Aotearoa NZ Histories on Education Perfect
Te Marae Ātea: Past. Present. Together
What's happening?
Aotearoa NZ Histories is leading the charge with the biggest changes to the NZC in a generation. To underline its importance, the Histories’ curriculum was the first released by MoE. Aotearoa NZ Histories will challenge traditional versions of our past by placing hītori Māori as the foundational history of our country and by exploring the impact of colonisation and the exercise of power on its people.
In 2022, EP produced an introductory Aotearoa NZ Histories package called He Waharoa ki ā tātou kōrero: A Gateway to Our Stories. We included 24 lessons aligned to the draft curriculum to support schools through the transition to full implementation in 2023. The feedback collected from kaiako from our He Waharoa lessons was loud and clear. More, please!
What has EP done?
EP has partnered with Māori, Pasifika and Tauiwi academics and History teachers to produce Te Marae Ātea: Past. Present. Together, 82 curriculum-aligned resources across Years 4-10, covering significant events and personalities in our history.
Spanning Ngā Hekenga - the migration across the Pacific 3,000 years ago, Te Tiriti o Waitangi and its legacy, wars at home and abroad, the impact on te Taiao, the history of our economy and the migration experiences of the many communities that call Aotearoa home today.
Te Marae Ātea also includes 2 x 8 Skills Lessons (for Years 7 & 8 AND Years 9 & 10) that introduce students to the idea of Being a Historian. Some of the skills and concepts covered include:
- Critical Thinking
- Perspectives
- Sequencing
- Mātauranga Māori sources
Teachers will be able to use these universal lessons to guide students through an inquiry into their own local histories - as the curriculum intends. We focus on the Big Stories and leave Small Stories to kura and kaiako!
Teacher Guide
Below are some ideas about how you could implement EP's Aotearoa NZ Histories lessons in your classroom - either full course, partial or the use of the Being a Historian Skills lessons in conjunction with the contextual lessons.
Below are some ideas about how you could implement EP's Aotearoa NZ Histories lessons in your classroom.
- Use Skills Lessons in conjunction with Content lessons. Below is a grid that illustrates how a teacher could interweave relevant Skills lessons with contextual Know lessons. This could help you to identify which skills to tag with which Know lesson and may help you structure your course.
- The lessons shown here can be found in the Tino rangatiratanga me te kāwanatanga | Government and organisation folder for Year 7 & 8.
- If time is short, complete the Being an Historian lessons (there are different lessons at both Year 7 & 8 and Year 9 & 10) so students can complete an independent inquiry into local histories. The Being an Historian lessons contain an exemplar of national significance (e.g. the journey of te reo Māori) to guide students.
- Focus on one of our many topics, arranged by folder under each of the four Know context.
- e.g. New Zealand Wars and Raupatu lessons can be found in the ‘Sovereignty vs Rangatiratanga’ folder under Tino rangatiratanga me te kāwanatanga in Years 9 & 10.
For any questions or feedback, please contact our team. We'd love to hear from you!
- Our contextual lessons focus on the Know strand whereas the Skills lessons extend into the new Understand-Know-Do framework teachers can expect when the draft curriculum is finalised.
- Our writers have also used the SOLO taxonomy when creating the Lesson Objectives.
- These lessons can incorporate all of the Key Competencies in the classroom but focus most explicitly on Thinking, Relating to Others, and Using language, symbols and texts.
EP acknowledges that these histories are taonga: these stories are the lives of tūpuna Māori (ancestors). We have an internal kaupapa Māori team who whakapapa to various iwi from Te Tai Tokerau to Te Waipounamu.
In cases of specialised mātauranga beyond their expertise, our team drew on their networks to consult external mātanga Māori. Further, we contracted Māori, Pasifika and Tauiwi academics and teachers to create these rauemi. A Ngāti Whātua kaiako writes about the Musket Wars and their impact, a Samoan kaiako writes about post-war Pacific migration, while the NZ Chinese Association advised us on our Chinese New Zealanders lesson. EP shares these hītori boldly but with great care. If you have specific concerns, please let us know.
The intent of the new curriculum is for kura to work with mana whenua, so where possible EP will concentrate on general, nationwide contexts and leave our lessons open-ended for kura to input localised hītori. We share the BIG stories and leave the SMALL to kura!