Years 1-3
ANZH in action: Years 9–10 examples
Teaching Guidance
These videos show teachers actively trialling elements of the new Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories curriculum content in their classrooms. Watch them demonstrate a range of teaching strategies and learning activities to bring the new histories curriculum content to life.
PART 1
(Waiata begins)
Decision making and planning
Bryony, Teacher, St. Catherine’s College speaking to class
And you're going to research your chosen wahine and you're going to answer the following patai. So in what ways have they made a difference or tried to make a difference in their community? How did others, such as the government or people in their own community, respond to that?
Bryony, Teacher, St. Catherine’s College speaking to camera
I think that the way that the draft curriculum is laid out makes it pretty straightforward. And one of the key things that I've found useful from the curriculum has been around the language and the questions. So what I've done this year is I've actually, although I have created a couple of new sort of units over the two year nine and tens, I've been able to sort of just alter some of what I've got using the language of the ‘understand, know and do’ to make sure that my questions are drawing out those explicit aspects of understand, know and do.
Jenny, Teacher, Aorere College speaking to camera
So, I suppose we started with the progress outcomes, with the ‘Understand’, ‘Know’ and ‘Do’ and as a department, we sort of sat down and looked at, sort of, what context and things we could teach based off of that and what skills the students would need to develop. So we ended up deciding on international conflicts, focusing around perspectives on Aotearoa’s participation in World War One.
(World map, student work displayed on classroom wall)
Cherie, Teacher, Aorere College speaking to camera
One of the big ideas around colonisation and impacts of colonisation; we felt that the World War One context applied to that in terms of empire, empire building and the consequences of empire, but also around expressions of mana motuhake, in terms of resistance to going to war. Power relates to the context, in terms of, you know, power, and the decision to go to war. Power in terms of who we were supporting in the war, then power in terms of being overridden, individual power, or mana, being overridden by government decisions, that sort of thing. So those big ideas, we felt that they related to that context.
Bryony, Teacher, St. Catherine’s College speaking to camera
I mean, I planned in a number of ways. So firstly, starting with almost like those basics that I had through consultation with mana whenua as well, but then that one of the things about the draft curriculum that I found really exciting was that through reading it, I was able to see like, "Oh, that's a really cool aspect of science that we could bring in or there are English texts that we can bring in." So I've actually done quite a bit of planning with other departments and getting their involvement, which has been really fantastic.
A cool example has been a plant unit looking at Rongo Māori that the science department is doing with their year tens and then we are planning to...I'm going to jump on board with that and look at- we're going to go for a little journey up to little Hikoi, up to Motu Kairangi and look at the settlement and look at current issues around land-back and look at the occupation there and look at some of the plants up on the hill and the ancient pā. And so that's been one of the cool things is being able to see where the cross curricular opportunities are.
(Brony speaking to students during class)
And then the other way I plan is actually just by talking to the kids. And so one of my examples of that is I had a sort of offhand conversation with some students around the draft curriculum and the concept of identity and the creation of all the different migrations and the different identities of Aotearoa and I told them about the podcast that I really love, ‘Conversations with my immigrant parents'. So I created a unit around immigration where they were able to choose a group to research, then we listen to the podcast, and then they were able to go and interview someone from their whānau or their neighbours who was a migrant or child of migrants to Aotearoa sort of based on the way the podcast was done. So, yeah, so a little bit cross curricular, a little bit student voice.
Chris, Teacher, Hāwera High School speaking to camera
I've got to say that I'm not a trained history teacher. My my background is actually digital tech. So coming from that perspective, I really didn't know where to begin. One concept that stuck out to me was the idea of mana motuhake, and how could I embody that for my students? I really zeroed in on the fact that we are inherently a bicultural society, but in fact, there was a real focus on, I guess, Western ideals or Western views of history. But also, I just wanted to try and really in my teaching to try and bring some balance because there's an inherent imbalance in the in the conversation. The conversation, I believe, is lacking the Māori perspective. So when I decided on what was the most important thing to include, it was the Māori story, the Māori narratives, because they're not often told.
