REGISTRATIONS OPEN 8.50am

SESSION 1:

Building Better Body Image in Primary Schools
Dr Zali Yager – Embrace Collective

So many young people experience high levels of pressure around their appearance, and 77% of Australian adolescents report experiencing body image distress. The past two years have seen a rapid rise in body image concerns and eating disorder presentations, particularly among 5-12-year-olds. This used to be a secondary school problem, and it's now a primary school problem.

So how do we teach about body image in ways that support our students to accept and appreciate their own and others’ appearance? And how do we teach about nutrition and health in ways that are safe for students who may be vulnerable to, currently experiencing, or in recovery from, an eating disorder?

In this workshop, Dr Zali Yager will provide clear guidance on what is and is not helpful when teaching about food, weight, movement, and body image, practical recommendations for changing up common food teaching activities, and details of new and exciting programs to bring fresh content to your classroom across all year levels in the primary school.

About Zali

Zali has a background in Health and Physical Education, and 20+ years experience in figuring out what works to help people feel better about their bodies. An adjunct Associate Professor in Education at Victoria University in Melbourne, and the Founder and Executive Director of The Embrace Collective, Zali is on a mission to create a world where no young people are held back by pressure and shame around their appearance. Zali has championed the call for safer body image environments everywhere from Parliament House to The White House, was a key expert in the #byebyeBMI campaign for curriculum change, and works alongside 2023 Australian of the Year Taryn Brumfitt to create engaging resources that students and teachers love- that help to improve their wellbeing. 

SESSION 2:

'Planning movement experiences with an educative purpose'

Amy McCabe – QCAA

The rationale for the Australian Curriculum: v9.0 Health and Physical Education (HPE) learning area identifies movement as a powerful medium for learning. Through thoughtfully selected movement contexts, students can gain the skills, understandings and dispositions that support lifelong physical activity participation and enhanced movement performance. 

This session will use the HPE proposition – educative purpose as a lens to explore strategies to explicitly teach the knowledge, understanding and skills described in the achievement standards and content descriptions through authentic and meaningful learning contexts. It provides opportunities for curriculum leaders and teachers to consider ways to plan for purposeful learning experiences in the movement and physical activity strand and articulate how the learning is aligned to Australian Curriculum v9.0: HPE.    

SESSION 3:

Nourishing Minds -Nutrition and Adolescent Food Choices

Dr Jaclyn Munge – Montessori International College

Adolescence is a critical period for establishing healthy nutritional habits that can reduce long-term health risks and costs. Effective nutrition education is essential for promoting physical and mental health and academic success during this stage. Schools play a pivotal role in fostering healthy behaviours, with teachers being key influencers in shaping students' nutritional habits. However, teachers' self-efficacy significantly impacts their ability to teach nutrition effectively. This presentation will explain the relationship between Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers’ perceptions of their nutrition-teaching self-efficacy (NTSE) and professional identity and how these perceptions shape teachers' experiences and delivery of nutrition education in Queensland, Australia. It will provide an actionable strategy that can be implemented in schools to positively impact the delivery of school-based nutrition education.

SESSION 4:

How to Effectively Run an Athletics Carnival
Anna Rasmussen – Capalaba State College.

Running a school sports carnival? Where do you start? How can you make it memorable, exciting, and engaging? Don’t worry… School carnivals do not need to be extravagant. They do however, need to be well planned, organised, and communicated with all of the relevant stakeholders involved. The extravagance will come from the enjoyment of students and the achievements they make on the day. I have been teaching for 10 years and have run 4 sport carnivals a year, some of them better than others. The goal for this session is to give you confidence to run sport carnivals, make it a little less daunting to plan and share some ideas and resources that I have developed but mostly adopted over these years. We will talk through where to start, what to include, and some little tips that give the day a little pizzazz. 

SESSION 5:

Networking with Sporting Organisations

Lyss Hopper - Bray Park SS

Alyssa will share practical tips on networking with sporting organisations. Alyssa will cover essential strategies for building partnerships with local sports clubs, enhancing student involvement, and leveraging community resources—insights that often go unspoken in HPE teaching. We'll wrap up with a Q&A session to address your questions.