Years 1-3
ANZH in action: Years 7–8 examples
Teaching Guidance
These videos show teachers actively trialling elements of the new Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories curriculum content in their classroom. 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
(Students and examples of work in classroom)
Voice of Atama, Teacher, Ferguson Intermediate
My syndicate, my village that I'm working with, we made a really conscious effort to not teach these enquiry units in isolation – meaning Term 1 is this unit of inquiry.
Atama, Teacher, Ferguson Intermediate, speaking to camera
Term 2 is a new unit of inquiry. I really believe in weaving those units together.
(Teachers around table planning)
Voice of Atama, Teacher, Ferguson Intermediate
There's something in the New Zealand Histories curriculum, which talks about tūrangawaewae mō kaitiakitanga.
Atama, Teacher, Ferguson Intermediate, speaking to camera
So to “understand” – that was our first topic, was tūrangawaewae, understanding who we are. And our next unit was Kaitiakitanga. But I wanted the tamariki to weave that learning together. So we never actually ended that unit, so to speak, we just embedded it into this new unit. And so we've made references to the big ideas, we made references, and we made it very explicit to the tamariki, that what we're doing at the front of this unit, harkens back to what we did in the beginning of the year.
It actually made some of our students who do feel learning is a bit of a challenge, more confident. You could see that mana potential increase, because they felt like they could bring more of what they discovered in the beginning of the year into their kete.
Kelly, Teacher, Pukekohe Intermediate, speaking to camera
With planning Aotearoa New Zealand Histories, we basically started just looking at the subject areas that were covered, probably in the initial cabinet papers. And to get some ideas from there. We put it out to our staff to see what they thought, under those different headings, could possibly be taught. And we were looking for a local context. We quickly identified that we had some interesting stories in our area. One of them was our local Pukekohe East Church. And there was conflict there, and that was at the beginning of the Waikato Wars. So we identified that might be a good place to start for a lesson. But then quickly realised that in order to teach that we then had to go back and explain how the Waikato Wars came about. And that’s actually led from probably one or two lessons, to a whole unit.
Lance, Teacher, Te Papapa School, speaking to camera
So there was a teacher-only day that quite a few... so within the kāhui ako, teachers were able to go to different maunga within Auckland.
(Images of maunga)
And there were speakers there, and from different iwi, that did talk to us about the importance and from a historical… from information about, you know, the past and the importance of things that front-loaded us with information for us to then hold on to that and then be able to impart that to our tamariki.
Connections with whānau and iwi
(Waiata audio with titles)
Kelly, Teacher, Pukekohe Intermediate, speaking to camera
We've connected with whānau and iwi, initially by inviting parents to a whānau hui, and talking with them about the changes and what was coming up with Aotearoa New Zealand Histories. And just getting some feedback on what they think should be included and what the process was.
(Examples of student work)
Voice of Kelly, Teacher, Pukekohe Intermediate
With our kāhui ako, we have a histories team working together now, and we also have our local curriculum person working with us.
Kelly, Teacher, Pukekohe Intermediate, speaking to camera
We believe that it's important to get mana whenua’s input on what we're teaching. They’re their stories to tell, so it's important that we take direction from them. One of the things that we have done is we have a group working together around Aotearoa New Zealand Histories. And we're working to put together an education plan on what we feel should be possibly taught from Years 1 through to 10. We plan to gift that to our local iwi and they could use that as a basis to feedback to us on what they feel should be taught.
Atama, Teacher, Ferguson Intermediate, speaking to camera
So in our syndicate, they've never had this before, where we welcome the whānau in to help plan our unit of inquiry, which was tūrangawaewae mō kaitiakitanga. We actually had some programmes set up on the Chromebooks. The tamariki were the tuakana, so they helped their parents log in, and they helped their parents navigate their learning journey digitally.
