43
HEALTH & WELLNESS
Mission Statement | Health & Wellness The Dalton Health and Wellness Program meets students’ developmental needs in their Middle and High School years. Various health topics comprise the curriculum, categorized under four main pillars: mindfulness, nutrition, sexuality, and mental health, all explored with a lens of equity and social justice. The Dalton Health and Wellness program robustly supports and forwards the school’s mission to be an anti-racist school. The curriculum is holistic, inclusive, body-positive, and sex-positive. To supplement the Health and Wellness curriculum, assembly guest speakers, enrichment sessions with experts in current topics, parent informational sessions, and media presentations complete the program. During Middle School, students experience many physiological changes that have physical, social, and emotional effects. Students have multiple opportunities to learn about and discuss these changes in House throughout these formative middle years. The Health and Wellness curriculum supports and amplifies these House discussions and provides age and development appropriate knowledge and skills. In each grade, students have opportunities to ask the health educator questions about the topics covered anonymously. Every class period begins with a moment for mindfulness practice (guided breathing, yoga, Tai chi, etc.) to help establish this as a time to reflect and check on one’s mental and physical health as part of a holistic health and well-being habit. Mindful reflection is one of the components of our Five Health Lifelines weaved throughout every grade: reflection time, connection time, healthy eating, healthy movement, and healthy sleep. The middle school does not give assessments for health classes.
Health 4 In the 4th 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 4th 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.
Health 5 In the 5th 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.
Health 6 The 6th 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. Instructors teach consent 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.
Health 7 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. We discuss social media, its impact on psychology and sociological influence, and cultivating a positive school culture. Students’ understanding of sexual reproduction, adolescence and puberty development, sexual identity, and gender are reviewed and reinforced. The 7th grade curriculum also stresses communication skills around healthy relationships, intimacy, and sexuality. Consent, sex and the law, and “explicit sexual media” are discussed in healthy and age-appropriate manners.
Health 8 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.
The Dalton School Middle School Curriculum Guide
