Page 68 - The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9-12: Health and Physical Education, 2015 - revised

THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM, GRADES 9–12 | Health and Physical Education
• Make adjustments only when necessary and consider adjustments to be temporary and fluid. Continue to make accommodations and modifications as needed.
• Break down new skills and focus on building each skill in a structured progression.
• Be fair to all participants and avoid drawing attention to accommodations or modifications that are provided for individual students.
• Make sure appropriate equipment is available, and use specialized equipment, such as balls of appropriate sizes, colours, weights, and/or textures, when necessary.
• Adjust the rules of activities to increase students’ chances of success while retaining a suitable level of challenge (e.g., by increasing the number of tries/ attempts allowed, making a target bigger or bringing it closer, adjusting the size of the playing area, varying the tempo of the music, lengthening or shortening the playing time).
• Give verbal cues or prompts.
• Have a partner provide assistance.
• Consider what accommodations, adjustments, or special guidelines may be required to assist students in understanding social rules and codes of conduct in a variety of spaces, and in coping with change room routines, transitions between activities, and moving to and from the gymnasium.
Depending on the special education needs of the students, some additional considerations may be relevant for their instruction in health education. These considerations may apply to all health topics, but are particularly relevant to human development and sexual health. Some students with intellectual and physical disabilities or other challenges
may be at greater risk of exploitation and abuse, and some may not have experienced acknowledgement of their healthy sexuality or their right to enjoy their sexuality. These students may also have had fewer formal and informal opportunities to participate in sexual health education. Teachers need to ensure that these students’ privacy and dignity are protected, and that the resources used are appropriate to their physical, intellectual, social, and emotional development and needs. Different kinds of accommodations and approaches will be required for different students, but it is important to ensure that all students have access to information and support regarding their sexual health.
Some students with special education needs may have difficulty with abstract thinking, including thinking about the consequences of their behaviour, and may have trouble
understanding the boundaries between private and public with respect to behaviour
or their own bodies. When teaching students with special education needs about sexual health, it is important to teach the information in a variety of ways and to provide ample opportunity for information to be repeated and for skills such as refusal skills to be practised and reinforced. Examples need to be concrete. Students need to be taught about their right to refuse and about ways of showing affection appropriately and recognizing and respecting consent.
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