Special Subjects (Kindergarten)

Norfolk Public Schools: Physical Education and Health Curriculum Overview

The Norfolk Public Schools Physical Education/Health Program is designed to teach students fundamental concepts and skills that promote the development of healthy habits, relationships, and lifelong wellness.

Physical Education Program

The Physical Education program emphasizes active participation in a variety of physical fitness activities and experiences, focusing on the development of:

• Movement Skills: Teaching a variety of locomotor and non-locomotor movement skills.

• Fitness Principles: Exposing students to basic principles of conditioning and training.
• Health Behaviors: Promoting active lifestyles through setting individual fitness goals and making positive health decisions.

Commitment to Inclusion

To ensure all students can successfully participate, the program employs inclusive practice by offering differentiated instruction across activities. NPS promotes an environment where every student is challenged and can be successful by modifying tasks, equipment, and rules to meet the diverse needs, abilities, and experience levels of all learners.

Health Education Program

The Health Education program focuses on teaching students the importance of healthy habits on growth and development, with an emphasis on decision making and problem solving, self-management and goal setting, social awareness, relationships and communication skills, movement skills, self-awareness, information and resource seeking and self-advocacy and health promotion. Through interactive lessons, students explore important concepts across the following content areas:

• Nutrition and Balanced Eating
• Personal Safety
• Physical Activity and Fitness
• Physical Health and Hygiene
• Healthy Relationships*
• Mental and Emotional Health*
• Public, Community, and Environmental Health
• Substance Use and Misuse

*These health topics are taught through the district SEL curriculum.  There are no direct lessons taught in Physical Education classes.  However, learning standards in the Healthy Relationships and Mental and Emotional Health categories around anti-bulllying, teasing, good sportsmanship and persevering through difficulty are reinforced throughout all aspects of our physical education program.

Specialized Units

• Human Growth and Development (Grade 5): Fifth-grade students participate in a program providing an overview of the reproductive system's components, functions, and processes, including the physical changes that occur during puberty.

Note: Parents are notified prior to the beginning of this unit and provided with the opportunity to review instructional materials and may choose to opt out of participation.

D.A.R.E. (Grade 6) 

The health curriculum is supplemented by the D.A.R.E. program, which teaches students decision-making skills to support them in leading lives free from violence, substance abuse, and dangerous behaviors.  This curriculum is taught by our school resource officer, in partnership with our classroom teachers.

Instructional Schedule & Curriculum Design

Students attend Physical Education classes twice a week throughout the school year.

• At the younger grade levels (K-2), one class per month is dedicated to health education.
• At the upper elementary grade levels (3-6), one week a month is dedicated to health education classes between the months of November and May.
• Students at all grade levels participate in between 10-12 dedicated health education classes annually.
• The Physical Education/Health Curriculum is designed to build vertically so that students master core standards from the Massachusetts Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Frameworks by the time they complete sixth grade. The program actively seeks to build strong partnerships through Family and Community Engagement, ensuring that health learning is a shared responsibility between the school and the family.

Nutrition and Balanced Eating

• Identify situations when a nutrition-related decision needs to be made.

• Explain benefits of health-promoting eating choices and habits 

Physical Health and Hygiene

• Identify a variety of habits that can promote children’s health. 

• Explain how a young person can maintain or enhance the health of both their body and mind. 

• Set a simple goal related to physical health habits and monitor progress toward the goal with assistance from an adult. 

Personal Safety

• Apply strategies for staying safe in a variety of situations and determine when to report unsafe situations to an adult. 

• Demonstrate how to respond and get help in a variety of emergency situations including when and how to call 9-1-1. 

• Identify and practice behaviors for personal safety: say no, get away, tell a grown-up. 

Physical Activity and Fitness

• Exhibit positive self-concept, self-esteem, and confidence in abilities in a variety of settings, including practicing new movement skills, demonstrating skills to peers, and participating in cooperative and competitive games and activities.
• Recognize body responses, physiological changes in their bodies, and emotions during movement and physical activity. 
• Participate safely in a variety of physical education situations, including independent, partner and group activities, with and without equipment. 
• Identify physical activity as a health-promoting habit that contributes to overall health and well-being, and list the benefits of these habits on physical well-being and mental health. 

Movement Skills

• Demonstrate developmentally-appropriate locomotor movements and movement concepts in dynamic environments. 

• Demonstrate different levels, a variety of relationships with objects, and ability to vary speed and force while traveling. 
• Demonstrate the ability to engage in rhythmic movement activities. 
• Demonstrate developmentally-appropriate jumping and landing. 
• Demonstrate stability skills by maintaining balance and transferring weighton different bases of support and combining levels and shapes. 
• Demonstrate developmentally-appropriate stationary body actions in non-dynamic environments. 
• Demonstrate developmentally-appropriate manipulative skills in varying environments. 

Information and Resource Seeking

• Identify school and community health helpers and community resources. 
• Identify individuals who can assist with health-related issues and potentially life-threatening health conditions. 

Substance Use and Misuse

• Explain why it is important to use prescription and over-the-counter medicines correctly and safely, and the risks of ingesting household poisons (e.g., bleach, laundry detergent) and incorrectly using household products. 
• Identify trusted adults at home and school who can discuss rules and practices related to medicine use. 

Self-Advocacy and Health Promotion

• Demonstrate personal hygiene habits and other behaviors that prevent the spread of illness and infection. 
• Describe personal health habits that can prevent illness and promote self-care and overall health. 
• Self-advocate in order to have personal health needs met. 
• Recognize how the actions of others can impact physical health and encourage peers to make positive choices about physical health habits and prevention strategies. 
• Recognize how the actions of others can impact physical health and encourage peers to make positive choices about physical health habits and prevention strategies.