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New roles to help health and healthy relationship teaching

<p>New frontline support for high quality teaching that promotes the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people was announced by Associate Minister of Education Tracey Martin today&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We are funding up to 40 Curriculum Leads who will work directly with schools&comma; kura&comma; early learning services and k&omacr;hanga reo to support the teaching of mental health and healthy relationships and promote the wellbeing of learners&comma;” Minister Martin said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;For too long&comma; as identified in the last two ERO reports&comma; a number of schools have struggled in this area of teaching&period; The Curriculum Leads&comma; a new type of role based in regional Ministry of Education offices&comma; will provide the specialist support that primary and secondary schools have been wanting and need in this area&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The new roles are funded from a &dollar;32&period;8 million programme that will be delivered over four years and are the first part of a comprehensive wellbeing support package for the entire education sector&period; The programme funding also provides for resources for parents and wh&amacr;nau that will support their understanding of the importance of teaching and learning about mental health and healthy relationships&period;  This will enable families to provide support to their children at home&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It’s predicted that COVID-19 will have long-lasting impacts on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people&comma;” Mrs Martin said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;These Curriculum Leads will provide frontline support that will be tailored to local needs&period; This will strengthen the sector’s ability to promote and support the wellbeing of all learners in the medium and long term&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The leads will work with principals and teachers to deliver a high quality Health and Physical Education and Hauora local curriculum&comma; including the refreshed Relationship and Sexuality Education Guidelines and the Wellbeing and Mental Health Guidelines&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;They will also support School Boards to undertake quality engagement with their local communities on the health and physical education curriculum and promote positive school and kura environments&comma;” the Minister said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;For the last 13 years&comma; ERO reports have found weaknesses in this area so I am exceptionally pleased that our government has addressed this and provided this much needed support&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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