Making the New Zealand Health and Physical Education Curriculum Fit for Purpose: A Global Perspective on Socio-Cultural, Inclusive, and Knowledge-Rich Reform.

Timothy Lynch, timothy.lynch@ycis.com

Yew Chung International School of Chongqing, Yew Chung Yew Wah Education Network, China

International Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Dance and Sport (IAHPEDS) – Governor for Oceania

Abstract

The draft Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum for Years 0–10 in Aotearoa New Zealand has raised significant concerns among physical education professionals. Physical Education New Zealand (PENZ) has identified critical shortcomings which include: a narrow, performance-oriented approach to movement, the problematic separation of biophysical and sociocultural knowledge, and a lack of evidence-based foundations. This paper examines these limitations through a global lens, drawing on international research and curriculum exemplars to propose a framework for making the New Zealand HPE curriculum truly fit for purpose. Key recommendations include: (1) adopting a holistic, socio-cultural approach that integrates diverse knowledge domains; (2) prioritizing inclusion, equity, and comprehensive wellbeing over performance metrics; (3) re-establishing substantive partnerships with professional bodies and subject matter experts; (4) ensuring deep implementation supported by robust teacher education; and (5) grounding curriculum design in evidence-based research that reflects contemporary understandings of health, movement, and lifelong physical activity. This analysis demonstrates that a fit-for-purpose HPE curriculum must move beyond reductionist skill acquisition to embrace critical pedagogy, cultural responsiveness, and meaningful engagement that empowers all students to thrive physically, mentally, and socially.

Keywords: Health and Physical Education, Physical Education, curriculum reform, socio-cultural approaches, inclusion, equity, wellbeing, New Zealand, critical pedagogy, physical literacy

Introduction

Health and Physical Education (HPE) stands at a critical moment in Aotearoa New Zealand. The draft curriculum for Years 0–10, released in October 2025, represents a significant policy moment with far-reaching implications for student wellbeing, physical education, and educational equity. However, Physical Education New Zealand (PENZ), the professional body representing physical educators across the country, has raised serious concerns about the curriculum's conceptual foundations, pedagogical approach, and development process (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2025). These concerns are not merely technical disagreements about content sequencing or terminology; they strike at the heart of what constitutes quality physical education in the 21st century.

PENZ's critique centres on several fundamental issues: the curriculum's narrow, performance-oriented positioning of movement; the problematic separation and in some cases, omission of sociocultural knowledge; an inadequate evidence base; and a lack of sustained partnership with subject matter experts during the redevelopment process (Physical Education New Zealand, 2025). The organization describes the draft as "narrow, inaccurate, ableist and out of date," representing a significant departure from contemporary understandings of HPE both nationally and internationally.

This paper responds to PENZ's call for international perspectives and support by examining the draft curriculum through a global lens informed by contemporary research, international exemplars, and evidence-based principles of curriculum design. Drawing on decades of scholarship in HPE curriculum development, socio-cultural approaches to physical education, and research on inclusion and equity, this analysis aims to provide constructive guidance for making the New Zealand HPE curriculum truly fit for purpose, not just for today, but for the complex, diverse, and rapidly changing world that students will inhabit throughout their lives.

The stakes are high. As research consistently demonstrates, quality physical education plays a vital role in children's holistic development, enhancing not only physical competence but also social-emotional wellbeing, cognitive development, and academic achievement (Bailey et al., 2009; Lynch, 2024). Conversely, poorly designed or implemented HPE curricula can perpetuate exclusion, reinforce harmful stereotypes, and fail to equip young people with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed for lifelong health and physical activity (Fitzpatrick & Russell, 2015; Quennerstedt, 2019). In an era of rising childhood obesity, declining mental health, and persistent health inequities, getting HPE curriculum right is an educational and social imperative.

The Current Draft: Key Limitations and Concerns

Structural and Conceptual Problems

The draft New Zealand HPE curriculum organizes learning into two knowledge strands: Health Education (focusing on physical, emotional, and social wellbeing) and Physical Education (focusing on movement skills and principles). While this dual structure has historical precedent, the current draft's implementation raises several concerns that merit careful examination.

