The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) sets the direction for student learning in English medium New Zealand schools and provides guidance for schools as they design and review their curriculum.

The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) has as a starting point “a vision for young people… who will be confident, connected, actively involved and lifelong learners.” NZC, p.8

The NZC contains:

• Principles on which to base curriculum decision making
• Values to be encouraged, modelled and explored
• Key competencies that are critical to sustained learning and participation in society and that underline the emphasis on lifelong learning.
• Learning areas statements and achievement objectives

Many New Zealand schools have chosen to implement the curriculum using an inquiry approach to learning concepts.

See also the section on the New Zealand Curriculum in Developing your school library - School Library Purpose.

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Te Marautanga o Aotearoa New Zealand Curriculum (Māori medium) 2007

Te Marautanga o Aotearoa is the partner document of The New Zealand Curriculum and was distributed to schools in 2008. It is not a translation of The New Zealand Curriculum and was developed based on Maori philosophies and principles.

Recognition of difference underpins Te Marautanga o Aotearoa. Learners “will have the skills and knowledge to participate and contribute to Maori society and the wider world”: p3, Te Marautanga o Aotearoa.

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The New Zealand Curriculum – English and Maori medium - fit into the wider international review of educational thinking developed as a response to 21st century global directions. The need to update the 1992 curriculum was based on the recognition of

• The speed of social change in New Zealand
• New Zealand’s increasingly diverse population
• Increasingly diverse and sophisticated technologies
• More complex demands of the workplace

Further reading

• Te Marautanga o Aotearoa (English translation)
• Te Kotahitanga

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