Whānau could put post-it notes virtually about what's on top for them – in terms of what's on top for them as a guardian, as a kaitiaki of their land. What do they do? Do they nurture the taro on Sunday with their family? Are there special rituals that they do at home? So it's really important that we bring that into the classroom. What does it look like to be a kaitiaki of our land in your culture? What does that look like for you? And it was really important to understand that, okay, so this is where our tamariki are coming from. This is their world. Right, now how can we embed that and help strengthen what we're doing? Not the other way around. Not strengthening that. What can we do to strengthen the tamariki in their worlds?
Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories
Special thanks to Ferguson Intermediate, Pukekohe Intermediate, Te Papapa School
PART 2
(Waiata begins)
Understand, Know, Do
Lance, Teacher, Te Papapa School, speaking to camera
The big ideas, I think, that has been brought into the tamariki’s learning as we have been looking at maunga, have been looking at the different wars that have been in the past. And looking at... if it’s defence – structures like the pā; the way that they'd grow their kai, their food; the ways that they actually lived, and the importance around that. So children understand how their ancestors... and how things were for them back in the day. So a lot of focus has been on the raids, between iwi. Who's got the power? Comparing and contrasting between Maungakiekie, Maungawhau, Te Pane o Mataoho. And that’s been a real driver for them. And it's really got them to be quite excited about that focus.
Atama, Teacher, Ferguson Intermediate, speaking to camera
So we've had a huge emphasis on caring for our whenua – our ngahere, our bush; our awa and rivers. Looking at how Māori transformed the land, through collaboration, through whānau, through te atua. And so what the tamariki had to understand was – What did that look like? How did they record that evidence? And it was through legends, it was through storying. And so, we read legends as a class. The tamariki had to understand the Māori relationship with the land through those legends. We explored Kupe and his journey to Aotearoa. We explored the legend of Maui.
(Images of student artwork)
Maddox, Student, Te Papapa School, reading
I was sailing at full speed in my waka and I was chasing a fierce ultimate wheke. My whānau were dangling from one side of the waka to the other. I had taken my wife and my six children. I was against the ultimate strong waves of the moana; ocean. The wheke was thrashing his strong tentacles at us at speed. One of the wheke’s tentacles nearly took damage of our waka. So I swiped my machete at the tentacle and it had cut it off. Then he started running. Now we're on the move.
Atama, Teacher, Ferguson Intermediate, speaking to camera
And so we go back to actually that second part of the progress outcomes – the mana; mana motuhake – where they had to understand the way that the Māori governed that land and their taking action. And that looked like, through a sequencing of events, we had pictures. The kids... oral language is key. So the tamariki had pictures, and they talked about comparing the differences, what was similar. They felt quite a lot of similarities, still, to the 1800s and now. But, lots of differences. And so it was understanding the way the Māori took ownership of their land, the roles within that, that local governance of the land, and applying that too today.
Voices of Ariana and Brianna, Students, Te Papapa School
(Ariana and Brianna sharing their work)
Well, we started on the Moriori people. And we chose to do those, that, because we don't hear about them often.
We didn't learn much of them, because there was very little history of them because of what happened back in the day, when they used to get slaughtered to death or enslaved.
Ariana and Brianna, Students, Te Papapa School, speaking to camera
We chose to try and put them in order with some information we got from the School Journal. They had a timeline, and we tried to put it in our own words. We tried to just put it on the top so that you could flip it over or, like this, yeah.
(Slide: ‘Developing a timeline is a way to show understanding of the connections between events over time”.)
Atama, Teacher, Ferguson Intermediate, speaking to camera
A huge part of this was actually getting those students to develop those critical thinking skills. And that took a lot of talanoa, a lot of kōrero. And I normally have a picture prompt, or I'll have a clip playing. Something that was relevant to today, but also something that they've never seen before. And the kids were like, "What is that?!", you know, and so they have to question and talk to each other, listen to different viewpoints. So some of the tamariki brought in whānau, who grew up in the Upper Hutt Valley. What was life like there? What was school like then? So it was all of this. You start with one thing and you watch that seed grow. We also took the students on education outside the classroom. So they went on bushwalks. We walked along the Upper Hutt River. We took the kids to our local museum – the Expressions; Whirinaki Taonga Expressions – because we found it's important that they actually understand, there’s experts in their community. They have to be active participants to be able to be critical. They have to go out and seek that information.