Performative Positioning of Movement

Perhaps the most significant limitation identified by PENZ is the curriculum's positioning of movement as primarily performative. The Physical Education strand emphasizes "specific movement patterns, activities, games, and sports" with a focus on developing "locomotor, non-locomotor, and object control skills" through "repeated practice in selected movement contexts" (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2025, p. 3). While skill development is undoubtedly important, this framing risks reducing physical education to technical skill acquisition divorced from broader educational purposes.

Contemporary research in physical education pedagogy has moved beyond purely performance-oriented models toward more holistic, educative approaches that recognize movement as a form of knowledge, cultural expression, and personal meaning-making (Kirk, 2010; Quennerstedt, 2019). When movement is positioned primarily as performance to be measured and evaluated, it can alienate students who do not conform to normative standards of physical ability, reinforce ability-based hierarchies, and fail to cultivate the intrinsic motivation necessary for lifelong physical activity (Evans, 2014; Fitzpatrick & Russell, 2015).

Separation of Knowledge Domains

The draft curriculum's separation of "Knowledge" (facts, concepts, principles, theories) from "Practices" (skills, strategies, applications) within each strand represents a problematic epistemological stance (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2025). This dichotomy suggests that knowing and doing are separate processes, when in fact they are deeply intertwined in embodied learning experiences. As Stolz and Kirk (2015) argue, meaningful physical education requires the integration of conceptual understanding with practical engagement, where students develop both "knowledge that" and "knowledge how" through authentic movement experiences.

More troubling is the curriculum's treatment of biophysical and sociocultural knowledge. PENZ notes that sociocultural knowledge appears to be largely omitted, with the curriculum privileging biophysical understandings of the body, health, and movement (Physical Education New Zealand, 2025). This represents a significant regression from contemporary scholarship that recognizes health and physical activity as fundamentally social and cultural phenomena shaped by power relations, social norms, identity, and structural inequities (Garrett & Wrench, 2016; Tinning, 2010).

Pedagogical and Equity Concerns

Limited Engagement with Critical Pedagogy

While the draft curriculum mentions concepts such as respecting differences, challenging stereotypes, and understanding consent, these important topics appear to be treated as discrete content items rather than being embedded within a broader critical pedagogical framework. Critical pedagogy in HPE encourages students to interrogate taken-for-granted assumptions about health, bodies, and physical activity; to analyze how social structures and power relations shape health outcomes and movement opportunities; and to develop agency as active citizens who can advocate for health justice (Fitzpatrick & Russell, 2015; Tinning, 2010).

Without an explicit critical lens, there is a risk that complex topics such as body image, gender and sexuality, cultural diversity, and health inequities will be addressed superficially or through individualistic frameworks that locate responsibility solely within students rather than examining systemic factors (Wright & Harwood, 2009). For example, teaching about "healthy eating" without addressing food insecurity, cultural food practices, or the influence of food marketing reinforces a narrow, individualistic view of health that can inadvertently blame those experiencing health inequities.

Inclusion and Equity Gaps

The curriculum's emphasis on discrete skill development and performance-oriented outcomes raises concerns about inclusion and equity. Research consistently shows that traditional, sport-based physical education models disproportionately benefit students who already possess physical competence and cultural capital associated with dominant sport forms, while marginalizing students with disabilities, those from non-dominant cultural backgrounds, and those who do not conform to normative gender expectations (Fitzgerald, 2005; Hay & lisahunter, 2006).

The draft curriculum lacks explicit guidance on differentiation, universal design for learning, or culturally responsive pedagogy, all of which are essential for ensuring that HPE is genuinely inclusive and equitable. While the document states that "teachers design learning in response to their learners", this places the burden of inclusive practice entirely on individual teachers without providing the conceptual frameworks or practical strategies needed to challenge exclusionary practices embedded in traditional HPE (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2025, p. 3).

