Local curriculum: Designing rich opportunities and coherent pathways for all learners 

An icon of one person talking to a group of four people with a speech bubble that says, " we want to work with our school community to get some shared understandings about the teaching and learning we want at our school. 

Also an icon of a family in front of a house with a speech bubble that says, "we want a local curriculum that strengthens our people and celebrates our place." 

Next icon of a person and a telescope with a speech bubble that says, "how do we make our vision come alive for every learner, every day? 

And finally, an icon of two people shaking hands with a speech bubble that says "we know there are some amazing people doing amazing things in our community – how do we better connect our students to these learning opportunities?" 
 

The New Zealand Curriculum is a clear statement of what we deem important in education. Your local curriculum is the way that you bring The New Zealand Curriculum to life at your school. It should:  

• be responsive to the needs, identity, language, culture, interests, strengths, and aspirations of your learners and their families  
• have a clear focus on what supports the progress of all learners  
• integrate Te Tiriti o Waitangi into classroom learning  
• help learners engage with the knowledge, values, and competencies so they can go on and be confident and connected lifelong learners.  
   

Key points for designing and reviewing your local curriculum  

 It’s your school, and it’s your curriculum  

• Your local curriculum should be unique and responsive to the priorities, preferences, and issues of your community and your people.  
• What is important is that all elements of The New Zealand Curriculum are used as the framework in designing your local curriculum. This ensures you’re supporting the strengths of all of your learners.  
   

It’s an ongoing process  

• At the heart of local curriculum design is including what works and improving learning for all students.  
• You may not find what works best straight away, or for all of your students. Understanding that it’s a journey means you can continue to challenge and evaluate your ideas, systems, and processes. 
   

What does good look like? 

A school’s curriculum is likely to be well designed when: 

• principals and teachers, with the community, can show what it is that they want their students to learn and how their curriculum is designed to achieve this  
• learning is personalised and inclusive to take into account the students' aspirations, interests, identity, language, and culture 
• the long view is taken: each student’s ultimate learning success is more important than the covering of particular achievement objectives 
• it is manageable and realistic.

“You can’t just pick up what another school’s done. There’s no recipe. What you might do will be different to us because of your community, your students, your location. The process of giving effect to the national curriculum is about making it work in your school.” - Principal  

“The best thing we did was not say, “We’re finished”, as different aspects of practice were reviewed. Staff now see constantly evolving approaches as a hallmark of educational practice.” - Associate Principal

It can be difficult to know where to focus your attention when designing or reviewing your local curriculum.  

These four high impact practices, taken from the Local Curriculum Design Toolkit, give you some ways to strengthen your local curriculum.  

 Important things to note  

• Just get started – reviewing one part of the curriculum inevitably leads to thinking about the other parts.  
• There is no single way to review a curriculum or assessment practices.  
• Time is a significant consideration – it takes time for teachers to understand the need for change and to adapt their practices.  
• Curriculum design and review is complex – you won’t necessarily find what works best right away.  
• Embed small changes and then build on them. 

High impact practices using The New Zealand Curriculum as a framework  

The title of the infographic is "High-impact practices using the New Zealand Curriculum as a framework." The infographic is set up in three panels. The first reads, "Enable relationships for learning. Enrich your students’ learning opportunities by fostering learning-focused relationships within your school and the wider community and iwi. Use the resources you have available – people, expertise, and materials – to enrich your local curriculum." 

The second panel reads, "Strengthen collaborative inquiry. Use a systematic inquiry approach to find out what works – when, for whom, and in what context. Building shared knowledge about teaching practices positively impacts students’ learning. This knowledge should be used to review and refine the school’s strategic priorities." 

The third panel reads, "Build coherent pathways. Learning for ākonga should continue over student year levels and across settings. Be clear to ākonga, teachers, parents, and whānau about the learning students are entitled to." 

There is a final panel underneath the main three. This panel reads, "Provide rich opportunities for learning – this practice incorporates the other three high-impact practices. Rich opportunities to learn increase the breadth, depth, and complexity of learning experiences for ākonga as they progress along their learning pathways. Design challenging and rigorous learning opportunities. Encourage your students to contribute to the community to enable beneficial outcomes for them and for your community." 

