Health and life skills involves learning about the habits, behaviours, interactions and decisions related to healthy daily living and planning for the future. It is personal in nature and involves abilities based on a body of knowledge and practice that builds on personal values and beliefs within the context of family, school and community. Some examples of these learnings include the ability of students to:

• make effective personal decisions for current and future issues and challenges
• plan and set goals
• employ critical reflection
• cope with change and transition
• manage stress
• analyze and manage career and health-related information
• recognize and expand personal skills
• recognize, explore and expand career opportunities and options
• explore service learning/volunteerism
• commit to lifelong learning.

The home, school and community play important roles in contributing to the healthy personal development of students, by providing an opportunity for them to consider information and acquire, practise and demonstrate strategies for dealing with the challenges of life and living.

The aim of the Health and Life Skills Kindergarten to Grade 9 Program of Studies is to enable students to make well-informed, healthy choices and to develop behaviours that contribute to the well-being of self and others. To achieve this aim, students require an understanding of self as the basis for healthy interactions with others and for career development and lifelong learning. Students also require a safe and caring school and community environment in which to explore ideas and issues surrounding personal choice, to seek accurate information, and to practise healthy behaviours.

This health and life skills program of studies provides a basis for instruction in schools. To achieve overall health goals for students, curriculum connections between services and resources within the school and wider community are needed. A comprehensive school health approach is desirable.

A comprehensive school health model incorporates:

• health and physical education instruction that promotes improved commitment to healthy choices and behaviours
• health and community services that focus on health promotion and provision of appropriate services to students who need assistance and intervention
• environments that promote and support behaviours that enhance the health of students, families and school staff.

The health of students is viewed as an integral component of a larger system of health within the home, school and community environment. It involves the establishment of collaborative partnerships among students, parents, educators, health care professionals and other community supports to address social and environmental factors that influence and determine optimal health.

To make responsible and healthy choices, students need to know how to seek out relevant and accurate information. They learn health-related information from many sources, including home, school, peers, the community and the media. The health and life skills program assists students in identifying reliable sources of information and in becoming discerning consumers of health-related information. Students research, evaluate and synthesize information in an effort to understand health issues and to apply the learning to current and future personal situations.

Choices, as evidenced by related behaviour, are based on attitudes, beliefs and values. The family is the primary educator in the development of student attitudes and values. The school and community play a supportive and crucial role in building on these attitudes and values.

In the health and life skills program, students develop decision-making skills that build resiliency and self-efficacy, help expand strategies for coping, and support informed personal health practices. Students develop personal responsibility for health, learn to prevent or reduce risk, and have opportunities to demonstrate caring for self and others.

Students focus on personal and collective safety, as well as injury prevention. Outcomes related to safety and injury prevention promote strategies to assess risk, to reduce potential harm, and to identify support systems for self and others. Students learn about products, substances and behaviours that may be injurious to their health. They also learn strategies to use in unsafe situations.

Students are encouraged to promote and maintain health as a valued and valuable resource, and to examine health issues and factors that promote or limit good health. They gain an understanding that, in addition to the effect of their individual behaviours on their health status, there are social and environmental factors that are beyond their immediate control, which also have a significant impact on their health.

In an environment of acceptance, understanding, respect and caring, students in the health and life skills program can learn to acknowledge and express personal feelings and emotions, as well as to appreciate the strengths and talents of self and others. There are opportunities for students to accept and appreciate diversity and the uniqueness of self and others in our global society. This program emphasizes healthy interactions and values, such as integrity, honesty and trust that underlie safe and caring relationships. Friendship skills are developed and then extended to incorporate skills for working in groups. Such skills include conflict management, consensus building, negotiation and mediation.

Students examine the various sources of stress in relationships, which include behaviour-related factors and those due to natural life cycle changes and transitions. They learn strategies to deal with unhealthy relationships, as well as traumatic events. Throughout the program, students build and expand upon safe and supportive networks for self and others that link the home, school and community.

Students also develop the skills of goal setting, prioritizing and balancing various roles and life/work priorities. As students develop decision-making skills, they begin to realize that the locus of control, or their ability to influence or control many outcomes and results, is within their own power.

Through the health and life skills program, students acquire a strong foundation of knowledge, skills and attitudes basic to employability. Successful careers are founded on a basis of self-knowledge, self-esteem, healthy interactions, lifelong learning and skill development. A fundamental aspect of career education is to move students from being dependent learners to being independent and interdependent, contributing citizens. Students gain confidence and a sense of commitment to family, school and community through opportunities for participation in cross-age interactions, volunteerism and meaningful involvement in a variety of activities.

Beginning in the early school years, students develop personal and group skills. These are reinforced as the program expands to include practical skills directly related to further education, job seeking and career path exploration. Skills related to the management of personal resources, such as time, energy, creativity, money and personal property, are essential elements that build personal capacity and lead toward future career productivity.

Students build upon the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to recognize opportunities, critically evaluate options and expand career strategies to meet current and future challenges.

Human sexuality education is offered in Grade 4 to Grade 9 as a mandatory component of the program of studies. All human sexuality outcomes have been boldfaced and italicized to assist in identification of these outcomes.

Parents will retain the right to exempt their child from school instruction in human sexuality education.

Schools will provide alternative learning experiences for those students who have been exempted from human sexuality instruction by their parents.

Three general outcomes serve as the foundation for the Health and Life Skills Kindergarten to Grade 9 Program of Studies.

• Students will make responsible and informed choices to maintain health and to promote safety for self and others.

• Students will develop effective interpersonal skills that demonstrate responsibility, respect and caring in order to establish and maintain healthy interactions.

