Year 8 Health – Term 2 (WA Curriculum): Staying Safe - Making Informed Decisions and Building Healthy Communities

What this unit covers

In Term 2, Year 8 Health in the WA Curriculum centres on the unit “Staying Safe - Making Informed Decisions and Building Healthy Communities”.

Students develop skills and strategies to make safe choices regarding substance use, practice assertive communication including consent, and understand how valuing diversity promotes community wellbeing.

Lesson sequence (10 lessons)

The unit breaks down into the following lesson-by-lesson sequence — each title below is a teachable lesson, in order:

1. Understanding Why Young People Make Choices About Alcohol and Drugs
2. Identifying Peer Pressure Situations and Safe Response Strategies
3. Developing Refusal Skills for Harmful Substances
4. Building Assertive Communication Skills for Personal Safety
5. Managing Stress and Protecting Mental Health in Different Environments
6. Understanding Consent - What It Means and How to Communicate It
7. Practicing Assertive Responses When Seeking or Denying Consent
8. Exploring How Cultural Diversity Strengthens Our Community
9. Challenging Discrimination to Create Safer Spaces for Everyone
10. Building Inclusive Communities That Support Everyone's Wellbeing

Curriculum codes in this unit

Content codes:

Reading the codes: WA codes (the ones starting with WA) pack the year level, learning area, strand and content number into one string, while the national Australian Curriculum v9 uses a different anatomy that starts with AC9 — same content family, different labels. Our complete WA Curriculum guide decodes both, character by character.

Planning notes for Term 2

WA terms run roughly 9–11 weeks, and in 2026 Term 2 runs from Monday 20 April to Friday 3 July — 11 weeks for WA public schools. With 10 lessons in this unit, that leaves breathing room for assessment, moderation and the weeks that disappear to carnivals, camps and public holidays — plan the assessable work to land two to three weeks before the end of term rather than in the final week.