Effective: Friday 1 January 2016 if not this year

The Year 7–10 Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) syllabus has been amended to make content relating to domestic violence explicit. The syllabus is now available with implementation of these amendments to commence in Term 1 2016.

The amendments align with existing content related to abuse and power in relationships within the Self and Relationships Strand in both Stage 4 and 5.

The amendments include:

Stage 4, Strand 1: Self and relationships, outcome 4.3

• Recognizing forms of abuse and neglect that can affect children and families with the inclusion of eg: physical, emotional, sexual abuse, domestic violence (now included).

Stage 5, Strand 1: Self and Relationships, overview

• now includes the word violence – They examine and clarify personal values, challenge negative community attitudes related to diversity and investigate the impact of discrimination, harassment, violence and vilification.

Stage 5, Strand 1: Self and Relationships, outcome 5.3

• Family and domestic violence (now included)
• Examine power, conflict and cooperation in different settings including friendship groups, in the school context, family, home and workplace (now included)
• Identify situations – such as in a crowd, at a party, going out with others in cars, at work and at home – in which forms of abuse may occur and suggest possible protective strategies (now included).

A toolkit is under development and will be made available on the BOSTES website in Term 4 2015. This will assist schools plan the integration of new content about domestic violence in 2016. This tool kit will identify the most appropriate resources available for use in schools, including:

• definitions
• prevention programs
• current research sourced from groups such as White Ribbon
• links to support services across NSW.

BOSTES has facilitated the opportunity for Domestic Violence NSW to run workshops at the PDHPE Teachers’ Association annual conference in October 2015 to provide professional development to PDHPE teachers relating to domestic violence.

The amended syllabus is available to download from the BOSTES website.

For more information, contact:
Karen Ingram
Inspector, PDHPE
Karen.Ingram@bostes.nsw.edu.au
(02) 9367 8150