• Students will use resources effectively to manage and explore life roles and career opportunities and challenges.

The general outcomes are interrelated and interdependent. Each is to be achieved through a variety of experiences. The emphasis is on overall well-being. Students learn to enhance attitudes and behaviours that reflect healthy choices and reduce the potential for harm. They develop personal responsibility for health, and they demonstrate caring for others.

Each general outcome includes specific outcomes that students will achieve by the end of each grade. Specific outcomes within each grade are developmentally appropriate, building upon and making connections to prior learning.

Thus, the specific outcomes are progressive and lead to more developmentally complex thinking skills that address the interrelated dimensions of health: physical, emotional/social, mental/cognitive, spiritual. The specific outcomes incorporate the potential for students to extend and refine learning in real-life situations.

Depending on the learning context and developmental needs of students, outcomes can be integrated or reclustered within the grade, as appropriate.

Life skills are not learned in isolation. Students learn the importance of developing and maintaining support networks among family, peers and the community, and seeking reliable sources of information to assist self and others in making decisions, practising skills and managing challenges and opportunities.

Students experience and develop an internal locus of control through activities that empower them to make decisions. Through decision-making processes they choose their responses, anticipate consequences and learn to accept responsibility for the results, which establishes the basis for proactive choices and behaviours.

Many of the specific outcomes are supported by examples. The examples do not form part of the required program but are provided as context for teaching.

Students will make responsible and informed choices to maintain health and to promote safety for self and others.

Throughout the grades, students study active living, positive health habits, growth and change, body image, nutrition, substance awareness, and abuse awareness, as developmentally appropriate. Each grade level focuses on different aspects of these significant health issues.

Consideration about safety for self and others begins in the early grades and continues throughout the program, with a strong emphasis on the practice of behaviours leading to safety in the home, school and community.

Students address the physical, emotional and mental dimensions of safety as the program expands to include such negative behaviours as bullying and harassment. They identify appropriate safety behaviours to respond to potential risks. Specific practices for injury prevention are included throughout. Safety is enhanced through the development of skills, qualities and attitudes leading to assertiveness and respect for self and others.

In middle and later years, emphasis shifts to an application of knowledge and the development of proactive strategies for personal health choices, resiliency, illness prevention and promoting health throughout the life cycle.

Students consider positive characteristics of healthy lifestyles, and give attention to the values that underlie individual choice and personal responsibility for the consequences of behaviours in the decision-making process. This process provides a basis for personal decision making regarding smoking, substance abuse, impairment, injury and abuse prevention, and other personal choice issues, such as sexual involvement. Sources of support to help students make healthy choices are identified throughout.

Human sexuality specific outcomes begin in Grade 4 and are boldfaced and italicized for easy identification.

Students will develop effective interpersonal skills that demonstrate responsibility, respect and caring in order to establish and maintain healthy interactions.

Awareness of personal feelings, appropriate expression of feelings and the learning of a vocabulary to express feelings begins in Kindergarten. In later grades, students learn coping behaviours to deal with worries and fears. They learn about handling mood swings, persistent negative feelings and the symptoms of suicide, with emphasis on the value of seeking help and talking to others.

Students learn the characteristics of healthy relationships. They learn that the development and maintenance of effective relationships requires the communication skills of listening, expressing needs and emotions, and providing feedback. Interwoven throughout is the awareness that students are not alone. They learn about support networks, mentors, and developing healthy relationships and positive interdependence.

Students learn how to maintain relationships and how to deal with change and transitions in a variety of life roles. They build a capacity to adapt and respond to the many aspects of change; e.g., family life cycle, school transitions, growth and development. As well, students develop and expand personal and community support networks for assistance in meeting the challenges of life.

Students learn to value the strengths and gifts of self and others. This knowledge is essential in order to build on team strengths and diversity to create opportunity for all members to make a valued contribution. Mutual support is reinforced as essential group skills are learned, such as conflict management, cooperation and effective decision-making skills. This leads to an understanding of group dynamics and skills for effective team membership.

Awareness of the uniqueness of self and others is fundamental. Concern for the welfare of others, not only for self, is an important aspect of healthy relationships. These strategies for managing relationships successfully are important life skills that are transferable to a variety of family, social and school/work settings.

Students will use resources effectively to manage and explore life roles and career opportunities and challenges.

Students begin to develop practices, knowledge and skills related to career development in Kindergarten. They learn to respect the property of others and to understand the concepts of consequences and accountability. They grow to assume responsibility for choices related to their learning environment.

Learning strategies involve self-management. Self-direction and personal responsibility are developed as students learn to organize and manage their own resources of time, energy, money and personal property. Managing resources requires goal-setting skills.

Students in the upper grades learn about leadership and learning styles. They begin to appreciate that self-knowledge is basic to decisions made in leadership roles.

Specific, learning-related outcomes start by recognizing the strengths, interests, attributes and skills of self and others as a basis for understanding that opportunities and possibilities for learning are ever present and lifelong. Discovering a variety of ways to learn and contribute to the family, school, community and environment is an essential transferable skill to the world of work. This significant aspect of career development sets the stage for exploring career interests and choices.

As students progress through the grades they note changes in, and an expanding of, their interests and talents. They relate their strengths, skills and talents to potential career roles. An awareness of career possibilities increases as they use a variety of sources to explore career clusters and paths. Students consider factors that influence career selection, such as family, society and stereotyping. By Grade 9, students begin to develop résumé writing and job search skills.

Service learning is explored and experienced at each grade level. These experiences provide students with opportunities to learn, practise and refine skills while making meaningful contributions to their families, schools and communities.