The high impact practices are: 

• Enabling relationships for learning 
• Building coherent pathways 
• Providing rich opportunities for learning. 

Your local curriculum needs to reflect the intentions of The New Zealand Curriculum in ways that build on the strengths and meet the aspirations of your learners, their families, and whānau. 

Think about these questions as you lead your review 

• How do we ensure that the full extent of The New Zealand Curriculum is expressed in our local curriculum? 
• How do we integrate Te Tiriti o Waitangi into classroom learning? 
• How do we give all our learners rich opportunities for learning across the curriculum? 
• How do we demonstrate clear pathways to learning across the learning areas and the curriculum levels? 
• How do we integrate the principles, values, key competencies, and learning areas into our classroom programmes? 
• Are we up to speed with the revised technology learning area and the new digital technologies curriculum content? 
   

For more information on "Strengthening collaborative inquiry", see the Local Curriculum Design Toolkit. 

Activity: Review how you integrate the NZC with your local curriculum 

 Review your local curriculum plan 

Review the ways your local curriculum plan integrates The New Zealand Curriculum and creates rich opportunities for all of your students. Look out for: 

• the NZC principles 
• the NZC values 
• key competencies 
• learning areas and progression in these areas (including the digital technologies curriculum content) 
• effective pedagogy.  

 Strengthen your local curriculum plan  

• Analyse the aspects in your plan, look at what is being well integrated and where there is more potential for rich learning. 
• Compare with other plans across the school. 
• Discuss how the NZC aspects have been deliberately integrated into these plans to identify the school's shared views and priorities.  
• Discuss how you will activate this plan. 

Example of integrating a local curriculum with the NZC  

ERO – Focusing on the school's and national curriculum priorities 
Leaders and teachers at Oratia School carefully integrated all parts of The New Zealand Curriculum with their own local values, while prioritising the principles or key competencies that delivered the most benefit to their children. From Keeping children engaged and achieving through rich curriculum inquiries (ERO, 2018)  

To enable relationships for learning across the community, it is important to seek input from students, parents, whānau, iwi and hapū as you shape your local curriculum. This ensures that the interests and needs of learners, the values and aspirations of parents and whānau, and the ideas and resources of the wider community influence decision-making around teaching and learning. One way to start is to review the relationships you have and identify which ones are critical to the success of your local curriculum. 

Think about these questions as you lead your review 

• How do we build partnerships with parents, whānau, iwi, and hapū, and the wider community? 
• How do we ensure that everyone in our community feels a sense of ownership for our local curriculum?  
• How do we ensure that we are being inclusive and culturally responsive to our students, parents, and whānau? 
• How do we make use of local and community resources and connections? Examples of this are cultural connections, businesses, community resources, professional relationships, and service providers. 

 Activity: Know your community 

 Review your relationships  

Consider ways that you currently partner with your parents and whānau. How could you get to know your community better?  

Create a physical map of community resources  

Use colour-coded flags or markers to identify different types of resources within your community. 

• Which teachers use each resource/have contact with the resource? For example, a local conservationist.
• What year levels use the resource, and why? 
• Are there resources that you think are critical to the success of teaching and learning at your school? Who do you need to be in contact with? 
• Are there resources that are over-utilised in ways that don’t enhance learning? 
• Identify topics to be taught this term which could be enhanced through local connections. Make a database of topics and possible connections, and allocate staff to investigate. 

Example of how school staff reflect their vision and work with community resources 

Te Akau ki Papamoa School: Cultural Inclusiveness 
Staff at Te Akau ki Papamoa School place a strong emphasis on relationships between whānau, learners, staff, and their community. Their vision of "leading me to lead my learning" challenges students to take responsibility for their lifelong learning journey. A philosophy of "know me before you teach me" inspires teachers to create a positive learning environment where all learners can celebrate success.  