Process and Partnership Concerns

Beyond content and pedagogical issues, PENZ has raised significant concerns about the curriculum development process itself. The organization reports that while they initially had opportunities to contribute to the redevelopment, "this partnership and shared intent have not been sustained in recent months" and they have "not been engaged in any substantive way recently" (Physical Education New Zealand, 2025, p. 1). This lack of sustained engagement with subject matter experts and professional bodies is confusing, as it suggests that the curriculum may not reflect current professional knowledge, research evidence, or the practical realities of teaching and learning in HPE.

International research on curriculum reform consistently emphasizes the importance of genuine partnerships between policymakers, researchers, and practitioners throughout all stages of curriculum development, not just in initial consultation but through design, implementation, and evaluation (Lynch, 2014; Priestley & Biesta, 2013). When this partnership breaks down, curricula risk becoming disconnected from classroom realities and professional expertise, leading to poor implementation and ultimately, limited impact on student learning.

Contemporary Best Practices: A Global Perspective

To understand how New Zealand might develop a truly fit-for-purpose HPE curriculum, it is essential to examine contemporary research on best practices and to learn from international exemplars that have successfully navigated similar challenges.

Holistic, Socio-Cultural Approaches

Contemporary scholarship in HPE increasingly recognizes that health and physical activity are not merely individual behaviors or biological phenomena, but are fundamentally shaped by social, cultural, economic, and political contexts (Tinning, 2010; Wright & Macdonald, 2010). A socio-cultural approach to HPE curriculum design:

1. Recognizes diverse ways of knowing and moving: Different cultures have distinct movement traditions, health practices, and understandings of wellbeing that should be valued and incorporated into curriculum (Fitzpatrick, 2013). For New Zealand, this means genuinely honoring Te Ao Māori perspectives on hauora (wellbeing) and incorporating mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) throughout the curriculum, not as add-ons but as foundational frameworks.

2. Examines social determinants of health: Rather than focusing solely on individual health behaviors, students learn to understand how factors such as socioeconomic status, racism, gender inequality, and environmental conditions shape health outcomes and access to physical activity opportunities (Burrows & Wright, 2004; Gard & Wright, 2005).

3. Develops critical health literacy: Students learn to critically analyze health information, question whose interests are served by particular health messages, and recognize how media, marketing, and popular culture shape understandings of health, bodies, and physical activity (Leahy, 2009; Rich, 2011).

4. Embraces diverse movement experiences: Beyond traditional competitive sports, curriculum includes dance, outdoor education, cultural movement practices, cooperative games, and fitness activities that cater to diverse interests, abilities, and cultural backgrounds (Penney & lisahunter, 2006).

Inclusion, Equity, and Social Justice

A fit-for-purpose HPE curriculum must be explicitly committed to inclusion, equity, and social justice. This means:

1. Universal Design for Learning (UDL): Curriculum and pedagogy are designed from the outset to be accessible to all learners, with multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression (Fitzgerald, 2005). This goes beyond making accommodations for students with disabilities to fundamentally rethinking how HPE can be structured to enable all students to participate meaningfully.

2. Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Teaching approaches that recognize, respect, and build upon students' cultural backgrounds, experiences, and ways of learning (Bishop & Berryman, 2006). In the New Zealand context, this includes implementing culturally sustaining pedagogies that honor Māori and Pacific cultural practices and knowledge systems.

3. Gender Inclusivity: Moving beyond binary gender categories and heteronormative assumptions to create learning environments where all students, including those who are LGBTQIA+, feel safe, respected, and able to participate fully (Sykes, 2011; Caudwell, 2014).

4. Addressing Ableism: Challenging deficit-based views of disability and recognizing disability as a form of human diversity rather than a problem to be fixed (Fitzgerald, 2005; Haegele & Hodge, 2016). This includes teaching all students about disability rights, accessibility, and the social model of disability.

