around topis that relate to young people. However, the expectation of teachers being able to educate young people on such a vast amount of social health issues in only one short allocated lesson a week (if that) would seem somewhat unrealistic and highly ambitious. It would appear that there is an imbalance between the important role the subject could play in helping to create healthy citizens of tomorrow, and the time, resources and PD allocated to the subject in many schools. ( Wanda Bennett)

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For me, someone who is not typically sporty, and who never engaged in your average sports as a child, a challenge that jumps out to me is ensuring all students are engaged in the P.E. component. As a kid I spent my time riding horses and rock climbing, and typical sports (basketball, cricket, netball) were of no interest to me, so I found it hard to engage in PE lessons. I think it's important to consider, what are the objectives of PE lessons and what is most important?  Is it skill development?  Is it whole class engagement?  Is it personal enjoyment?  Is it educating students about movement and healthy lifestyles? Can teachers provide different roles for students in the PE lesson? Can the teacher consider different activities for PE lessons?

A few challenges related to the health portion of HPE are: - Teachers feeling unprepared and uncomfortable teaching this subject. - Teachers may view health education as someone else's job.

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The challenges for HPE are vast. Even if we take a historical perspective on the growth of HPE (particularly post 1970s) the focus on body movement or teamwork has increased to fit bit competitions, dietary advice, healthy mind (as well as body). While all these introductions from outside sources are assisting towards a healthier landscape for students, can schools afford these extra curricular activities associated with HPE? Secondly, can teachers cope with the added resources, responsibilities and work that is associated with it? These two factors are some of the challenges facing the HPE landscape.

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What is reasonable to expect from schools? 

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What is reasonable to expect from schools? 

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As I read through the material, this is the question that keeps wanting to be answered. With all the challenges faced (to name only a few): - the crowded curriculum, - changing outcomes for HPS,
- complexities of the students themselves, all contributing to perhaps the uneasiness that some teachers approaching this area.  How realistic are the aims within the Australian Curriculum given the competing factors of limited teaching time and over enthusiastic government expectations. I look forward to some clarity on this topic.
(Post by Arianna McKean)

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I am so conflicted in viewing a lot of the content as I believe much of the intention behind health promotion initiatives has been lost. This has resulted in misguided and misunderstood interventions such as BMI weight tracking and beep tests to monitor students weight and physical fitness. In fact this is more a medical model of health having impact on what should be seen through a social model of health lens. This is undoubtedly influenced by state and federal government imperatives. The Ottowa Charter promotes a social model of health which is cognisant of the socio economic and environmental conditions which enable health. Although there are demands on a crowded curriculum, much like literacy and numeracy this is not an isolated subject. There are opportunities for cross curriculum learning. I also think much more holistically in view of the health promoting schools approach as being concerned with the curriculum of health and PE as one component but also  - what supports health across the whole school environment and community. It recognises that this is NOT just the teachers and school responsibility but is a key setting for focusing on improved health e.g. supports for students and families who are experiencing a mental health issue or family violence, paths and safe crossings to support active travel to and from school, healthy food options available at the canteen. When considering the curriculum itself I completely agree that the focus should be on learning about heath rather than learning for health, but can't view this as disconnected from what is occuring in the school, family and community environments. (Amy Moore)

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HPE is still a marginalised learning area. Literacy and numeracy form the backbone of the curriculum and are considered much more valuable subjects, especially when schools are assessed according to their NAPLAN results. Unfortunately, PE is only taught once a week while health itself is largely omitted from primary school settings. As a result, students exposure to the HPE learning area is limited.

(Chris Lallo)

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 "What is reasonable to expect from schools?... from health education?" ...

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 "What is reasonable to expect from schools?... from health education?" ...

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Posed first by St Leger, then expanded on by Leahy (2016:1), these questions are intended to prompt consideration of what was, and what can be, pragmatically demanded of the education system, by government and society at large.

This is tied to public discourse in MSM concerned with identifying who more can be expected and demanded of when it comes to raising ‘better’ young people-  Teachers, Schools, The education system, Parents/carers, the State etc. **

Perhaps a challenge in the HPE learning area is delineating the role of schools and teachers in the shared social project of raising ‘healthy’ children, to create a common understanding of realistic/ pragmatic expectations.