Further resources for guidance 

NZC Online Blog: Involving your community in curriculum design 

Tātaiako: Cultural Competencies for Teachers of Māori Learners 
Tātaiako provides support on building and sustaining genuine and productive relationships with whānau and iwi.  

Tapasā: Cultural competencies framework for teachers of Pacific learners 
Tapasā is designed to support teachers in becoming more culturally aware, confident, and competent when engaging with Pacific learners and their parents, families, and communities. 

Your local curriculum enriches learning opportunities by ensuring coherence and continuity of progress for ākonga, both over the years and across settings, preparing them for lifelong learning. Use it to describe the learning your community believes is too important to leave to chance, and specify what this learning looks like at critical points.  

Teachers can use the description of the most important learning to design rich opportunities for students to develop their conceptual understandings, competencies, and skills.  

Think about these questions as you lead your review 

• How do we use our vision to create coherent learning pathways?  
• How do we ensure our school is ready to provide rich learning for all learners who arrive?  
• How do we know we have prepared all our students for their next learning step as they transition from our school? 

Activity: Review how your school's vision is reflected in your local curriculum 

What’s valued by communities is often described in school visions. Using a school vision to identify the most important learning is one way to guide the development of a coherent pathway.  

 Present your school vision to your staff  

• Discuss what the most important learning would be for a young person to "aspire to" this vision. Be as specific as you can. For example, have you considered the learning areas, key competencies, literacy/numeracy, knowledge, and skills?  
• What values underpin the vision?  

Explore what the most important learning associated with the school vision looks like 

• What could it look like for different year levels and/or learning area groups?  
• Ask the teachers responsible for each grouping (for example, year levels or learning areas) to describe what the most important learning looks like in the curriculum now for their area.  
• Capture this information so that it can be shared for everyone to see (digitally or on paper).  
• Use that feedback to look across the different year levels and/or learning area groupings. Consider how a student would experience a broad, rich curriculum – is the development and progression clear?  
• If there are gaps or irregularities, look at the other year levels or learning areas to help create consistency and coherence in the language that you use. Your aim will be to get coherence across your setting.  
• Check that this term’s planning incorporates the aspects of the most important learning and link back to the school’s vision.  

Further resources for guidance  

Simon Sinek’s model of inspiring leadership starts with a golden circle and the question, "why?"  
This could be used to revisit your school vision as an entire community. 

You need to know your learners – their strengths, identities, needs, and aspirations to provide them with rich opportunities for learning. This involves finding out as much as you can about them, listening to their voices, and consulting with their parents and whānau. Once you know your learners, you can then begin a deeper inquiry into the rich learning opportunities you are providing and possible areas for change.  

Think about these questions as you lead your review  

• How do we know what the strengths, identities, needs, and aspirations are for our learners for the year ahead?  
• How can we provide rich opportunities for learning based on our learners’ strengths, identities, needs, and aspirations?  
• What knowledge and skills do we need, and what actions should we take to help all our learners grow?  

Activity – Knowledge of students’ strengths and aspirations for local curriculum design decisions  

Students’ strengths and aspirations 

At the beginning of a school year, teachers often talk with students and their whānau about their goals, interests, and aspirations. Use that feedback in groups to discuss what you know about your students’ interests and aspirations. Make sure there’s enough information about all your students and whether there are ways you can find out more about what their interests and ambitions are.  

• What are some common goals and aspirations?  
• What are some outlier interests (maybe only one or two students)?  
• How can these interests be incorporated in this term’s teaching and learning? For example, are there students who can lead/teach and provide opportunities for other students to learn?  
• Are there opportunities for students to extend their expertise in their areas of interest?

Example of how Papatoetoe North School designed a curriculum that connects their students’ lives  

ERO – Using a spiral curriculum to build on children's prior knowledge 
Leaders, teachers, and parents at Papatoetoe North School have designed a responsive curriculum that connects to students’ lives and builds on their prior understandings, cultural identities, and out-of-school experiences. From Keeping children engaged and achieving through rich curriculum inquiries (ERO, 2018).