Voice of Kelly, Teacher, Pukekohe Intermediate
(Images of Pukekohe East Church)
So when we did the lesson on... looked at doing a lesson on the Pukekohe East Church, we realised that we had to go back a little bit further. And that created an even bigger picture for us.
Kelly, Teacher, Pukekohe Intermediate, speaking to camera
And when we look back at the curriculum, it really covered the three big ideas. You know, we're looking at Māori history being our first history. We were looking at colonisation, and you know, power struggles.
(Images of Pukekohe East Church)
Voice of Kelly, Teacher, Pukekohe Intermediate
So what we thought was actually something quite small, actually, became something that was quite a powerful lesson. And, quite thought provoking for our students, particularly when we looked at perspectives. And we had three solid perspectives in that lesson.
Kelly, Teacher, Pukekohe Intermediate, speaking to camera
We had the perspective of local iwi, and what was happening in their area around land. We had the perspective of the Crown and Governor Grey, and the pressure that he was under and what he was trying to achieve. And then also we looked at settlers, and that they had come here, they'd come on big promises, they were expecting land. And they wanted the land.
We tried to use a range of resources. So we picked, like, key pieces in there for them to understand about how the Waikato Wars started. So that was sort of setting the scene for them. From there, we moved on to looking at what happened, once sort of the supply line had happened down Great South Road and that the soldiers were standing at Mangatāwhiri, ready to cross the river. And local iwi were on the other side, confused, frightened and not knowing what was happening, and war was beginning. And then from there, we then moved on to what happened at Pukekohe East Church. So one of the activities that we did for that was actually a sequencing activity. So the story was there, but it was all jumbled up. And they kind of had to take the knowledge that they knew of what had happened so far, and then try to work out what happened. And then piece that story together, and how they thought that would have played out.
Stephanie, Teacher, Pukekohe Intermediate, speaking to camera
Finding sources for students is a bit tricky, because they still have to learn about what's real and what's fake on the internet. So, that's across the curriculum, regarding, just let's look at the validity of the resource.
(Stephanie working with students in the classroom)
Let's not all jump onto Wikipedia. And teaching them where to find journal articles, where to find... go to university resources, even, to find what information they need to be in to make sure that they go to more than just one website. Frameworks and ideas to critique resources is just to make sure that once they've gone to more than two or three sources, they should be able to synthesise and go, “OK, well this fact was stated on one, two, three websites, therefore there has to be some sort of validity”.
Atama, Teacher, Ferguson Intermediate, speaking to camera
You know, the internet's great. There's a wide wealth of information on there. But also, there's something quite special about actually opening up a book, reading a source of information, turning the page and actually going back. Flipping that page back to think, “Hang on, were my assumptions addressed in this piece of information? How does this connect to this information that I found in this book?” And actually the active act of getting the kids to look through books, make connections, "Hang on, there was another book that I found!" That has been awesome to witness in the classroom. And I think we need to do more of that. Because once again, it goes back to the whānau, the way the Māori used to operate. It was always sharing. You never kept anything to yourself. It was always sharing. And to be critical, you have to share your kete of knowledge. And that's where I think it's important.
Progress outcomes
(Waiata audio plays with the title)
Lorraine, Teacher, Pukekohe Intermediate, speaking to camera
To unpack some of the big ideas, we took the information and really had real in-depth discussions with the students around, mostly, the two sides.