Cherie, Teacher, Aorere College speaking to camera
One of the things we noticed with these, the Year 10 ‘Do’s” or the ‘Do’s’ and one of the differences was that students were going to have to be able to construct or present a view of these perspectives that gave a full range of the diversity of perspectives. And that sort of was different from the Year 7 and 8, where they find different perspectives but, where the learning is, the progress outcomes around them understanding that the story is not complete. Whereas Year 10 is, they're expected to sort of be able to find sources and present more of a diverse range of perspectives and a more sort of complete picture.
And one of the things that related to our own teaching and learning currently in the school was that we had been doing perspectives but we hadn't, at Year 9 and 10, really had students critiquing sources in terms of reliability and whose voice is missing, that sort of thing. And we hadn't, very much of it was teacher given, where students weren't expected to go and find sources for themselves. So we obviously had to put that into our programme, our teaching and learning programme.
Connections with whānau and iwi
(Waiata audio with titles)
Bryony, Teacher, St. Catherine’s College speaking to camera
When you're looking at the essentials for our rohe, for our region, that's really come up with in consultation with mana whenua. So because we are on Te Āti Awa whenua, you know learning about Taranaki has been really significant as well and learning about the heke down to Kāpiti and involvement with Ngåti Toa has also been really essential.
(Wide shots of Mt. Taranaki, Kapiti Island, Ngati Toa Domain)
But then I think to decide what is actually most important, it needs to be through consultation with mana whenua, but also with whānau and with our aiga. Because it is about learning about the history of Aotearoa but, it's also about learning about the history of our students and their families and their whakapapa and helping to create their identity.
And so, you know, having the school holding Talanoa with our Pacific families and being able to have consultation and conversations with whānau about what they want their kids to know. With hui with our Māori whānau, how can we do that kind of stuff? So that's kind of what we've been doing.
Chris, Teacher, Hāwera High School speaking to camera
If you were to, if you were to look at that word 'consultation' with iwi, hapu; that in itself means you need a relationship. And if there is no relationship or it's early stages within the relationship, then I guess that really will determine what, when, how it's going to turn out.
What I really had to understand and really get comfortable with was the idea of having a central theme to the to the teaching and that being Parihaka. Some may say that that's an easy thing to teach but it's not. And fear being, I'm telling a story that's not mine. So I really had to. I really had to think really clearly about what was I trying to achieve first. Did I have a connection to Parihaka which gave me an ability to connect through whakapapa?
But through that journey, I found that my Koro Ngātau Omahuru was actually there. So not only was it a powerful journey in itself, but it actually gave me, I felt like I had a connection there. But when you unpack our local, our local connection because Parihaka is around the coast, Taranaki Tūturu iwi. But, when I unpack that, I also found that my people, Kanihi-Umutahi hapū of Ngā Ruahine, actually journeyed out there in mass numbers. Mass numbers to connect in to that that that kaupapa. And so even more so, a second connection was made, and I thought, well, maybe I do have, maybe I can tell that story.
And then thirdly, what I found is that my Nana is from Puniho and whakapapa(s) out to to Parihaka. So I thought, well, if if I'm not, if I'm not getting a message, then...obviously, I'm blind. I really wanted to teach Parihaka, but did I have a right to tell the story? And I'm not saying I have a right. I'm saying, I'm saying that the whakapapa allows me to, to tell a particular narrative.
I guess for my colleagues, what is the what is the key message? If you're going to journey it down that path, the relationship with your local iwi and not just iwi, but the individual hapū is, is, is key. How to do that? How long is a piece of string? Every hapū is different. Some hapū might want to tell their story, others may not. But the people must decide if the story's to be told.
Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories
Special thanks to Aorere College
PART 2
(Waiata begins)
Understand, know, do
Bryony, Teacher, St. Catherine’s College speaking to class
Right, we're using multiple sources together, like when we talk – what we talked about in our current events unit, we're always using multiple sources to verify the information.
Bryony, Teacher, St. Catherine’s College speaking to camera
I think it's really essential to start creating those critical skills, particularly in this age of like mass, easy accessible media. Critiquing historical sources is helpful for critiquing all, all new sources, really. So, you know, asking questions about whose voice are we hearing? Whose voice are we not hearing? 'How does it make you feel?' is a really big one. You know, is an emotive piece, is it, you know, what is the purpose? So, looking at the author; unpacking who the author is or the news agency. What, what other things have they written about, you know, and what does that mean? What kind of background? So a real look at unpacking perspectives is the biggest thing really is like, what angle is this coming from? It's not just to inform. Nothing is ever just to inform.
