Helping ākonga thrive through a whole-school approach

When wellbeing and physical activity are part of everyday learning and supported by a school’s planning, processes and culture, it can lead to long-term change.

With support from Healthy Active Learning, schools and kura across Aotearoa are taking a whole-school approach to physical activity, kai and inu wai. The Healthy Active Learning Evaluation found that this approach creates consistency, reduces reliance on individuals and promotes long-lasting improvements for ākonga.

Paraparaumu Beach School and St Anne’s School show how a whole-school approach can strengthen learning and create positive outcomes for ākonga, whānau and kaiako.

Embedding values to strengthen whānau voice and learning

Paraparaumu Beach School began working with Healthy Active Learning in 2022. While kaiako already valued health and physical education (HPE) and physical activity as part of student wellbeing, competing priorities, heavy workloads and low whānau engagement made it difficult to embed this consistently.

With support from a Healthy Active Learning Facilitator from Nuku Ora, the school refreshed its strategic direction. Leadership and kaiako aligned the school’s vision and systems around 3 core priorities, including growing community. This ensured wellbeing, physical activity and learning were embedded across strategic documents, rather than treated as add‑ons. 

The school also strengthened how it gathered and responded to whānau voice, creating opportunities for whānau to share their knowledge and interests through school events and physical activities. This helped reconnect the school with its community and better reflect whānau aspirations in learning experiences.

Evaluation showed that more kaiako say physical activity now reflects whānau interests (29% to 80%). Kaiako also described feeling more supported and less stretched, with clearer systems and shared direction reducing individual workload.

Celebrating culture by making physical activity part of everyday learning

With increasing emphasis on numeracy and literacy across the education sector, senior leaders at St Anne’s School in Woolston, Christchurch, were concerned about maintaining a strong focus on physical activity and HPE without adding to kaiako workloads.

Working with their Healthy Active Learning team at Sport Canterbury, the school – which offers bilingual English/Māori and English/Samoan pathways – took a deliberate approach to integrating physical education across the curriculum. Physical activity was also intentionally embedded into everyday classroom practice to support other learning outcomes.

Listening to ākonga and whānau experiences and values about physical education and physical activity was a crucial part of this work. This included a focus group with less physically active ākonga and tailored professional learning that guided kaiako to deliver quality HPE.

The result is that junior ākonga are now active every day, with movement woven into reading, maths and other curriculum areas.

“We are now seeing our junior kids active every single day as part of their reading and maths rotations.”

– Senior school leader

More ākonga also reported enjoying PE at school (71% to 83%), feeling included in PE (70% to 81%), and learning physical activities from a wider range of cultures.

Taking a whole-school approach to wellbeing and physical activity

The experiences of these 2 schools show how embedding wellbeing and physical activity across planning, systems and everyday school life can create a whole-school approach that helps ākonga thrive.

To put this approach into practice, schools and kura can:

• Integrate wellbeing into strategic and annual planning.

• Align policies, curriculum and daily routines.

• Connect school values with physical activity

• Use shared language across leadership, kaiako and boards.

• Gather and respond to whānau and ākonga voice.

• Review systems regularly to ensure they support inclusion.