Comprehensive Wellbeing

Contemporary HPE curricula increasingly adopt comprehensive approaches to wellbeing that extend beyond physical health to encompass mental, emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions (Lynch, 2024). This holistic view:

1. Integrates mental health literacy: Students learn to recognize mental health challenges, develop coping strategies, access support, and reduce stigma around mental health (Kidger et al., 2012).

2. Emphasizes positive relationships: Curriculum addresses healthy relationships, consent, communication skills, conflict resolution, and respect for diversity in relationships (Allen, 2005).

3. Develops emotional competence: Students learn to recognize, understand, and regulate emotions; develop empathy; and build resilience (Durlak et al., 2011).

4. Connects to broader wellbeing frameworks: In New Zealand, this means aligning with Te Whare Tapa Whā and other holistic Māori models of health that recognize the interconnectedness of physical, mental/emotional, social, and spiritual wellbeing (Durie, 1994).

Quality Physical Education (QPE) Principles

UNESCO and other international bodies have articulated principles of Quality Physical Education that should inform curriculum design (UNESCO, 2015):

1. Focus on physical literacy (lifelong quality physical education): Developing the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge, and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities for life (Whitehead, 2010).

2. Inclusive and accessible: Ensuring all children and young people have access to quality physical education regardless of ability, gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status.

3. Appropriately qualified educators: Recognizing that effective HPE requires teachers with specialized knowledge and pedagogical skills, particularly in primary schools where generalist teachers often lack confidence and competence in teaching physical education (Lynch & Soukup, 2017; Morgan & Hansen, 2008).

4. Adequate time and resources: Providing sufficient curriculum time, appropriate facilities, and quality equipment to enable meaningful learning experiences.

5. Promotes lifelong engagement: Prioritizing enjoyment, personal meaning, and intrinsic motivation over performance outcomes to foster lifelong physical activity habits (Kirk, 2010).

International Exemplars: Learning from Global Practice

Singapore’s education system is identified as a successful model for its predominantly constructivist approach to education, highly valued and respected teachers, high value of PE as a specialist learning area, active involvement of teacher education researchers in schools, and school community members being lifelong learners (Lynch, 2024).

Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE) emphasise core values such as respect, responsibility, resilience, integrity, care and harmony. These are embedded in their curriculum and have a positive impact on wellbeing and academic development - Singapore is ranked first in the World for PISA results across Mathematics, Reading and Science (OECD, 2023).

Supplementing Singapore, several countries have developed HPE curricula that embody contemporary best practices and offer valuable lessons for New Zealand.

Canada: Ontario Health and Physical Education Curriculum

The Ontario curriculum, revised in 2015 and updated in 2019, represents a comprehensive, socially critical approach to HPE (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2019). Key features include:

1. Explicit focus on critical health literacy: Students learn to analyze health information, recognize bias and perspective, and understand how social factors influence health.

2. Comprehensive sexuality education: Age-appropriate, evidence-based education about consent, healthy relationships, gender identity, and sexual orientation integrated throughout the curriculum.

3. Mental health literacy: Dedicated learning expectations around mental health and wellbeing at every grade level.

4. Inquiry-based learning: Emphasis on students asking questions, investigating issues, and developing their own understandings rather than simply receiving information.

Lessons for New Zealand: The Ontario curriculum demonstrates how complex topics such as sexuality, mental health, and social determinants of health can be addressed in developmentally appropriate, evidence-based ways that prepare students to navigate contemporary health challenges.

Australia: Health and Physical Education Curriculum

The Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education (ACARA, 2025) exemplifies a socio-critical, inquiry-based approach:

1. Integrated strands: Rather than separating health and physical education, the curriculum integrates them through two strands: "Personal, Social and Community Health" and "Movement and Physical Activity", with both strands addressing cognitive, social, and physical dimensions.

2. Focus on health literacy: Defined as "the ability to access, understand, and use information to promote and maintain good health" with explicit attention to critical analysis.

3. Propositions: Five key propositions underpin the curriculum:

   - Focus on educative purposes

   - Take a strengths-based approach

   - Value movement

   - Develop health literacy

   - Include a critical inquiry approach

4. Cultural responsiveness: Explicit attention to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and experiences throughout the curriculum.

