From the Head of Health & Physical Education

The start of every year is always exciting, hectic and full of promise and the Health and Physical Education teachers have literally hit the Term ‘swimmingly’.

Our Year 7 Physical Education program has commenced with a splash as students dived headfirst into their Aquatic Program. According to Life-Saving Victoria’s ‘Victorian Water Safety Strategy 2016 – 2020, “Drowning prevention requires a multifaceted approach in the form of community based actions… with drowning prevention needed across all sectors and community for an optimal outcome.” Statistically, with over 150,000 home pools, 734 beaches and over 300 public pools in Australia, our role as physical educators in water safety is critical.

Royal Lifesaving Victoria state Our mission is to prevent aquatic related death and injury. Our vision is that all communities will learn water safety, swimming and resuscitation, and be provided with safe beaches, water environments and aquatic venues.” Sadly, every summer brings with it news of Australians dying or suffering permanent impairment through their involvement in water activities. In-line with the Royal Lifesaving Victoria’s mission statement, the key focus and learning intention in Year 7 Aquatics is very much on developing an awareness of water safety. Students increase their competency in survival swimming strokes, with an emphasis on skills such as sculling, treading water and sidestroke, which links with a number of emergency response skills such as tows used to assist the weak, injured or drowning from the water. Students also develop confidence in board and pool-side rescues and safe entries into water.

Additionally, attention is given to providing information relating to reading the surf and determining where currents, rips and gullies are located at beaches. Assessment for the Aquatics Unit includes a ‘Rescue Scenario’, with students responding to a scenario where they must select the correct course of action to enable a successful rescue of their casualty. Feedback from their teacher, in conjunction with information from their casualty and peer assessment is given.

Years 7 to 10 Health Education classes are working through a variety of Units of work, including Puberty in Year 7, Social Media and Cyberbullying in Year 8, Risks and Risk Assessment (Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs) in Year 9 and Global Health Issues for females in Year 10. Every member of the Health and Physical Education Faculty is committed to engendering in our students a love of physical activity, increasing health literacy that will enable them to take control over, and improve their health and wellbeing and assisting in the development of risk assessment techniques. Health education is dynamic and requires constant review of our curriculum to ensure we keep abreast of current health trends and issues, incorporating relevant, up-to-date topics within our Health curriculum.

At VCE level our numbers continue to grow in Year 11 Physical Education and in Year 11 and 12 Health and Human Development, with two classes running in Year 12 in 2018.

I would like to convey my gratitude to all of the hardworking Health and Physical Education staff for their support in ensuring the start of the 2018 has run smoothly.

Ms Debbie Thompson, Head of Health and Physical Education