Key competencies – New Zealand Curriculum

Key competencies put ākonga and their learning process at the centre of education. As society constantly changes, so does technology and ways of viewing knowledge. It is no longer sufficient for students to merely acquire knowledge and master skills. Learners need opportunities to develop their capabilities as users of knowledge and skills in wide-ranging contexts now and in the future. A focus on the key competencies means a development of the dispositions students need to learn throughout their lives in this changing world. 

The key competencies give practical effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi by ensuring ākonga understand how they learn in partnership with kaiako. Learners need to know how to develop the key competencies in all learning areas, with their friends, whānau, and in the community.

In this video, Secretary for Education Karen Sewel (2006-11) explains the importance of building an education system that helps students learn how to learn and manage the demands of a changing world.

Margaret Carr explains that dispositions developed through the key competencies mean students are ready, willing, and able to learn: 

How the key competencies evolved

See Materials that come with this resource to download:

• How key competencies are treated in the OECD (.pdf)
• How the key competencies evolved over time insights from the research (.pdf)
• How the key competencies were developed the evidence base (.pdf)
• Weaving key competencies into the curriculum examples from other nations (.pdf)

These papers were developed to demonstrate the intent and evidence base of the key competencies. They provide a view of current practice to help inform discussions in your kura.

Key competencies:

• should be developed and promoted through a school's local curriculum 
• encompass knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values 
• work together and influence each other 
• are demonstrated in performance; they require action 
• are developed through learning experiences that reflect the diversity and support the cultural identity of every ākonga 
• should be accessible to meet the range of learning needs of all students 
• are complex and changing; they will look different in different contexts .

The key competencies and effective pedagogy project
Undertaken by NZCER and the University of Waikato, this project helps schools audit their progress in integrating the five key competencies into all learning programmes. Example units and lessons are included. 

Self audit framework
The framework provides nine simple categories that underpin teachers’ inquiries into how well the key competencies are being embedded into learning.  

Effective leaders create the conditions required for exploring the key competencies in teaching and learning. They need to ensure that the culture, pedagogy, systems, partnerships, and networks in their school all support key competency development.

Gathering student feedback
Carefully structure your feedback sessions to get the most out of the student responses. 

Monitoring and documenting the key competencies
Documentation should draw attention to how students' capabilities are demonstrated as they participate with others in a specific context. 

Key competencies and transfer
Competencies are not directly observable; they are inferred from performance in a range of contexts. 

Developing Key Competencies in Students Years 1-8 
This 2019 Education Review Office (ERO) report describes what a sample of New Zealand schools with years 1 to 8 students are doing to integrate and support the development of key competencies with their students. 

Curriculum weaving: An idea whose time has come?
Dr. Rosemary Hipkins shows how ideas about "weaving" approaches can help us take a fresh look at what the key competencies aim to do within the curriculum. 

A Systemic Lens on Classroom Teaching: Supporting the Key Competencies of the New Zealand Curriculum in Secondary Schools
This paper considers the range of policies and organisations that impact classroom practices at the secondary level in efforts to implement the key competencies of The 2007 New Zealand Curriculum.  

Deepening understandings of key competencies
Rosemary Hipkins, Chief Researcher at NZCER, talks about the way the key competencies can change both learning and subject content. Rosemary emphasises understanding how meaning is made in a subject, the literacies and conventions, and how students should be included in the "hidden game" as they make links in learning-to-learn. 

Helping your child develop key competencies
A guide for whānau to support them in helping their children develop and use the key competencies. 

Technology and key competencies
Technology has a responsibility to work with all other learning areas to ensure the key competencies are integrated into the classroom curriculum. The capabilities captured in the five competencies are all essential capabilities for the development of technological literacy. This literacy is broad, deep, and critical in nature. Students will become empowered and confident citizens of the future by developing their key competencies in technological literacy. 

Science and key competencies
The science learning area in The 2007 New Zealand Curriculum emphasises developing learners’ citizenship capabilities. The nature of science strand explores the ways science knowledge is created and used in the world and can be used to encourage teaching and learning to help achieve the purpose of citizenship. 

International capabilities are how the NZC key competencies look when young people apply them in intercultural and international contexts. International capabilities fit within conversations about the teaching and learning of the key competencies. 

Measuring New Zealand students’ international capabilities: An exploratory study
This study considers the feasibility of measuring New Zealand senior secondary (years 12–13) students’ international capabilities. 

International capabilities: A summary report for schools
This report is drawn from research and analysis by the Ministry of Education and an explorative study completed by the New Zealand Council of Educational Research into international capabilities for students in New Zealand schools. 

Key competencies in international and intercultural contexts
This table maps out how each of the key competencies and their self-reflective dimensions might look in three hypothetical international and intercultural contexts. These possibilities were developed in 2013 by NZCER as part of their exploratory study for the Ministry into international capabilities. 

See Materials that come with this resource to download:

• Key competencies and international contexts (.pdf)

The key competencies are just another name for the old essential skills, aren't they?

The key competencies are more than just a set of skills. They are about the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values we employ as we encounter different situations and interact with diverse people and their perspectives. Through our experiences we are always using the key competencies by responding to, reflecting on, and integrating new forms of knowledge. Developing the key competencies is a lifelong process.  

Learners need multiple opportunities to develop and apply the key competencies in a supportive environment across a range of learning contexts. 

We have decided to focus on one key competency each week to ensure we get good coverage on every competency by the end of the term, but this is not always a good fit with what we might be doing in the classroom. Are there other ways of ensuring we get good coverage and depth in each competency?

A focus on a particular key competency as part of a professional development or review cycle can be useful in exploring the complexity of each competency. It is useful to identify how the competency implementation works with the range of student identities and learner needs within curriculum design. 

It is also important to explore how each of the learning/subject areas can provide rich contexts and opportunities for developing a range of key competencies at different times to other learning areas. 

When planning units, kaiako are thinking about the cultural identities, strengths, and learning needs of their students and the teaching approaches they will be using to bring about the best outcomes. This is an ideal time to plan for developing aspects of one or more of the key competencies that strengthen the pedagogical approach to the unit. 

Term and yearly plans are useful in mapping key competency development opportunities across the learning areas. 

Our school is developing indicators for each of the key competencies, which we will use to monitor our students to ensure we are developing their competencies. Are there any risks we have not foreseen?

Learners need to be given opportunities to set goals and self and peer assess the demonstration of a particular key competency within the context that it has been taught. This reinforces greater student ownership and self-management of the learning process. 

The kaiako is an important part of this review cycle by: 

• helping individualise learning goals with ākonga  
• providing the learning opportunity 
• evaluating students’ progress towards their goals 
• planning for next learning steps. 

Context is so important. We all have strengths and weaknesses in the different competencies, depending on the situation in which we find ourselves, and the knowledge and strategies we have available to us. Reporting on student development in the key competencies must reflect the learning context in which they were observed.