Year 8 Health – Term 1 (WA Curriculum): Navigating Personal Identity and Change

What this unit covers

In Term 1, Year 8 Health in the WA Curriculum centres on the unit “Navigating Personal Identity and Change”.

This unit explores how adolescents develop their personal and sexual identities while learning to access credible health information to support safe decision-making during periods of change.

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 Personal Identity: Who Am I Becoming?
2. Recognising Physical and Emotional Changes During Adolescence
3. Exploring Different Types of Attraction and Feelings
4. Finding Credible Health Information Sources
5. Managing Changing Emotions and Relationships
6. Understanding Sexual Identity Development
7. Evaluating Health Information: Fact vs Fiction
8. Making Safe Decisions About Personal Relationships
9. Accessing Support When Navigating Change
10. Creating Your Personal Health Information Toolkit

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 1

WA terms run roughly 9–11 weeks, and in 2026 Term 1 runs from Monday 2 February to Thursday 2 April — 9 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.