Best for
Years 6-10 health and pastoral contexts, taha hinengaro lessons, class reset sessions, and any hauora unit where emotional literacy needs explicit scaffolding.
Health / Hauora • Years 6-10 • Safe classroom check-in
Hauora and Mental Wellbeing
Support ākonga to build language for taha hinengaro, notice how thoughts, feelings, body signals, and relationships connect, and identify support pathways without turning classroom wellbeing learning into forced personal disclosure.
Free handout, premium continuity when needed
This handout is free and ready to use tomorrow. The premium workflow becomes helpful when you want a lower-risk fictional-scenario version, school-specific pastoral pathways, or differentiated prompts for mixed-age classes.
- Generate a junior, senior, or low-reading-level version.
- Adapt the support prompts to your school's wellbeing systems and language.
- Save a localised version to My Kete for repeat mentor or whānau-class use.
Kaiako planning snapshot
- Use length: 25-40 minutes for teaching and reflection, or shorter as a structured pastoral check-in.
- Grouping: Whole-class framing first, then individual or paired completion.
- Prep: Decide whether students will work from personal reflection, fictional scenarios, or mixed safe-choice options.
- Teaching move: Emphasise that classroom discussion is about noticing, naming, and seeking support, not about sharing private trauma publicly.
Resources already provided
- Emotional vocabulary prompts in English and te reo Māori
- Signals-across-the-whare reflection scaffold
- Regulation and support mapping prompts
- Scenario-safe participation options
- Clear next-step reflection
- Curriculum companion for planning and reporting
The page includes the core scaffolds kaiako usually end up creating manually: emotional language, reflection prompts, and help-seeking structure.
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga / Learning Intentions
- We are learning to describe taha hinengaro as one part of overall hauora.
- We are learning to identify feelings, body signals, and situations that affect wellbeing.
- We are learning to choose strategies and support pathways that strengthen balance.
Paearu Angitu / Success Criteria
- I can name feelings or stress signals more precisely.
- I can explain one way taha hinengaro connects to the other walls of the whare.
- I can identify at least one safe strategy and one trusted support option.
Curriculum integration / Te Marautanga alignment
Use the curriculum companion to make the emotional-literacy, wellbeing, relationship, and help-seeking links explicit when planning a sequence or documenting how students are building self-management and health literacy.
Keep taha hinengaro connected to the whole whare
Mental wellbeing is not separate from the rest of hauora. Thoughts and feelings can affect sleep, energy, relationships, identity, and confidence, while support from whānau, routines, culture, whenua, and community can strengthen taha hinengaro in return.
This is why Te Whare Tapa Whā is a better classroom frame than a narrow “mental health tips” list on its own.
Vocabulary for talking about feelings
Feeling settled
tau • calm, steady, grounded
What helps me feel settled is:
Feeling worried
āwangawanga • worried, anxious, unsettled
I notice this feeling when:
Feeling frustrated
hōhā • annoyed, frustrated, over it
A respectful way to respond is:
Feeling low
pōuri • sad, heavy, down
One person or place that can support me is:
Map the feeling across the whare
| Part of the whare | What I notice | What might help |
|---|---|---|
| Taha Tinana | What happens in my body when I feel stressed, calm, angry, or overwhelmed? | |
| Taha Hinengaro | What thoughts, feelings, or worries show up? | |
| Taha Wairua | Does this affect my sense of meaning, belonging, values, or connection? | |
| Taha Whānau | How does it affect relationships, communication, or asking for tautoko? |
What helps me regulate and reconnect?
My own strategies
- breathing or grounding
- movement or stretching
- music, art, karakia, or reflection
- screen break, water, or rest
People who can help
Places or routines that help
School or community support
Choose the safest reflection path
Me
Use your own wellbeing if that feels safe and appropriate today.
A fictional student
Analyse a made-up student whose stressors and supports are different from your own.
A class scenario
Work from a shared example about exams, friendship conflict, online stress, or team pressure.
One next step
Complete one of these sentences
- The sign I want to notice earlier is:
- The strategy I want to practise more often is:
- The trusted person or support pathway I can use is:
If something feels bigger than a classroom task
Use support early
If this handout brings up something that feels unsafe, heavy, or hard to carry alone, the next step is not to keep working in silence. Talk to a trusted adult, kaiako, dean, counsellor, or another support person your school has identified.
Asking for support is part of protecting hauora, not a sign of failure.
Hononga Marautanga · Curriculum Alignment
Health and Physical Education — Hauora
Level 3–4: Identify and develop strategies to maintain and enhance hauora across the four dimensions of Te Whare Tapa Whā; understand how relationships, identity, and cultural connections shape wellbeing.
Social Sciences — Tikanga ā-Iwi
Level 3–4: Understand how social and cultural factors affect health equity; recognise the impact of community, whānau, and cultural identity on individual and collective wellbeing.
Aronga Mātauranga Māori
Te Whare Tapa Whā reminds us that wellbeing is not a single dimension but a balance across taha tinana (physical), taha hinengaro (mental and emotional), taha wairua (spiritual), and taha whānau (family and social). Māori frameworks for health do not separate the individual from their relationships, their culture, or their place in the world. This means that supporting student wellbeing in an Aotearoa classroom means supporting the whole person — including their cultural identity, their connection to whānau, and the practices and places that nourish their wairua. Health education that ignores culture misses the most powerful determinants of wellbeing for many students in our classrooms.
Tuhia ōu whakaaro · Write Your Thoughts
Reflect on your learning. What was the most important idea? What question do you still have?
Ngā Rauemi Tautoko · Support Materials
This handout is designed to be used alongside the broader unit resources available at Te Kete Ako handouts library. Related resources from the same unit are linked in the unit planner. All resources are provided — no additional preparation is required to use this handout in your classroom.