Lessons for New Zealand: The Australian curriculum shows how health and physical education can be meaningfully integrated while maintaining distinct but complementary foci, and how critical inquiry can be embedded as a core pedagogical approach.

Finland: Comprehensive School Curriculum

Finland's approach to HPE within their comprehensive school curriculum (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2016) emphasizes:

1. Holistic wellbeing: Physical education is positioned as contributing to students' overall wellbeing, growth, and learning, not just physical fitness.

2. Student agency: Strong emphasis on student participation in planning and evaluating their learning, setting personal goals, and making choices about activities.

3. Phenomenon-based learning: Integration across subject areas through phenomenon-based projects that address real-world issues.

4. Teacher professionalism: High trust in teachers' professional judgment to adapt curriculum to local contexts and student needs.

Lessons for New Zealand: Finland demonstrates how curriculum can provide clear direction while trusting teachers' professional expertise, and how student agency can be genuinely embedded throughout the learning process.

Scotland: Health and Wellbeing Framework

Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence includes a comprehensive Health and Wellbeing framework (Education Scotland, 2009) with distinctive features:

1. Responsibility of all: Health and wellbeing is positioned as the responsibility of all staff, not just HPE teachers, with all subject areas contributing to students' wellbeing.

2. Four capacities: Curriculum aims to develop students as successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens, and effective contributors.

3. Experiences and outcomes: Rather than prescriptive content, curriculum specifies experiences students should have and outcomes they should achieve, allowing flexibility in how these are delivered.

4. Mental health and resilience: Strong focus on building resilience, emotional wellbeing, and mental health throughout the curriculum.

Lessons for New Zealand: Scotland's whole-school approach to wellbeing and its emphasis on broad capacities rather than narrow content coverage offers an alternative model that may better support holistic student development.

The National Curriculum of England has faced criticism for being a ‘dominant performance-orientated curriculum’ which adopts predominantly a behavioural approach, viewing the body as an object. This is captured in the excerpt from Lynch’s book (2024, p. 146):

In summary of this chapter, children in Reception class (4 years of age) should be moving for enjoyment, because it comes naturally to them, and this should be exploited by teachers (with a deep understanding of the socio-cultural influences of wellbeing), as a medium to enhance their learning across all areas. They shouldn’t be exercising out of fear that they will get fat, nor should they be experiencing guilt for not meeting adult ‘health’ expectations. It is wrong for children to be categorised as overweight and school leaders should not be allowing this within their schools, nor should they be allowing inspectors to negatively impact the wellbeing of their school community. Hence, it is recommended that the global shift to a constructivist, holistic social-cultural approach be adopted for the national curriculum for England in PE and wellbeing across all curriculum areas, by the DfE and by Ofsted, one which has a focus on the whole person philosophy: body, mind, spirit and wellbeing.

This is the same shift that is being urged by PENZ - for the socio-cultural approach to have greater weighting in New Zealand’s curriculum.

Recommendations: A Framework for Fit-for-Purpose HPE Curriculum

Based on the analysis of the draft curriculum's limitations, contemporary research on best practices, and international exemplars, the following recommendations provide a framework for developing a New Zealand HPE curriculum that is truly fit for purpose.

1. Adopt an Integrated, Socio-Cultural Framework

Recommendation: Restructure the curriculum around an integrated socio-cultural framework that recognizes health and physical activity as social and cultural practices shaped by broader contexts, rather than separating biophysical and sociocultural knowledge.

Specific actions:

- Integrate Te Whare Tapa Whā and other Māori models of hauora as foundational frameworks, not add-ons.

- Ensure sociocultural knowledge is given equal status with biophysical knowledge throughout the curriculum.

- Frame learning experiences around authentic, meaningful contexts that connect to students' lives and communities.

- Include explicit learning about social determinants of health, health inequities, and social justice.

