In the fourth grade, students undergo geographic transitions to a new building with expanded lunch menu choices and personal transitions that include pre-puberty physical, social, and emotional changes. Students engage in activities designed to teach and prompt discussion about balanced eating, food choices and food access; pre-puberty body changes and how they relate to hygiene and social, emotional and mental health, gender expression and identity, body agency and safety. Health classes in fourth grade also set the stage for future health programs by emphasizing the positive classroom norm of a safe space for learning. These include engaged inquiry, confidentiality, laughing with and not at topics of interest, using clear, accurate, inclusive, sex-positive, and body-positive terminology for anatomy and mental and physical well-being.

In the fifth grade, students build upon their understanding of the topics of our main four pillars and our Five Health Lifelines. The main curricular focus is on the physical, hormonal, reproductive, and social changes during puberty. Students continue to discuss gender identity, expression, as well as attraction. During an introduction to social safety, students continue to deepen their understanding of body agency and consent and how to use language to set boundaries around private information and personal space. Throughout the year, students continue to discuss nutrition, mental health, stress and coping, body image, and friendships.

The sixth grade health lessons focus on social health aspects relevant to their developmental stage, incorporating elements of healthy friendships and personal relationships, problem-solving strategies,  conflict resolution, safe and healthy social media behavior, and positive allyship. The topics of puberty and adolescence are reviewed and reinforced. Consent is taught in greater depth than in the fifth grade. Conversations about nutrition, body image, and “health at every size” are continued, as are discussions about stress, mental health, and sleep hygiene.

Seventh grade health classes provide the space for students to further their understanding of stress, evaluate effective coping strategies for stress and appreciate the mental health spectrum. Social media is discussed in regards to its impact on psychology and sociological influence and its impact on cultivating a positive school culture. Their understanding of sexual reproduction, the developments in adolescence and puberty, sexual identity, and gender are reviewed and reinforced. Communication skills around healthy relationships, intimacy, and sexuality are stressed in seventh grade. Consent, sex and the law, as well as “explicit sexual media” are discussed in healthy and age-appropriate manners.

Eighth grade health classes continue to build and strengthen the students’ knowledge and skills of the four pillars of our health curriculum: mindfulness, nutrition, sexuality, and mental health, as well as our Five Health Lifelines: reflection, connection, eating, movement, and sleep. They also explore stress, coping strategies, substance use, disordered eating, sexuality and sexual health (protective methods for STIs and birth control), and substance abuse. More in-depth conversations are had about adolescent brain development as it applies to these topics as well as: healthy body image, healthy relationships, love and romance, consent, sexual activity, gender, and sexual identities, risk-taking, and decision-making strategies. Following up on what they experienced in fifth grade, the eighth graders further explore safety and personal agency in public settings, practice using assertive language to set boundaries, assess risk, get help, and maintain personal safety.