(Student searching Google on laptop)
The actions that we do in the classroom, like the source analysis is, you know, they're able to do the source analysis while bringing out the understanding of the bigger topics within that. So I think that's kind of the way that we do it is that we use the 'Do' part, to bring out the other parts.
(Mark, Teacher, Aorere College teaching class)
Mark, Teacher, Aorere College speaking to camera
In terms of the ‘Do’ part of the curriculum at Year 10, we focused on the idea of students accessing and critiquing sources. So, we sort of had to scaffold them a lot into this, because for the first, for almost all of the students, they wouldn't know what a source was, or know what a primary source was, wouldn't know what a secondary source was. A lot of them would struggle with the idea that history is contested. So we did a lot of, sort of, work around that; identifying different types of sources, identifying bias within sources, looking at missing perspectives.
(Students at tables working in classroom)
In regards to rich learning activities, bringing the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum to life, we used a lot of digital tools, things like ed puzzles and online quizzes, spent time exploring primary sources. Use it- using reciprocal teaching practises, collaborative group work, those sorts of things.
Bryony, Teacher, St. Catherine’s College speaking to camera
As a history teacher, I tend to sort of fall back on a lot of source analysis. But this year, again, with the encouragement of the students, they really wanted to do more sort of role play acting kind of stuff.
(Students working in groups)
So we did some really fun sort of debate role play things with that which they really loved. And so that came to life, um, really well around- and that's really great because it draws out perspectives. So rather than making them argue something they agree with, I get them to pretend to be someone else and argue those points, which was really fantastic and again, getting those ideas of different histories across. So that came through with that.
Fia, Teacher, Aorere College speaking to camera
Yes, so another teacher did a lesson based on trying to make kids understand, kind of, the context of the soldiers at the time. So she brought cabin bread and pisupo, corned beef, and she got the kids to make cabin bread and corned beef together and, you know, eat it. The majority of our school are Pacific Islanders, and it just creates those rich discussions with kids and you know, starts off with “this is what I eat at home”, and then it turns into a cultural discussion where this is what pisupo is normally used in ceremonial traditions, practices sorry, such as weddings, funerals, and then you can just always link it back to empathise or sympathising with the soldiers at the time. You know, do you want this to be your diet for like, seven days straight or for months on end? With some kids actually, this is actually a diet – breakfast, lunch and dinner sometimes.
(Hāwera High School painted signage)
Chris, Teacher, Hāwera High School speaking to camera
Parihaka was the beginning. Parihaka the local context allowed us to move to a point where we are now with civil rights or human rights, the fight for freedom, the fight for civil rights in the United States, to unpack a- the origins of their struggle there, to unpack the origins of the apartheid struggle, to understand what BLM actually stands for now.
(NZ BLM protest stills)
And I guess the local context in a really simplified way, being Parihaka allowed me to not only connect in to the wider ideas of passive resistance and to the freedom struggle, the origins of that around slavery.
So, from that I guess you could say a small beginning, locally, it not only allowed me to connect in with these other bigger ideas and concepts, but importantly, the biggest part of that was that it allowed the kids to see that what is currently may be unknown, even amongst our kids, this this, this this idea of mana motuhake, this idea of Te Whiti and Tohu, Tohu Kākahi , this idea actually grew and inspired others that from a small place had a big effect.
Progress outcomes
(Waiata audio with titles)
(Student reading, text books)
Students, Years 9-10, Aorere College speaking to camera
I was curious about how, you know, the perspectives about soldiers if they wanted to attend war or not and I found the information given through an article. So, I read through and I got my information from there. I kind of kept reading it, doing activities, answering questions, giving information to others too and it just passed down and I think I just processed the information. And from there, I kind of cramped it in.
(Students at tables working in classroom)
We read some information and we were asked questions about what we read. We, the questions were, “was the source a primary or secondary source? How do we know it was resourceful and true?” and stuff like, “when was it written? Who wrote it? And what was their perspective on World War One?” We looked at perspectives from people like the New Zealand government…
…conscientious objectors…
…people who were, what's the word, prosecuted for not going to war, and why they didn't want to go into war. And Māoris who thought that it was unfair that they had to go into war.