Rationale: Research consistently shows that socio-cultural approaches lead to more inclusive, relevant, and engaging HPE that better prepares students to navigate complex health and physical activity landscapes (Tinning, 2010; Wright & Macdonald, 2010). For New Zealand, this approach also enables genuine honoring of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and bicultural commitments.

2. Reposition Movement as Educative and Meaningful

Recommendation: Move beyond performative positioning of movement to embrace movement as a form of knowledge, cultural expression, and personal meaning-making that contributes to lifelong physical activity and wellbeing.

Specific actions:

- Balance skill development with understanding of movement concepts, principles, and cultural contexts.

- Include diverse movement forms beyond competitive sports (e.g. dance, outdoor education, cultural movement practices, cooperative games, fitness activities).

- Emphasize enjoyment, personal challenge, and intrinsic motivation alongside skill development.

- Frame physical education around physical literacy (life-long physical education) rather than sport performance.

- Ensure assessment practices value diverse forms of physical competence and engagement, not just performance outcomes.

Rationale: Performative, sport-dominated curricula disproportionately alienate students who do not excel in traditional sports, undermining the goal of lifelong physical activity (Kirk, 2010; Quennerstedt, 2019). A broader, more educative approach better serves all students.

3. Embed Critical Pedagogy Throughout

Recommendation: Integrate critical pedagogy as a core pedagogical approach, enabling students to analyze, question, and challenge taken-for-granted assumptions about health, bodies, and physical activity.

Specific actions:

- Include explicit learning outcomes related to critical health literacy, media analysis, and understanding of power relations.

- Provide pedagogical guidance for facilitating critical discussions about complex topics (e.g. body image, gender, cultural diversity, health inequities).

- Frame health education around critical inquiry rather than transmission of facts.

- Encourage students to question whose interests are served by particular health messages and practices.

- Develop students' capacity to advocate for health-promoting policies and practices in their communities.

Rationale: Critical pedagogy equips students with the analytical tools to navigate complex, often contradictory health information and to recognize and challenge systemic factors that shape health outcomes (Fitzpatrick & Russell, 2015; Tinning, 2010).

4. Prioritize Inclusion, Equity, and Cultural Responsiveness

Recommendation: Make inclusion, equity, and cultural responsiveness explicit priorities embedded throughout the curriculum, not optional add-ons.

Specific actions:

- Provide clear guidance on Universal Design for Learning, differentiation, and inclusive pedagogies.

- Include explicit learning about disability, ableism, and disability rights.

- Address gender diversity, sexual orientation, and LGBTQIA+ inclusion throughout the curriculum.

- Implement culturally sustaining pedagogies that honour Māori, Pacific, and other cultural knowledge systems.

- Ensure representation of diverse bodies, abilities, and identities in examples, images, and resources.

- Provide guidance on creating psychologically and physically safe learning environments for all students.

Rationale: Inclusive, equitable curricula are not only a matter of social justice but also lead to better learning outcomes for all students (Fitzgerald, 2005; Bishop & Berryman, 2006). Without explicit attention to inclusion and equity, curricula perpetuate existing inequalities.

5. Integrate Knowledge and Practice

Recommendation: Eliminate the artificial separation between "Knowledge" and "Practices", instead framing learning as the integration of conceptual understanding and practical engagement.

Specific actions:

- Organize curriculum around integrated learning experiences rather than separate knowledge and practice components.

- Use authentic, inquiry-based tasks that require students to apply conceptual understanding in practical contexts.

- Ensure assessment addresses both conceptual understanding and practical application in integrated ways.

- Provide examples of how theoretical knowledge and practical skills develop together through meaningful activities.

Rationale: The separation of knowledge and practice reflects an outdated epistemology that does not align with contemporary understandings of embodied learning (Stolz & Kirk, 2015). Integrated approaches lead to deeper, more transferable learning.

6. Ensure Comprehensive Wellbeing Focus

Recommendation: Adopt a comprehensive approach to wellbeing that addresses physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions in integrated ways.

