Katie Fitzpatrick is an associate professor of education at the University of Auckland and the lead writer of relationship and sexuality education curriculum policy.
An advocate for more sex education in schools, including raising awareness for healthy relationships, consent and gender identity, she says it’s important to use the health curriculum to teach students about individual and collective wellbeing.
At a national level, the current health and physical education curriculum is one of seven curriculum areas, alongside things like maths and English.
Schools have a lot of choice about how they deliver the different areas and how much time they dedicate to them, Fitzpatrick says.
“I think there’s quite a lot of misunderstandings about what health education is and the position it has in schools and in the curriculum,” she says.
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Some schools are trying to best support the wellbeing of their students using one-off initiatives, but Fitzpatrick says actually, there is already a strong place for this in the curriculum and it needs to be timetabled in and resourced.
An education review office report from 2018 showed a large number of schools weren’t meeting the minimum requirements for time dedicated to relationships and sexuality education, especially primary schools, she says.
A lot of teachers are lacking knowledge and confidence in this space but it’s not their fault, she says.
Teachers have an enormous task to get their head around multiple curriculum areas, Fitzpatrick says. And there hasn’t been dedicated national professional development in mental health, sexuality, or drug and alcohol education.
“There’s been a really strong push in the past 20 years for numeracy and literacy, really at the expense of everything else and I think we need to rebalance that.”
When a school has a good approach to health and sexuality education, the whole school sees wellbeing as firmly on their agenda,” she says.
“There’s health services available including counselling for students, the environment’s really inclusive with these kinds of safe policies, a stronger approach to anti-bullying, there’s leadership in the school that actively names and values diversity – including gender and sexual diversity.”
With sensitive content often discussed, Fitzpatrick stresses the need for professional development and support for teachers to think about the various scenarios that can come up, what might be triggering for students and creating safe spaces.
Resourcing is also important, she says. And while there is currently resourcing available for schools from places like Family Planning, NetSafe and Mental Health Foundation, Fitzpatrick says more are needed.
Schools have a legal requirement to consult with their communities every two years on health education, she says. And while it’s a mandated topic in the curriculum, meaning the community can’t tell a state school not to teach it, there should still be a discussion, she says.
“It is really important to say that we need discussions and debate and looking at these issues from multiple perspectives because I think one of the fears parents sometimes have is that if schools open up their content are they going to tell my student what’s right or wrong in this space.
“But when we take a learning approach to education it really does allow a diversity of perspectives and values and for those things to be present in the curriculum, I think that’s key.”
Research shows that young people want content that connects with the contexts they are engaging with, Fitzpatrick says.
“There’s quite a lot of research that shows that young people want stuff that’s real.”