(Slide: “Student learning is shown when they look for diverse perspectives that show a fuller picture of an historical event”.)
Students, Years 9–10, Aorere College speaking to camera
So we learned about the participation of New Zealand in the World War one and we kind of looked into every perspective. We tried not to miss a perspective and if our source missed it, we looked back and tried to find it.
We also looked at how it started and how it ended and all the instruments that was used.
We did quite a bit of research activities, where we get our task and we researched a person or thing or event online, and write some paragraphs about it. It helped us understand the situation better.
(Students working at laptops in classroom)
We read the events, and we figured out which voices are missing. And we searched like he said on Google and tried to find the voices or perspectives. We kind of looked at the situation and like inferred that their voice wasn't included into what the article was saying. Like, if it said a battle happened, and this general did something, it doesn't talk about what the soldiers – what happened to the soldiers, so that will be a missing voice.
Pasifika and Māori voices were often missing from the sources we researched and we had to figure out ourselves.
(Slide: “Students show a deeper understanding of historic events when they are able to identify and find the voices that are missing”.)
Cherie, Teacher, Aorere College speaking to camera
Some of the differences we noticed were around the ‘Know’, where at Year 7 and 8, it seemed to be more narrative driven. Whereas at Year 9 and 10, we're getting to look at perspectives and sort of change in perspectives or change in terms of commemoration, how we commemorate and what we remember, particularly in terms of international conflicts.
Miriam, Teacher, Aorere College speaking to camera
So we're asking the kids to look at local history, for example, local monuments or local memorials such as street names and the names of schools. Anything that basically they can find in their local communities that represent a historical event or place or person of significance. And then we want them to be able to explain whether or not the memorial is, in their view, appropriate and whether or not maybe the memorial could be modified, even removed if it's very controversial or added to. And we hope that that will be a social action that they can complete.
Bryony, Teacher, St. Catherine’s College speaking to camera
I've just got really excited about reading through the draft curriculum - "Oh, that's a really cool idea! I'm going to make that into a unit". Or, it's given me lots of ideas and again, the language to draw out the learning that I want because obviously sometimes the way I word things isn't going to pull out what I want from my kids.
So with that, that's, we do a lot of self evaluation in the classroom around the 'Do' aspects. So for them, I think that's really- a really important thing for them to be able to evaluate their own progress. So I bring that in right at the beginning of year nine and it's all, and again, using language of the draft curriculum, being able to sort of map their own progress on a sort of rubric around the different aspects of 'Do'.
(Bryony and students during class)
One of the ways that I've been able to use the progression outcomes is I've gone back to the early progression outcomes. I'm not just looking at the years 9 and 10 because of those gaps and the progression outcomes for the earlier years from, probably 6 to 8, as well as the 9 and 10, have been able to sort of direct our learning objectives. And I've just been really, I'm actually really just transparent with the kids and I tell them "this is in the new draft curriculum", "this is what we're going to learn", "this is...", you know, so they're all really aware of what's going on and what we're trying to learn. So, and again talking about the rubric of self evaluation, it's the language that I use in those rubrics so, they know exactly what we're trying to do, what the sort of end goal is.
Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories
Special thanks to Aorere College
There are two videos per year grouping. The first covers: decision making and planning, and connections with whānau and iwi. The second covers: Understand, Know, Do elements and progress outcomes.
Tip: Regardless of which year grouping you’re interested in, you may wish to watch the videos as a series – a number of themes repeat across them.
You can use these examples in multiple ways:
- Watch the full video series for loads of great ideas on including the content in your planning and teaching.
- Focus on the two videos for your year grouping to get in-depth suggestions and see learners in action.
- Review the examples template for your year grouping for tips on how to build on your planning and include the new content using the examples in the videos.
As part of this pack, you will also find a handy planning guide and planning log template for your classroom level, including a blank editable version for use. These are designed to help you get started in your thinking.
Planning log example Year 9–10
Get started with Aotearoa NZ histories curriculum planning.
Get started with Aotearoa NZ histories curriculum planning.
Planning guide
Prompts for planning your Aotearoa NZ histories programme.
Prompts for planning your Aotearoa NZ histories programme.
Planning log blank template