Specific actions:

- Integrate mental health literacy throughout the curriculum, not as a separate topic.

- Address emotional regulation, resilience, and coping strategies across all year levels.

- Include comprehensive relationships and sexuality education grounded in consent, respect, and diversity.

- Connect to broader wellbeing frameworks such as Te Whare Tapa Whā.

- Ensure wellbeing is framed holistically rather than through individualistic, deficit-based lenses.

Rationale: Comprehensive wellbeing approaches better reflect contemporary understandings of health and are more effective in promoting positive outcomes across multiple dimensions (Lynch, 2024; Kidger et al., 2012).

7. Re-establish Genuine Partnership with Professionals

Recommendation: Re-establish and sustain genuine partnership with PENZ and other subject matter experts throughout all stages of curriculum development, implementation, and evaluation.

Specific actions:

- Pause the current curriculum release to allow for substantive engagement with PENZ and other stakeholders.

- Establish ongoing consultation mechanisms that involve professionals in decision-making, not just feedback.

- Create reference groups of researchers, teacher educators, and practicing teachers to inform curriculum development.

- Ensure curriculum writers have appropriate expertise in HPE curriculum and pedagogy.

- Commit to transparent communication about curriculum decisions and the evidence base informing them.

Rationale: Curriculum reform is most successful when it involves genuine partnership between policymakers, researchers, and practitioners throughout all stages (Lynch, 2014; Priestley & Biesta, 2013). The breakdown of partnership with PENZ is a serious concern that must be addressed.

8. Ground Curriculum in Evidence-Based Research

Recommendation: Ensure all aspects of the curriculum are grounded in contemporary, evidence-based research on HPE curriculum, pedagogy, and student learning.

Specific actions:

- Conduct a thorough literature review of contemporary HPE research to inform curriculum design.

- Clearly articulate the research evidence base for key curriculum decisions.

- Engage academic researchers specializing in HPE curriculum and pedagogy as consultants.

- Reference international best practices and research in curriculum documentation.

- Establish mechanisms for ongoing review and updating based on emerging research.

Rationale: PENZ's concern that the curriculum "does not adequately reflect the research, evidence, and disciplinary base essential for the learning area" is fundamental (Physical Education New Zealand, 2025, p. 1). Curriculum must be grounded in current scholarship to be credible and effective.

9. Support Deep Implementation

Recommendation: Recognize that curriculum documents alone do not change practice; invest in comprehensive implementation support including teacher education, professional development, resources, and ongoing evaluation.

Specific actions:

- Develop comprehensive implementation guides with practical examples, lesson sequences, and assessment strategies.

- Invest in sustained professional development for all teachers responsible for HPE, particularly primary generalist teachers.

- Strengthen HPE content in initial teacher education programs.

- Develop high-quality teaching resources aligned with curriculum principles.

- Establish mechanisms for ongoing evaluation of curriculum implementation and impact.

- Create communities of practice where teachers can share strategies and support each other.

Rationale: International research on curriculum reform consistently shows that implementation is the stage where reforms most often fail (Lynch, 2014; Priestley & Biesta, 2013). Without sustained implementation support, even well-designed curricula have limited impact.

10. Ensure Adequate Time, Resources, and Specialist Expertise

Recommendation: Commit to providing adequate curriculum time, appropriate facilities and equipment, and access to specialist expertise in HPE.

Specific actions:

- Ensure minimum curriculum time allocation for HPE that enables meaningful learning (e.g. at least 120 minutes per week).

- Invest in facilities and equipment that support diverse movement experiences.

- Support schools to employ specialist HPE teachers, particularly at primary level.

- Provide additional support for schools in under-resourced communities.

- Establish quality standards for HPE provision.

Rationale: Quality curriculum cannot be effectively implemented without adequate time, resources, and expertise (UNESCO, 2015; Morgan & Hansen, 2008). Structural supports are essential for curriculum success.

