Food pyramids, keeping clean and sex talks: pre-service teachers' experiences and perceptions of school health education.

This paper reports findings from the first stage of an anticipated four-stage research project investigating the effectiveness of teacher education in health education. Prior to receiving any teacher education in health education, pre-service teachers (student teachers) were surveyed for their experiences of secondary school health education, and their beliefs about and attitudes towards the subject. Data were collected from questionnaire surveys (n = 295) and focus group interviews (n = 61). Results showed that student teachers had more exposure to school health education than had been assumed and had more positive attitudes towards the subject area than indicated by other studies into school health education. Many reported having had sexuality education and drug and alcohol programmes, but these were commonly described in contexts of safety rules and risk avoidance behaviours. Participants had greater understanding of and more exposure to mental health education than had been predicted. Those aged 20 years and younger reported significantly greater exposure to a range of school health education topics than did those aged 21-30 years or 30+ years. This difference is attributed to the younger participants receiving health education based on the Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand Curriculum, introduced into schools in 1999.