Making the ANZH curriculum come to life and story

Once upon a time ... New Zealand history was taught from only one perspective.

With some big shifts on the horizon, we are entering an exciting time in education in Aotearoa New Zealand.

For example, one of the objectives of the NELP is to help children and young people successfully participate in civic and community life, with the aim to enable our curriculum, our communities and our country to be a modern, diverse, inclusive and exciting place for young people to grow up in; we have much to look forward to.

The introduction of the first part of the refresh for the NZ curriculum (Aotearoa New Zealand Histories) is, I personally think, quite possibly the best thing to happen in education in a very long time. Not only because it is an enabler of a more culturally inclusive society, but also because it has the potential to

Clarke

connect us in ways that we may not have explored in the past; implementing this exciting new area will open up some amazing opportunities for innovation.

The way the ANZH curriculum gives us the chance to do this is by implementing more connected and inclusive programmes that result in a stronger sense of identity and belonging for everyone in your community. This means you can simultaneously improve your curriculum while strengthening your community. So how can you actually do this?

Identify your starting point

As when implementing any new initiative or learning area, it is important to consider the best starting point for all concerned. Regardless of whether your school is at the very beginning of your ANZH curriculum journey, got started a while ago, or is well down the track, there is always scope to refine the curriculum and go deeper so that student learning is even more engaging, relevant and inclusive.

If you’re unsure which point your school is at on this journey, take a look at page five of the Ministry of Education guide which has a poutama outlining four stages, which you can use to identify at a glance where you might be.

Once you’ve established your position, whatever it may be, reflect on the following questions (which can also be helpful as prompts when discussing ANZH curriculum possibilities with your team):

1. To what extent do your teachers use their relationship and connections in the community to inform your programmes? Do all of your staff know the local stories of significance to mana whenua? How strong is your school’s relationship with mana whenua, and also with other community resources and connections?

2. How often do your staff use te reo Māori? Do they uphold tikanga Māori within programmes and across the school? If you find these aspects need to be improved, there are some great resources to support people to do this. For example, the books Niho Taniwhā and The Hikairo Schema.

3. How do your school programmes enable students to learn about the historical places, people and events that are of importance to your area? Are they delivered in a way that is relevant to the different year levels?

4. How do your staff plan to increase students’ critical inquiry skills when they are researching historical information? And how do you measure success for your students in this aspect?

The threads that run through the poutama will have many opportunities for where staff can start. These threads, and the poutama, will help you to map out the priorities for professional learning for your staff and inform your focus.

As you have these discussions, ask your staff (individually as well as in staff hui) what their concerns are - this will give clues as to how to support them.

Use story to build community and confidence

Making local history come alive through story with this new curriculum also presents relatable, interesting opportunities to develop staff confidence that will take your current curriculum to a whole new level.

Start with what’s around you. Scan your local community for resource people, events, and places of significance and stories will naturally emerge. How they are then told within your school is up to your staff and ultimately, your students.

Bring history to life with STEAM

Another exciting aspect of the ANZH is that it is more than finding out about resources, events and significant or knowledgeable people, it’s also about how your staff use innovative or different tools that can enable students to express their understanding of local histories in creative and engaging ways.

Digital technologies add another layer and have the potential to help learners to learn and express themselves in creative and novel ways; it also helps them tell stories through channels that can appeal to a wider audience.

For example, what if your students were to explore their stories through the arts or science, through sculpture, painting or drama? How might they learn about how your mana whenua care for the local environment, linking this discovery to the science curriculum? Creating content on podcasts or video could be another fun way to capture stories. introduction of the first part of the refresh for the NZ curriculum (Aotearoa New Zealand Histories) is, I personally think, quite possibly the best thing to happen in education in a very long time.

Using a wide range of resources that bring diversity to the learning mix also encourages broader and more informed perspectives. It will also provide a variety of angles and viewpoints that people bring to their local histories and that students can develop. But remember, it’s not just about the resources you use; it’s also how you design curriculum.

• What is your role as a leader in creating a space where everyone feels a sense of belonging?

• How can you help staff and students make this connection and support them to be positive contributors? And,

• What is the role of your curriculum in facilitating this? This all might seem overwhelming for some people to begin with, so before you dive in with exciting new ideas, ask your team to share any concerns they may have about the implementation and what they may currently be doing. Chances are you may discover that there are some useful local stories being used in your school already.

Use ANZH as a curriculum review and design tool

how to use the framework now will make subsequent learning area rollouts much easier.

To boil it down to its essence, the Understand, Know, Do framework comprises three parts:

1. Understand = big ideas expressed as concepts that underpin the curriculum

2. Know = local contexts and knowledge relevant to your students and community

3. Do = critical inquiry skills acquired by students to help them explore the big concepts through a local lens This third part of the framework is where students get the opportunity to develop agency and help them towards becoming contributing citizens.

Connecting people through curriculum

The ANZH curriculum provides you with a seamless way to help bring objective one from the NELP to life by ensuring your place of learning is safe and inclusive.

By creating a more connected curriculum that involves your community, you are modelling the inclusion principle of the NZC, because as you explore local histories and their implications with your learners, they are more likely to be agentic in how they approach the present. In turn, they are more likely to be an effective contributor in the future.

Intentionally embrace diversity

Something to be mindful of is that not everyone in your school and local community feels like they belong, even though by virtue of being in a community (whether they recognise it or not), they do. As you reflect on this, consider these questions:

You may have already noticed that the curriculum is structured using the framework known as ‘Understand, Know, Do’ (UKD). Applying this within the teaching and learning process helps to consider curriculum design in three ways:

• A mixture of concepts to explore

• Contexts that are important to your community, and

• Skills to be learned within these contexts.

And of course, when we design curriculum that is conceptually driven, linked to local contexts and uses multi-media, it is more engaging and relevant to our learners. And this is what I understand the Ministry of Education is talking about when they say ‘designing rich learning experiences’.

Leading through Understand, Know, Do

As a leader, it is probably a good idea to adapt the UKD approach so that your staff know what it is, and how to use it because it is highly likely that this framework will become central to all learning areas as the NZC refresh progresses. This means helping teachers learn

In this regard, the ANZH curriculum becomes a useful design tool for your localised curriculum that can guide the pedagogy in your school.

What does the future look like for your school community?

By taking a positive, proactive approach to your implementation of the ANZH curriculum, not only will you be encouraging deeper connections with historical issues and creating a stronger sense of belonging, you will also be increasing the range of ways students can express themselves across the curriculum.

In closing, I do want to acknowledge that while this is a massive opportunity, it may also feel like a mammoth undertaking, but take heart; you can make significant progress simply by approaching it one story, or one connection at a time. So step back, scan for opportunities, ask your staff, students and community for their ideas - and most importantly ask them how they want to tell their stories. Then just get in behind them and make it happen.

The end.