Conclusion: Toward a Truly Fit-for-Purpose Curriculum

The development of a fit-for-purpose HPE curriculum for New Zealand is both an educational imperative and an opportunity. Done well, HPE can play a transformative role in students' lives, fostering physical competence, mental and emotional wellbeing, critical thinking and academic learning, social connection, and lifelong engagement in health-enhancing physical activity. Done poorly, it can perpetuate exclusion, reinforce harmful stereotypes, and fail to prepare young people for the complex health and physical activity landscapes they will navigate throughout their lives.

The concerns raised by Physical Education New Zealand about the current draft curriculum are serious and well-founded. A curriculum that positions movement primarily as performance, separates or omits sociocultural knowledge, lacks an evidence base, and has been developed without sustained partnership with professional bodies is unlikely to serve New Zealand's young people well. However, these challenges also present an opportunity to pause, reflect, and develop a curriculum that truly embodies contemporary best practices and international exemplars.

The recommendations outlined in this paper provide a framework for moving forward. At their core, they call for a curriculum that is:

- Holistic: Addressing physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of wellbeing in integrated ways.

- Inclusive: Ensuring all students, regardless of ability, gender, ethnicity, or background, can participate meaningfully and experience success.

- Culturally responsive: Honoring Te Tiriti o Waitangi, valuing Māori and Pacific knowledge systems, and recognizing diverse cultural perspectives.

- Critically engaged: Equipping students to analyze, question, and challenge taken-for-granted assumptions about health and physical activity.

- Evidence-based: Grounded in contemporary research on HPE curriculum, pedagogy, and student learning.

- Meaningfully engaging: Prioritizing enjoyment, personal relevance, and intrinsic motivation to foster lifelong physical activity.

- Professionally grounded: Developed in genuine partnership with subject matter experts and informed by professional knowledge.

Achieving such a curriculum requires more than revising a document. It requires a genuine commitment to partnership, adequate resourcing, sustained implementation support, and ongoing evaluation. It requires recognizing HPE as a vital learning area that makes unique and essential contributions to students' holistic development. And it requires trusting in the professional expertise of physical educators while providing them with the support they need to implement high-quality programs.

The international exemplars examined in this paper from Singapore, Canada, Australia, Finland, England (UK) and Scotland (UK) demonstrate that it is possible to develop HPE curricula that are both rigorous and inclusive, that honour diverse knowledge systems and cultural practices, and that prepare students for lifelong health and physical activity. New Zealand has the opportunity to learn from these examples while developing a distinctively Aotearoa approach that honors Te Tiriti o Waitangi and reflects the unique cultural context of the nation.

Physical Education New Zealand's call for a pause in the curriculum release to allow for substantive engagement and discussion is wise. Curriculum reform is not a race; it is a complex, iterative process that requires time, expertise, and genuine partnership. Getting it right is far more important than getting it done quickly.

As we look to the future, the question is not whether New Zealand can develop a fit-for-purpose HPE curriculum, but whether there is the will to do so, to genuinely engage with professional expertise and research evidence, to commit the necessary resources, and to prioritize the holistic wellbeing of all students over narrow performance metrics. The answer to this question will have profound implications for the health, wellbeing, and life chances of generations of New Zealand young people.

The path forward is clear. It requires pausing, listening, partnering, and committing to a truly evidence-based, inclusive, and transformative approach to HPE curriculum. New Zealand's young people deserve nothing less.

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Timothy Lynch is regarded as an expert in Health, Wellbeing, Physical Education and Pedagogy with extensive experience teaching and researching health and physical education curricula internationally. His work focuses on socio-cultural approaches to HPE, curriculum reform, teacher education, and holistic approaches to student wellbeing. He has published numerous books and articles on HPE curriculum development and is recognized globally for his contributions to the field.

Correspondence

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Timothy Lynch. Email: timothy.lynch@ycis.com

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Physical Education New Zealand (PENZ) for bringing attention to these critical issues and for their ongoing advocacy for quality physical education in Aotearoa New Zealand. Thanks also to the many physical educators, researchers, and students whose experiences and insights inform this work.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares no conflicts of interest.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.