Advancing HPE pedagogy to empower young people to thrive in the modern world

Health-promoting schools (HPS) prioritise health promotion at all school levels through policy, curriculum, environmental changes, and connections with health networks to assist young people to thrive in the modern world. Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers play a central and highly influential role in modelling healthy behaviours and promoting preventative routines in HPS. While physical activity, sleep, and sun safety (PASS) are known modifiable health behaviours, limited research exists on how teacher education programs in Australia and New Zealand prepare future educators to deliver PASS-related content. With the aim of advancing HPE pedagogy in this area, this study explored the perspectives of 98 teacher educators regarding their programs and graduates' readiness to teach PASS. Findings revealed a strong emphasis on physical activity, with significantly less or no focus at all on sleep and sun safety. Alarmingly, many respondents were unsure or disagreed that their graduates were confident in planning and teaching lessons on physical activity (28%), sun safety (42%), or sleep (75%). A lack of awareness of relevant guidelines, benefits, and risks was also noted. HPE teacher educators expressed more confidence in their graduates’ knowledge and ability to teach physical activity (p<0.05), than sun safety or sleep (p>0.05), and identified several barriers and enablers to improving PASS education, including the need for increased support. Finding suggests a need to advance health promotion pedagogy leading to more comprehensive and consistent teacher education to equip graduates with the skills to promote healthy behaviours and contribute meaningfully to whole-school health promotion strategies.