🕘 Lesson at a Glance | Te Hōtaka
Lesson Overview | Tirohanga Whānui
Ākonga approach taha wairua through values, beliefs, meaning, purpose, identity, and connection. They infer values from choices, examine what happens when worthy values conflict, and use a composite pressure scenario to practise reframing, boundaries, and supportive relationships. No learner is asked to disclose spiritual beliefs or private experiences.
Learning Intentions | Ngā Whāinga Ako
- Describe taha wairua without reducing it to religion or positive thinking.
- Use evidence to explain how values and purpose influence choices.
- Apply reframing, a boundary, and a supportive relationship when a value is pressured.
Do Now · What Value Can You See?
5 minWhat it is: a behaviour-first prompt that separates values from attractive labels.
Run it
- Read (1 min): “A student notices that a new classmate is being left out, moves over, and explains the group task without making a fuss.”
- Infer (2 min): choose two possible values from care, fairness, courage, belonging, responsibility, and respect.
- Prove (2 min): underline the action that is your evidence. Compare: can two different values explain the same action?
Activity 1 · Values Detective
15 minWhat it is: groups infer values from observable choices and challenge one another's evidence.
Case A
Ari returns borrowed sports gear even though nobody saw who took it.
Case B
Mei changes a poster after a peer explains that the wording excludes some families.
Case C
Jonah keeps practising a difficult music passage and asks for a slower demonstration.
Case D
Hana disagrees with friends about a cruel joke and stays beside the person who was targeted.
Run it
- Claim (4 min): assign one or two values to each case.
- Evidence (4 min): quote the behaviour that supports each inference. A value label without evidence does not count.
- Rival reading (4 min): propose a different value that could explain one case.
- Rule (3 min): write a class definition: “A value becomes visible when…”
Activity 2 · When Good Values Collide
15 minWhat it is: groups weigh a real dilemma without pretending there is one automatic “right value”.
Collision 1
A friend asks you to keep a secret, but the secret suggests someone may not be safe: loyalty and care are both present.
Collision 2
A group promised equal speaking time, but the deadline is close: fairness and completing the work are both present.
Collision 3
A learner wants to join a meaningful event and also needs rest before an important morning: belonging and caring for tinana are both present.
Run it
- Name (3 min): identify the two values pulling in different directions.
- Generate (4 min): create two possible actions. Neither may ignore safety or another person's mana.
- Weigh (5 min): for each action, record what it protects, what it risks, and who could be affected.
- Decide (3 min): choose the stronger action and justify it with evidence, not “because it feels right”.
Activity 3 · Values Under Pressure
15 minWhat it is: ākonga practise a response sequence when challenge makes it harder to act on a value.
Run it
- Scenario (2 min): Riley values fairness. Their project group keeps interrupting one member, and Riley notices a tight chest and racing thoughts before the next meeting.
- Recognise (3 min): name the challenge and possible brain/body response without diagnosing Riley.
- Reframe (3 min): complete: “This response may be telling Riley that…”
- Boundary (3 min): write one sentence Riley could use to protect the value and other people's mana.
- Relationship (4 min): name who could support Riley, what Riley could ask for, and how the support changes the situation.
Activity 4 · Purpose-in-action Blueprint
20 minWhat it is: groups turn an abstract purpose into actions, limits, and support that can actually be seen.
Run it
- Select (3 min): choose a composite group: a student garden crew, a lunchtime welcome team, or a peer arts collective.
- Purpose (4 min): complete, “We exist to ___ so that ___.” Name who or what benefits.
- Value → action (5 min): choose two values and give one observable weekly action for each.
- Protection (4 min): add one boundary and one supportive relationship that keep the purpose sustainable under pressure.
- Test (2 min): another group asks, “Could we see the purpose in these actions?”
- Refine (2 min): replace one vague promise with a specific behaviour.
Exit · Make the Value Visible
5 min- Name one value from today's composite cases.
- Give one observable action that makes the value visible.
- Explain how a boundary or supportive relationship could protect that action under pressure.
🎯 Curriculum Links | Te Hononga ki te Marautanga
Health and Physical Education · Phase 3. The values-pressure case teaches the full response sequence in the statement: recognise a possible stress response, reframe it as information, set a boundary, and seek a supportive relationship.
Stress responses are often part of how the brain and body react to challenge, and understanding these responses helps people manage them by reframing thoughts, setting boundaries, and maintaining supportive relationships.
See the unit's verified curriculum map and teaching rationale.
📦 Materials & Resources
- Workbook page 3 — one per ākonga.
- Values word bank: care, fairness, courage, creativity, belonging, responsibility, honesty, and respect.
- Four Values Detective cards and three Values Collision cards — one set per group.
- Sticky notes or a shared canvas for blueprint review.
📊 Assessment Framework
- LI 1: the explanation allows varied expressions of wairua and does not equate it with a compulsory belief.
- LI 2: value claims cite observable behaviour and acknowledge trade-offs.
- LI 3: the response sequence links challenge, possible response, reframe, boundary, and relationship.
Fast check: the exit response should make a value observable. “Be respectful” is still a label; “invite the interrupted person back into the kōrero” is evidence-ready action.
🚀 Extension & Adaptation
- More support: reduce the values word bank to four illustrated choices and provide “The action ___ suggests ___ because ___.”
- More challenge: ask learners to defend a decision when two values remain equally important.
- Communication choice: allow sorting, drawing, audio, or scribed responses; public sharing is never required.
- Faith and worldview: welcome learner-chosen language in private work, but do not ask peers to judge or compare belief systems.
🔗 Unit Progression
Lessons 1–2 established the system and its foundation. This lesson turns taha wairua into visible decision-making and rehearses the response sequence used later in the emotions, stress, and help-seeking lessons. Lesson 4 shifts to taha tinana while keeping evidence, adaptation, and mana central.
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Success criteria
- I can describe several ways taha wairua may be expressed without deciding for someone else.
- I can infer a value from what a person does and explain a values trade-off.
- I can use a reframe, boundary, and relationship to support action under pressure.
Safety and inclusion
- Use the provided composite cases. Never grade or collect a learner's spiritual beliefs, sacred connections, private values history, or experience of distress.
- Do not present taha wairua as “thinking positively”, and do not make one faith or secular framing the default.
- For any volunteered safety concern, move out of the lesson discussion and follow the school's safeguarding pathway.