(Students at work in the classroom)
So the settlers coming in, and how the Māori were perceiving what was happening for them. My class had not... mostly Treaty oriented stuff, information in their kete, they didn't have a lot of what's happened in Pukekohe or Waikato. So, it was kind of easy, because we could work together. We're all coming to new, fresh understandings together. So the opinions that they had are safe and fine. And they really worked together to come up with those.
When we did the “what we know about” – attaining prior knowledge – we found that there was a lot of opinion-based information that was on top for the students, rather than factual information that you could really pinpoint and say, “It actually happened”. So then we really had to fill in the gaps; fill in the knowledge gaps.
We had to reteach the information, around numerous times and in different ways, to make sure the students had the understandings. So we could really explore the perspectives.
Voices of students, as they undertake the learning activity
…the raiders lost 15 men in the attack. Some of them were buried in unmarked graves at the Pukekohe East Church. There is now a plaque to acknowledge the site that the Māori were buried. Yeah, that's the last one because it was talking about them dying.
Yeah, so that’s definitely the last one.
That's definitely the first one. I'm pretty sure that's the second one and then…
Yeah, because I remember, he arrived and he had to give out land, and then he sent out the proclamation. And then they were…
Yep, he arrived and he had to give out land… the proclamation. And they were concerned.
No, no, no, this is next because this is talking about how they wanted to cut the supply line. This is talking about how they crossed the supply line. They crossed it but then they wanted to cut it. Cause, then 200 raiders crossed the Waikato River and travelled up through Tūākau. Their intention was to attack Alexandra Redoubt.
(Slide; “Students show understanding when they can use what they have learned to sequence related historical events”.)
Kelly, Teacher, Pukekohe Intermediate, speaking to camera
So by the end of Year 8, we want them to be understanding perspectives of all parties, and also being able to make judgments. So understanding also that history from the past impacts on where we are today.
One of the, I guess, the key points of the lesson was that students were able to put themselves into the three different perspectives. And students were really encouraged to use that information that they had gained when they made calls at the end as to whether the actions of each party were just.
The final activity were four key questions to really make sure, just to assess student understanding. To just find out really, I guess, how they felt about the whole situation. There certainly wasn't any pressure from teachers in terms of what their feelings should be. They were student led. They could write anything they wanted to write. And it was interesting. Different students had different perspectives and saw things from different angles. So it made for interesting reading. It made for great sharing and great discussion in the classroom, after those questions had been answered as well.
(Slide: “Students show their learning when they can explore perspectives and then make ethical judgements about the past”.)
Voices of students from Pukekohe Intermediate, as they undertake the learning activity
Life for Māori without the land would be tough, because the families would not have a place to stay and interact. Life would not be worth living if they had no land. And we thought the Māori would feel betrayal and angry about the invasion.
When the war began, that they were very ready to fight. That they weren't going to let their land go.
The land is important to the settlers because they sacrifice a lot to get the land.
The settlers would have been very gutted or disappointed when they found out that they weren't getting the land because they travelled all this way. And many people had passed away or gotten sick, just from travelling here.
(Slide: “Exploring different perspectives shows that students are able to apply what they know about the attitudes and values of the time to historical events”.)
Lance, Teacher, Te Papapa School, speaking to camera
Information that children have been learning from and the information that they gain, they have to ensure that the information is reliable and relevant for the inquiry. And a good strong level three, or level four, student of that curriculum area can decipher what is true, but then provide evidence as to what does translate into meaningful... the right story.
Atama, Teacher, Ferguson Intermediate, speaking to camera
So I think it's really important that for our tamariki to be able to be critical thinkers, and truly understand history, and truly take on that new knowledge, that they've got to have a strong sense of who they are. And have that whānau atmosphere, evident in the classroom, through the way they connect to the teacher, to their peers, through how they bring what they have in their kete to the classroom. It's really important for them, so that they are able to make sense of new information.
Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories
Special thanks to Te Papapa School, Ferguson Intermediate, Papakowhai School and Pukekohe Intermediate
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 7–8
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
