One of the main objectives in health education in the New Zealand national curriculum is that students should be helped to take responsibility for their own health. However, most decisions about health programmes in primary schools are made by adults. This paper reports findings from a study which sought the views of primary children about their knowledge of health and their preferences for health education content. Children knew more that adults probably realised, but had little say in what they studied. Older primary children knew about controversial topics like drugs and sexuality. However, there were many gaps in their knowledge and they wanted to cover these in health lessons. There are, therefore, implications for school health programmes.