Grade 6 — Health and Physical Education
The Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum helps students learn the skills and knowledge they need to lead healthy, active lives and make healthy and safe choices.
There are four parts to the curriculum:
- Healthy Living
- Active Living
- Movement Competence
- Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Skills.
The learning for each is summarized below, along with some things you can do help to support your child's learning.
Healthy Living (including Mental Health Literacy)
Students learn how to solve problems, make decisions and set goals that are directly related to their own health and well-being. As they explore health concepts and learn how to make healthy choices, students make connections between themselves and the world around them. While mental health literacy is a distinct topic, students learn how mental health is connected to overall health across this entire section and the whole HPE curriculum.
| Area of Focus | What Students Learn About |
|---|---|
| Healthy eating |
Influences on healthy eating Eating cues and guidelines Benefits of healthy eating / active living |
| Personal safety and injury prevention |
Benefits of inclusion, respect and acceptance Safe and positive social interaction, conflict management — in person and online Responsibilities, risks — care for self and others, safety practices |
| Substance use, addictions and related behaviours |
Effects of cannabis, drugs Strategies, safe choices, influences: tobacco, vaping, alcohol, cannabis, other drugs |
| Human development and sexual health |
Impacts of viewing sexually explicit media Understanding of changes that occur during adolescence Decision making, healthier relationships, consent Challenging various stereotypes (for example, based on sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, culture, mental health and abilities) |
| Mental health literacy |
Seeking help — professional help Connecting thoughts, emotions and actions |
Active Living
Through active participation, students build a foundation for lifelong healthy active living while learning what makes physical activity enjoyable.
| Area of Focus | What Students Learn About |
|---|---|
| Active participation |
Participation in a variety of activities Enjoyment of activity (individual, small-group and lead-up activities) Factors that motivate or challenge participation in daily physical activity |
| Physical fitness |
Daily physical activity — moderate to vigorous activity, 20 minutes per day, including warm-up and cool down Physical activity and health-related fitness Assessment and monitoring of health-related fitness |
| Safety |
Behaviours and procedures that maximize safety of self and others and prevent concussions Treating minor injuries |
Movement Competence
Through exploration and participation in a variety of activities, students develop skills, strategies and tactics for moving while building confidence in their own physical abilities.
| Area of Focus | What Students Learn About |
|---|---|
| Movement skills and concepts |
Transitioning from one balance to another, using different body parts (for example, one-leg stand to tripod stand) Jumping and moving with control Sending (for example, throwing, kicking), receiving (for example, stopping, catching) objects, and retaining (for example, dribbling, stick handling) objects |
| Movement strategies |
Understanding the rules and practising the skills needed to participate in a variety of activities Identifying common features and strategies of various physical activities and using tactics to increase success (for example, controlling an object, keeping it away from opponents using teamwork in territory games like soccer and hockey) |
Social-Emotional Learning Skills (taught across the HPE curriculum)
This new section of the curriculum helps students foster their own overall health and well-being, positive mental health, resilience and ability to learn and thrive. Students develop social-emotional learning skills to help them with identifying and managing emotions, coping with stress, having positive motivation, building relationships, deepening their sense of self and thinking critically and creatively.
Students apply these everyday skills as part of their learning across the other three parts of the curriculum, and in their experiences at school, at home and in the community.
| Skills in | Examples of What Students Learn to Do |
|---|---|
| Healthy Living |
Reflect on how stereotypes affect how they feel about themselves and identify other factors, including acceptance by others, that influence their sense of themselves [sense of self] Show understanding of how healthy eating habits contribute to raising energy levels and improving self-image [positive motivation] |
| Active Living |
Identify how they feel when participating in different activities — their energy level and interest, for example — and describe how these feelings affect their enjoyment of the activities [managing emotions] Show respect for the decisions and calls of classmates who are serving as referees [building relationships] |
| Movement Competence |
Explain how their feelings are different when performing an activity that is fairly easy, such as throwing and catching when not moving, and when doing something more challenging, such as throwing and catching while on the move [managing emotions] Demonstrate awareness both of strengths and of skills that need more work, such as using their non-dominant hand or foot, then focus on ways to build on the strengths and stretch their limits [positive motivation] |
Supporting your child's learning
Parents and schools both have important roles in supporting student learning and well-being. Here are some ways to help:
- Reinforce the benefits of trying new things, learning from mistakes, keeping an open mind and looking for the positives when facing challenges.
- Talk to your child about the challenges they are facing that may be causing them stress, and helpful ways that they can manage feelings of stress.
- Help your child recognize what stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination can look like.
- Try a new physical activity as a family, like trying a new sport or exploring a new hiking trail.