Katherine Clark

Health Literacy in Australia

In Education, a strengthbased learning approach aims to identify,
complement and support students existing capabilities and
highlight their strengths rather than focusing on a problem. This
approach is a vast change which a deficit-based approach which can
be seen in educations past which was heavily focused on a list of
things which can be considered wrong in terms of a childs
development. Student were often provided with a list of what they
cannot do rather than focusing in their strengths to nurture their
development them (Lindstrom & Eriksson, 2010). This approach
encourages teachers to understand that students learning should be
holistic, dynamic and multifaceted. Teachers must understand when
undertaking this approach that students learn in varying ways, and
they must begin teaching by understanding what currently present
in a students knowledge, rather than what is absent or missing
(Antonovsky, 1979).
The Australian Curriculums focus on Health Literacy within its
Health and Physical Education program is aiming to take a strengthbased approach. This approach has been separated into two
strands, personal, social and community health and movement
and physical activity.
Within personal, social and community health, students focus on
being healthy, safe and active, communicating and interacting for
health and wellbeing and contributing to healthy and active
communities (Australian Curriculum 2015). The other strand,
movement and physical activity concerns students movement;
moving our body, understanding movement and learning through
movement.
The major change to the curriculum and this approach has been the
change of focus it provides. Rather than asking what behaviours,
risks and diseases students should learn to avoid, it now focuses on
engaging students to recognize what keeps them happy and active
(Lindstrom & Eriksson, 2010). This will allow students to have more
positive, engaging experiences and provide them with greater
opportunities for development.
For example; within Being healthy, safe and active, the content in
the Australian Curriculum focuses on supporting students to make
decisions about their own health, safety and wellbeing. The content
develops the knowledge, understanding and skills to support
students to be resilient (Australian Curriculum 2015), The aim of
this context is to empower students to be able to make healthy, safe
and active life choices. Further to this, this content strand will also
look into students personal identities, emotion and other factors
that may have an impact on their wellbeing.

Katherine Clark

Within a movement strand such as learning through movement,

the teachers will place a large importance of personal and social
skills that can be developed through participation in movement and
physical activities. These skills include communication, decision
making, problem-solving, critical and creative thinking, and
cooperation (Australian Curriculum 2015).
Evidently, these examples clearly demonstrate the shift in the
curriculum and the emphasis on a strength-based approach in
regards to health and physical education. The wording has been
developed to focus on aiding knowledge, skills and understanding to
aid students confidence in their abilities to ultimately lead students
to feel empowered within their community and feel in control of
their health choices.

References:
Antonovsky, A. (1979). Health, stress, and coping. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Lindstrm, B., & Eriksson, M. (2010). The hitchhikers guide to
salutogenesis: Salutogenic pathways to health promotion.
Helsinki, Finland: Folkhlsan Research Centre.
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/health-and-physicaleducation/content-structure