(Tilly V)

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I feel that the scope of the learning area of HPE is huge. Particularly if adequate teacher time is not given to the area, or the school as an organisation does not feel it is a priority. In the readings the chapter on Making a Certain Citizen it was stated that - "Teachers are now mandated to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes of their students across a breathtaking range of ‘health-related’ areas." With the curriculum stating health covers physical, mental, social, spiritual and emotional areas then it is a challenge for teachers to feel competent within all these areas. I feel this is a huge challenge and perhaps this is why outside providers are often used by schools.
- Jacinta Wirth -

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Viewing and presenting HPE through different lenses.

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Viewing and presenting HPE through different lenses.

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The main challenge for HPE in the learning area would undoubtedly be the crowded curriculum. Advances in technology, external pressure from the school community and the pursuit of including a variety of extracurricular activities that seep into the existing curriculum leave no time for HPE in schools.

Viewing sport as competition has given rise to a new focus, that of winning rather than learning and enjoying a new skill. This creates a further divide and disinterest. The ‘dreaded beep test’ is a good example of a badly introduced idea for running.

As a female, I notice the gender divide too in both sport and health education. It will be a challenge to take on all the above factors and start viewing HPE through new lenses.

(Nive D'Souza)

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Translating health literacy into diverse and individual lives

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Translating health literacy into diverse and individual lives

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A point in Macdonald (2013) stood out to me in terms of health literacy; where the author discusses health literacy as having the understanding and capacity to act on messages or information not only in a health-related setting but in  the communities in which the individual lives. As a pre-service primary teacher I'm very aware that I will have a lot of diversity in my students and that also they won't always have a lot of influence or control in their home lives (as pre-adolescent children). I think will be a challenge in teaching HPE.
(Post by Megan Willis)

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A challenge for the HPE area is that Physical Education is often perceived to be sport. Moving from a performative discourse to an inclusive and participatory discourse will be challenging within the context of the history of HPE in Australia, where sporting achievements have been “powerful” in the shaping of Australian Physical Education (Tinning & McCuaig, 2006). I would like to read more about how this challenge might also relate to the training and professional development opportunities for teachers in the area of HPE.
(Post by Ali Orman)

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I would agree with the previous points made about this topic. Reflecting on when I was a student, I can agree that I was often unengaged with the learning. This was largely because we would focus on 1 sport per term. I would have preferred to have a more varied approach to physical education in schools, where possibly each fortnight, a new sport was learned and this would then keep students engaged... By offering more options, students are bound to find sports/games that they enjoy.
(Danielle Paulson)

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The changing face of HPE throughout history

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The changing face of HPE throughout history

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The most interesting part of this weeks topic to me was the changes of the intended outcomes of HPE throughout history. I found the fact that what society and the governments at each time were striving for seemed to underpin the whole context as to how HPE was implemented. Also, the focal points addressed by the governments on how to quickly and sometimes drastically influence the health concerns of the people. This particularly interested me in relation to how the cost of these problems was a major concern and a main reason for these changes to be implemented. It would be fantastic to be able to develop a balanced and unbiased way to educate the next generation about healthy lifestyles without it being such a drastic reflexive approach. This is a challenge that would, if achieved, create a very balanced and helpful system for the future.
(Luke Mernagh)

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I have found through the lectures/workshop/readings that a big issue is keeping students active in the sport lessons and getting them engaged. There was a slide in the lecture about how PE can become a military style teaching session and can be boring for some students and I think this can be a big struggle for the students that think they aren't 'physically inclined' and could start to avoid PE and health. I would like to find out more about how these students are being catered for in the 2017 classroom and how it could lead down a different path for the near future. In the workshop, there was a slide around Models Based Approaches rather than just specified sport lessons and I think more schools could be adapting their program to fit this in for the students that aren't interested by sports. (Jen Valencich)

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Often, the crowded curriculum is referred to as a reason for the lack of health and physical education in schools. This has been referred to by different research, groups (organisations and associations), such as the Australian Primary Principals Association (APPA) who released this document in 2014  https://www.appa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Overcrowded-primary-curriculum.pdf I'd like to read more about what a crowded curriculum actually means, or if it is rhetoric and schools have always been busy places with pressures placed upon them for student success and performance. Why is the curriculum crowded when we've always had a school day to fill with learning. What is responsible for this change and what is valued and why (example post by Rosie Welch)