Developing a program

Teachers should use the study design and this advice to develop a teaching and learning program that includes appropriate learning activities to enable students to develop the knowledge and skills identified in the outcomes in each unit.

This study design encourages students to extend their thinking and research beyond particular definitions and learned examples, towards broader understanding and practical action. For instance, while the emphasis of Unit 1 remains on Australian youth, the focus for students is on understanding varied and diverse perspectives, behaviours and outcomes relating to health and wellbeing. The key knowledge facilitates the application of this understanding in personal and active ways such as selecting healthier food, adopting risk-reduction strategies, and advocating for improved health and wellbeing outcomes for young people.

Teachers will note the widespread inclusion throughout the study design of the term ‘wellbeing’. While this term does have its own meaning (see VCE Health and Human Development Study Design (pdf - 157.95kb) page 9), for the purposes of this study ‘health and wellbeing’ should be regarded as a singular entity and need not be studied separately. A state of optimal health includes a sense of wellbeing.

Students are expected to be able to describe (rather than define) different dimensions of health and wellbeing, including physical, social, emotional, mental and spiritual. Teachers should note that ‘emotional health’ and ‘spiritual health’ are new additions to the study, and that the different dimensions of individual development are now introduced in Unit 2 rather than Unit 1. Although interrelationships between dimensions of health/wellbeing and individual development are no longer specified in key knowledge, it is recommended that students consider the dimensions as interacting rather than isolated. Unit 3 Area of Study 1 key skills explicitly include descriptions of such interrelationships.

Teachers should note that while the focus of Unit 3 is on health and wellbeing in Australia, students should also look at health as a universal right and a global concept. The Unit 3 key knowledge on Australia’s health status and burden of disease places emphasis on contributing factors, population groups and data patterns, rather than on particular diseases and conditions. In Unit 3 Area of Study 1, nutrition is considered a contributing factor to variations in health status, seen through the lens of ‘dietary risk’ and Area of Study 2 considers initiatives in health promotion.

Unit 4 Area of Study 1 has a focus on particular global trends and the ways in which they may affect health and wellbeing. Unit 4 Area of Study 2 has as its focus the promotion of health and human development globally (particularly through the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals), concluding with an emphasis on the role of individuals taking social action to promote health and wellbeing.