Year 4 HPE Unit of Work

Beyond the Feed: A Year 4 Digital Wellbeing Unit

Help your Year 4 students navigate greater independence online with confidence, critical thinking and safety skills that build on the foundations laid in Year 3.

Beyond the Feed is an 8 week, ready to teach unit that meets students where they are: spending more time in games, apps and group chats with less adult supervision, and facing more complex situations than in Year 3, from influencer content to group conflict to interactions with people they’ve only met online. It builds directly on the Year 3 My Digital Compass unit, revisiting the same big ideas through genuinely new activities, vocabulary and scenarios rather than repeating them. Every lesson follows the same clear sequence, so any classroom teacher can deliver it with confidence.

The learning sequence:

Part 1: Understanding myself online
1. Identity in a Digital World (online persona vs whole identity)
2. Taking Charge of My Time (self monitoring and technology habits)

Part 2: Understanding others online
3. Group Chats and Grey Areas (conflict vs bullying, up stander behaviour)
4. Influencers and “Free” Stuff (influencer marketing and sponsored content)

Part 3: Understanding the online environment
5. Comparison Culture (algorithms, feeds and protecting confidence)
6. My Digital Footprint and Consent (permanence and broader consent)
7. Staying Safe with People I “Meet” Online (red flags, green flags, online strangers)

Part 4: Putting it into action
8. The Digital Wellbeing Campaign (a real campaign, pitched to a genuine audience)

What’s included:

• Full teacher lesson plans with learning intentions, success criteria, explicit teaching notes, common misconceptions and formative assessment guidance for every lesson
• A complete set of printable resources: Two Selves T chart, Strategy Station signs, My Tech Tracker, group chat scenario transcripts, Spot the Sponsor cards, My Feed simulation worksheet, Digital Footprint Detective case files, Red Flag/Green Flag sorting cards, Year 4 Safety Web hand template, Campaign Planner and Topic cards, and a Final Self Assessment slip
• A unit assessment rubric (Emerging, Achieving, Going Beyond) mapped to every outcome and curriculum code
• A teacher appendix with an outcomes at a glance table, additional teaching notes and extension ideas
• A parent/carer communication template and week by week family discussion prompts
• Curated links to Australian, evidence based further support (eSafety Commissioner, Kids Helpline, Bullying. No Way!)

Why teachers choose it:
No prep, no guesswork, and no fear based messaging; just a warm, trauma informed, strengths focused program that deepens naturally from Year 3 rather than covering the same ground twice. Every activity builds toward students genuinely understanding that their online self is only a small window into who they are, so they can move through group chats, sponsored content, algorithms and online relationships with real confidence and judgement.