📚Unit Plans → 🏠Te Whare Tapa Whā → 📖Lesson 6: Movement & Wellbeing
Years 7–8 Hauora / Health

Movement & Wellbeing

Move, notice, adapt, and improve—without comparing bodies or treating movement as punishment.

🕘 Lesson at a Glance | Te Hōtaka

Do NowHow many jobs can movement do?5 min 1 · ExploreTest movement qualities15 min 2 · ImproveUse one feedback cycle15 min 3 · ContextMatch practice and tikanga15 min 4 · CreateBuild an adaptable routine15 min ExitAdapt with evidence5 min

Lesson Overview | Tirohanga Whānui

Ākonga explore balance, timing, flow, and adaptation through low-risk movement stations. They improve one observable quality with feedback, investigate why movement practices carry different contexts and tikanga, and co-design a short routine that can be performed seated, standing, or through a design role.

Learning Intentions | Ngā Whāinga Ako

  • Describe movement quality using observable evidence such as control, timing, balance, and flow.
  • Use specific feedback and adaptation to improve a movement sequence safely.
  • Explain how varied movement practices can support flexibility, wellbeing, and more than one connected part of the whare.

Do Now · Movement Has Many Jobs

5 min

What it is: a fast card sort that breaks the equation “movement = competitive sport”.

Run it

  1. Sort (2 min): place walking or wheeling to the bus, gardening, dance rehearsal, stretching, kapa haka, playground games, and carrying groceries under any fitting purposes: transport, work, play, cultural expression, performance, connection, or settling.
  2. Overlap (2 min): move three examples so each has more than one purpose.
  3. Claim (1 min): complete, “Movement can support hauora even when…”

Activity 1 · Movement-quality Lab

15 min

What it is: three adaptable stations where success means noticing quality—not speed, fitness, range, or appearance.

Control and balance

The movement starts, changes, and finishes as intended, using support where useful.

Timing and rhythm

The movement responds to a beat, cue, partner, or planned count.

Flow and transition

One action connects to the next with a deliberate pause or smooth pathway.

Adaptation and safety

The mover changes space, range, pace, support, or role to fit the situation.

Run it

  1. Pathway (4 min): step, wheel, reach, or guide a beanbag through a parkour-inspired floor route. No jumping or climbing is required.
  2. Mirror (4 min): seated or standing pairs take turns leading a four-count dance pattern without touch.
  3. Balance-flow (4 min): connect three gymnastics-inspired shapes using a chair, wall, or floor marker as needed.
  4. Notice (3 min): choose one quality and record the observable evidence. Do not score people.
Choice without explanation: learners may move, demonstrate hands-only, call cues, observe safety, or design the sequence. Nobody has to disclose disability, pain, injury, fitness, body image, or a reason for adapting.
Teaching basis: Healthify — Physical activity: common questions describes varied forms and intensities of activity and links regular activity with physical health, mental health, sleep, social interaction, and overall wellbeing.

Activity 2 · Notice, Name, Adjust

15 min

What it is: a short feedback loop in which every learner can produce evidence of improvement.

Run it

  1. Select (2 min): choose one station sequence and one quality: control, timing, balance, flow, or adaptation.
  2. Baseline (3 min): perform, cue, or tabletop-model the sequence once. An observer records one neutral “I noticed…” statement.
  3. Feedback (3 min): the observer offers one precise option: “To make the transition clearer, you could…” The learner accepts, changes, or replaces it.
  4. Retry (4 min): repeat with the chosen adaptation.
  5. Evidence (3 min): write what changed and which observation shows improvement. “Worked harder” is not evidence.
Consent routine: ask before observing closely or offering feedback. Comment only on the agreed movement quality—never body shape, weight, effort, coordination “talent”, or attractiveness.

Activity 3 · Practice, People, Place

15 min

What it is: a context inquiry that prevents four very different movement traditions from becoming interchangeable station labels.

Gymnastics

Uses planned shapes, balance, rotation, and transitions. Safe progression, equipment, and spotting knowledge matter.

Dance

Can carry story, identity, expression, technique, performance, social connection, or ceremony depending on its form and community.

Parkour

Adapts movement to obstacles and pathways. Reading risk, landing, progression, and the right environment matter.

Mau rākau

A living Māori martial art with whakapapa, tikanga, reo, discipline, and expert knowledge—not a generic stick drill.

