Have your say on the draft New Zealand Curriculum
Do you want a say on the New Zealand curriculum? Now is your chance. In August 2006, the Ministry of Education began collecting feedback on the draft curriculum. Copies of the proposed curriculum were mailed to schools in early August, together with a questionnaire seeking your comments.
The draft curriculum is the outcome of a process that began in mid-2003. At that time, a large group of education professionals and the Ministry began to reframe the New Zealand Curriculum Framework in response to recommendations in the Curriculum Stocktake Report (2002).
Our aim has been to establish a coherent New Zealand curriculum in two parts: in English, The New Zealand Curriculum, and in te reo Māori, Te Marautanga o Aotearoa. (Te Marautanga o Aotearoa will be available as a draft discussion document in 2007.)
Our kaupapa is a national, outcomes-focused curriculum that sets the direction for learning and is relevant for students. A Ministry of Education senior manager, Mary Chamberlain, comments: “This is a very exciting opportunity. We have a new draft national curriculum at the moment that updates the existing curriculum. But we are hoping that, after a full consultation with schools, we will end up with a national curriculum that will be more coherent, simpler, and easier to use … that will allow schools the flexibility to shape a curriculum relevant to their own students.”
The draft discussion document contains:
- a vision, principles, and values
- an outline of five key competencies
- descriptions of eight learning areas
- discussion of effective teaching and learning
- suggestions for designing a school curriculum.
The proposed changes will align the New Zealand Curriculum more closely with the curriculum for early childhood education, Te Whāriki: He Whāriki Mātauranga mo ngā Mokopuna o Aotearoa / Early Childhood Curriculum.
The Ministry hopes that teachers, principals, and school boards will set aside time during the coming months to examine and discuss the draft curriculum. We welcome your feedback. Please provide your response by 30 November 2006 at the latest.
We expect that the national curriculum (English medium) will be finalised and available towards mid-2007, but schools will not be expected to implement it for some time after that.
To find out more about the draft national curriculum, you can visit The New Zealand curriculum: Draft for consultation 2006.
Item 31519.
Distribution
In August, all schools received a pack, which included: copies of the draft discussion document for the principal and for each full-time teacher; sets of charts of the achievement objectives, set out by learning area, for shared school use; and a booklet and CD-ROM (A Framework for Discussion) for the principal to use when leading discussion of the draft document. If your school has not received sufficient copies of The New Zealand curriculum: Draft for consultation 2006, please contact Customer Services at Learning Media. (Part-time teachers may need to share copies.)