The Health and Well-being Area of Learning and Experience (Area) provides a holistic structure for understanding health and well-being. It is concerned with developing the capacity of learners to navigate life’s opportunities and challenges. The fundamental components of this Area are physical health and development, mental health, and emotional and social well-being. It will support learners to understand and appreciate how the different components of health and well-being are interconnected, and it recognises that good health and well-being are important to enable successful learning.

Engagement with this Area will help to foster a whole-school approach that enables health and well-being to permeate all aspects of school life.

What matters in this Area has been expressed in five statements which support and complement one another and should not be viewed in isolation. In order to achieve this holistic approach, teachers should seek to draw across all five statements when planning activities. Together they contribute to realising the four purposes of the curriculum.

Effective realisation of the vision described in this Area is fundamental to developing healthy, confident individuals, ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society. By developing learners’ motivation, resilience, empathy and decision-making abilities, they can be supported to become ambitious, capable learners, ready to learn throughout their lives.

Learners can also be supported to become ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world by developing their ability to show respect, to value equity, to listen to others and to evaluate the social influences affecting them.

Through enabling learners to manage risks, express ideas and emotions, develop and maintain healthy relationships, and take on different roles and responsibilities, the learning and experience in this Area can support learners to become enterprising, creative contributors ready to play a full part in life and work.