Andrea Haefele

Health & Physical Education Curriculum Consultant, OPHEA

Andrea Haefele (she/her) is a teacher with the York Region District School Board, currently seconded as a Health and Physical Education curriculum consultant at Ophea. She has been an active contributor to many regional and provincial initiatives that support the H&PE curriculum, Healthy Schools, and the Daily Physical Activity provincial policy. Andrea is a strong advocate for people with disabilities and has shared her expertise and lived experience at numerous professional learning networks, including the Hospital for Sick Children, Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Jumpstart Charities, and Autism Ontario. As a parent of a child with disabilities, she brings an intersectional lens to her work and strives to create inclusive and supportive spaces for all learners.

Workshop Description:

Inclusion means creating meaningful learning opportunities within supportive school environments where all students feel physically and emotionally safe and have a sense of belonging. Prioritizing physical and emotional safety in Physical Education is a fundamental principle and necessary for meaningful learning for all students, including students with disabilities. Inclusion is a process and a goal; it is an ever-lasting search for better ways to respond to diversity. The workshop will provide a collection of capacity-building tools that enable educators and physical activity providers to embed universal design into their practice and to plan their programming to meet students’ individualized needs.

Workshop participants will:

Review knowledge of disabilities and provide information on where to start when supporting the facilitation of an effective physical education and/or physical activity program
Examine the Physical Education curriculum and co-creating individualized education and/or physical activity plans to contextualize it to the role of an educator or physical activity provider
Deepen the understanding of how to engage students meaningfully in their learning from a universal design for learning approach
Learn about additional resources and support available from Ophea and the ‘Disability-Centred Movement: Supporting Inclusive Physical Education’ resource.