Run it

  1. Match (5 min): for each practice, list the knowledge, people, place, equipment, and safety conditions needed.
  2. Compare (4 min): identify one movement quality that could grow in all four and one feature that must not be flattened.
  3. Decide (4 min): sort example lesson ideas into “safe with general teaching”, “needs specialist knowledge”, or “needs local cultural relationship and permission”. Defend one placement.
  4. Connect (2 min): explain how participation could also support whānau, hinengaro, wairua, or whenua.
Cultural integrity: do not teach improvised haka or mau rākau from internet fragments. Use neutral rhythm, balance, and pathway tasks unless a knowledgeable practitioner and local relationships support authentic instruction. Name the practice accurately; do not use it as decoration.

Activity 4 · Adaptable Movement Routine

15 min

What it is: groups turn movement-quality evidence into an accessible routine with a clear purpose.

Run it

  1. Choose roles (2 min): mover, cue caller, access designer, or evidence observer. Roles may rotate but physical performance is never compulsory.
  2. Build (6 min): create a 45–60 second routine with an opening shape, a repeated rhythm or pathway, a deliberate transition, and a settling finish.
  3. Design access (3 min): provide seated, standing, and small-range options that preserve the same movement quality.
  4. Explain (2 min): name the quality being developed and one plausible wellbeing or whare connection.
  5. Refine (2 min): use observer evidence to change one element.

Record it in: Workbook page 6 — Movement & Wellbeing.

Exit · Adapt the Four-count Sequence

5 min

Sequence: reach → turn or redirect → pause → mirror a partner.

  1. Name one movement quality the sequence could develop and the evidence you would watch for.
  2. Give one adaptation that keeps the quality while changing range, position, pace, support, or role.
  3. Explain one way practising it could support a connected part of Te Whare Tapa Whā.

Next: Lesson 7 investigates recovery and the puberty-related changes that can reshape sleep.

🎯 Curriculum Links | Te Hononga ki te Marautanga

Health and Physical Education · Phase 3. Learners participate in adapted gymnastics-, dance-, and parkour-inspired tasks, study the distinct context of mau rākau, and use feedback to improve flexibility-related range, wellbeing connections, and observable movement quality.

Participation in activities like gymnastics, dance, parkour, and mau rākau supports increased flexibility, wellbeing, and overall movement quality.

See the unit's verified curriculum map and teaching rationale.

📦 Materials & Resources
  • Floor markers, masking tape, beanbags, stable chairs, and optional rhythm sticks that are not presented as rākau.
  • Printed movement-quality cards: control, timing, balance, flow, adaptation.
  • Role cards: mover, cue caller, access designer, evidence observer.
  • Workbook page 6 — one per ākonga.
📊 Assessment Framework
  • LI 1: the observation names a quality and cites something visible or audible rather than judging the person.
  • LI 2: the retry uses specific feedback and explains what changed.
  • LI 3: the routine preserves quality across adaptations and explains a plausible connection to flexibility, wellbeing, or another taha.

Fast check: the exit distinguishes movement quality from performance ranking and shows whether learners understand adaptation as a design strength.

🚀 Extension & Adaptation
  • More support: provide a ready-made four-count sequence and ask learners to change only one quality.
  • More challenge: preserve the same quality while adapting for two different spaces or participant needs.
  • Observation pathway: learners can sequence cards, cue timing, or annotate a demonstration instead of physically performing.
🔗 Unit Progression

Lesson 5 showed that wellbeing practices sit inside culture, relationships, and access. This lesson applies that systems lens to movement. Lesson 7 then asks how rest, sleep, and recovery interact with puberty, emotion, and social life.

📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot

Success criteria

  • I can name and evidence a movement quality without rating a person's body or fitness.
  • I can use feedback I have agreed to and explain how an adaptation preserves the goal.
  • I can distinguish shared movement qualities from the specific knowledge and tikanga of a practice.

Safety and inclusion

  • Check the space and equipment, teach stop signals, maintain non-contact pathways, and follow school first-aid procedures if anyone reports pain, dizziness, or injury.
  • Offer seated, standing, small-range, cueing, observing, and design roles from the start. Never demand a medical explanation or public opt-out.
  • Assess evidence, adaptation, and explanation—not intensity, speed, flexibility range, body shape, uniform, or public performance confidence.