• What each of the key changes will mean for you
• Support for schools and kura now and in the future
• How you can be involved

What each of the key changes will mean for you

Developing a process for routinely updating our national curriculum will help us to keep the curriculum up to date, equitable and fit for purpose now and in the future – and make sure it reflects our aspirations for all children and young people.

Our intent is to be able to strengthen the curriculum – to make it easier for you to use and provide more clarity on the learning every student needs.  

With a process for routinely updating our national curriculum, we would be able to make the most significant learning steps clearer. This would help you to design and deliver a local curriculum or marau ā-kura that includes learning from the national curriculum, along with learning that’s important at the local level, affirms each student’s identity, language and culture, and reflects their aspirations and those of their whānau.

We want to make sure that the national curriculum is more responsive to the future of learning and work. It’s also time for Te Marautanga o Aotearoa – which guides learning through te reo Māori – to be reviewed to more strongly reflect te ao Māori approaches to education, while continuing to reflect what whānau, hapū and iwi deem to be important for their children and young people.

Resources to map and respond to progress across a broader range of holistic learning will help you to identify and respond to progress in cultural, social and emotional learning, as well as literacy and numeracy.

They’ll give you a holistic view of each student’s progress, including those who are working long term within level one of the curriculum, and will include examples and links to other resources you can use to help your students’ progress. The resources will also help you to identify which practices and approaches are having the most impact on student progress, and inform your reporting to parents and whānau.

Records of learning that travel with students will ensure you have immediate access to information about new students coming into your classrooms – including their learning progress, strengths and any learning support needs. This will reduce the need for reassessment and make it easier for you to respond to the learning needs of new students.

A common approach to records of learning will support you to have strong relationships with parents and whānau, by providing a way of sharing information about students’ learning, progress and wellbeing that brings everyone onto the same page.

A trusted environment for using information about student progress from records of learning will help to give whānau, schools and kura the confidence to share holistic, strengths-based information about progress in learning, knowing that it will be kept safe.

We’ll work together towards making sure that we collect, use and share progress information safely, legally, ethically, within privacy requirements, and in ways that respect cultural differences and benefit learners. And we’ll take specific steps to make sure information about student progress isn’t used in ways that cause harm or stigmatise schools, kura or learners and their whānau.

These changes will not be rushed, so there’ll be time for you to engage with them and work out how best to integrate them into your practice at your place. In the meantime, you could be thinking about how to reflect the direction of the Advisory Group’s recommendations within your own school or kura.

You can also continue to develop your local curriculum or marau ā-kura using existing resources such as the Local Curriculum Design Tool/Rapua Te Ara Tika and the Leading Local Curriculum Guide series resources. Further resources are being developed and will be available through TKI.

Support for schools and kura – now and in the future

We’ll make sure schools and kura are well supported with better access to resources and guidance, development opportunities to strengthen curriculum capability and stronger professional networks that reflect the diverse contexts, needs and experiences of our education workforce.

We will look at how we can support teachers and leaders to harness the power of networks to share information and insights, so that every learner benefits from our collective knowledges and diverse strengths. 

With teachers, we will develop new curriculum resources that reflect the diverse contexts, needs and experiences of our education workforce. And we’ll work with teachers and leaders to review and improve existing resources and supports.

We have recently launched Kauwhata Reo, a new online platform providing easy access to resources to support those teaching in and through te reo Māori, and work is underway to replace Te Kete Ipurangi to make it easier for teachers to access resources and tools.

New resources, guidance and supports available to schools and kura include:

• a new curriculum resource on challenging racism, and Pūtatara – on sustainability and global citizenship – were launched during term 3. More are in development
• guidance on how to integrate the national curriculum into your local curriculum and marau ā-kura in ways that reflect the needs and aspirations of your students, their whānau, hapū, Iwi and communities
• the Pacific Early Literacy Project in Auckland that supports new entrant students, and developing further supports for revitalisation of Realm country languages
• Kauwhata Reo, a new online platform for those teaching in and through te reo Māori
• the Creatives in Schools projects, the first of which will be happening in New Zealand schools and kura in terms 1 and 2 next year
• guidance on reporting to parents and whānau, including how you can use online communications tools to meet the National Administration Guidelines requirement for twice yearly reporting in writing – you’ll get this guidance early in term 4 so you can prepare for 2020
• online showcases to share effective practices within schools and kura – the first of these will be launched in term 4
• enhancements to the Progress and Consistency Tool[ND3]  to make it more flexible, and enable schools to produce reports on progress for cohorts of students over time
• the Local Curriculum Design Tool | Rapua Te Ara Tika | Rapua Te Ara Tika
• Te Hurihanganui (a Wellbeing Budget 2019 initiative) will support educational achievement for ākonga Māori by testing out what works to address inequity and racism in our education system.

Resources, guidance and supports under development for 2020:

• updates to existing curriculum resources, including sexuality education guidelines, an ‘About Dyslexia’ teacher resource, and New Zealand history resources
• more professional development and supports on local curriculum design
• Tokelau language resources, to support learning the language through the curriculum
• supporting use of the Environmental Education for Sustainability strategy in schools and kura
• providing additional teacher only days as part of the Accord with NZEI and PPTA
• more curriculum resources for the Hauora, Health and PE learning areas
• looking into other ways we can support teachers and kaiako to strengthen learning partnerships with parents and whānau, as part of the Workforce Strategy.

How you can be involved

The Ministry will work in collaboration with schools and kura, Boards, education sector groups, students, their whānau, hapū, iwi and communities to co-construct and implement these changes.

Your involvement is crucial and there are a range of ways you can be involved, including:

• being part of collaborative design processes, trials or pilots
• sharing examples of effective teaching or curriculum design practices
• providing exemplars of progress at different stages
• responding to requests for feedback as part of evaluations on specific resources and supports, consultations or engagements
• taking part in fono, hui or wānanga on Education Work Programme activities.

You can also email progress.achievement@education.govt.nz to let us know you want to be involved.