Setting the direction provides guidance on what should be driving curriculum change at your school. It is a useful section for schools wanting to establish needs and priorities for the curriculum design and review process.
Curriculum design and review requires a clear understanding of the intentions of The New Zealand Curriculum.
The New Zealand Curriculum is a framework within which schools develop the detail for programmes and approaches to learning to address the particular needs, interests, and circumstances of the school’s students and community. Individual schools will shape and present their curriculum in ways that reflect their priorities, intentions, preferences, ideas, and understandings.
Some schools will emphasise integrated or inquiry approaches to teaching and learning, whereas others might choose to give individual areas their own distinct place and focus. Some will fuse values, key competencies, and learning areas together at every point, while others might give separate treatment to particular aspects.
What is important is that all elements of The New Zealand Curriculum are woven together to create a coherent whole to ensure the needs of all learners are met.
"I see the curriculum as really just the bones and what schools have to do is put the meat around them, the muscles, and then get the heart pumping."
Principal, primary
"The beauty of it is you can’t pinpoint an exact look in the classroom because it allows schools to have a lot more autonomy in how they put their curriculum together and a lot more freedom – inserting the needs of the individual students ... if you went into a classroom what you should see is a curriculum that is suited to the actual students in that class."
Assistant principal, secondary
Components of a school curriculum
Some schools have found this chart helpful when they are thinking about what makes up a school curriculum.
Components of a school curriculum (Word 2007, 762 KB)
Implications for practice
This tool can be used to guide the process of aligning school curriculum with The New Zealand Curriculum. Schools that are well along the path to understanding the NZC may find this resource useful for a pause-and-reflect staff meeting.
Implications for practice (PDF, 1 MB)
NZC as a driver for curriculum change at St Hilda's Collegiate
Judy Maw, assistant principal and network learning facilitator, discusses the importance of looking at the curriculum as a holistic document. In this video, she explores The New Zealand Curriculum as a driver for curriculum change.
Willowbank curriculum map
Jane Danielson and Julie Cowan explain how exploring the curriculum was a mapping exercise at Willowbank School. The map analogy worked for them, because on a map you can go to different places, get to different points, take detours, and take different ways of travelling.
Reviewing your curriculum – Possible pathways
This section provides research, tools, resources, and stories to support exploration of the following elements of The New Zealand Curriculum:
Next – Know your community
Published on: 18 Apr 2014
