The government has released the new Science and Social Sciences curriculums for Years 0-10.
The Science Media Centre asked experts to comment. Feel free to use these comments in your reporting or follow up with the contact details provided.
Dr Michael Edmonds, Manager of the Biomolecular Interaction Centre, University of Canterbury & President of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry, comments:
“It is disappointing to see chemistry, the central science, not included as a separate strand in the new curriculum. The reduction of science to two strands, physical science and biological science, ignores the role that chemical science/chemistry plays in integrating these two strands.
“In terms of overall content, the new science curriculum appears to provide a reasonable overview of key scientific concepts that will help engage students and develop the foundations of a scientifically literate and engaged society. The curriculum designers have been thoughtful in their scaffolding of scientific content.
“The effectiveness of the new curriculum will ultimately depend on how well it is resourced – practical experiences and experiments carried out under the guidance of well trained teachers are the best way for students to learn and appreciate science. Without suitable resources, the outcome of the new curriculum resemble trying to load a new piece of software onto an old and underpowered computer – frustrating and with limited functionality.”
Conflict of interest statement: “Only in so much as my affiliations above.”
Christopher Burns, School of Education, Faculty of Culture and Society, Auckland University of Technology, comments:
“As a history teacher, I have serious concerns about the presentation of New Zealand history in the new Social Sciences curriculum document. The curriculum provides a sanitised view of New Zealand history and fails to meet the demands of students and other New Zealanders for an honest engagement with our past.
“These concerns are most evident in the content on te Tiriti o Waitangi and the New Zealand Wars. The curriculum presents te Tiriti as a response to concerns about “lawlessness” but not that it was lawlessness among British settlers. This omission gives the misimpression that pre-European Māori society was “lawless”. Statements in the curriculum also assume that rangatira who signed te Tiriti ceded their existing authority. The section on the New Zealand Wars states that “conflict grew because Māori and European settlers had different ideas about land, authority, and te Tiriti o Waitangi / the Treaty of Waitangi”. This reduces the government acquisition of Māori land by force to a kind of misunderstanding.
“On the whole, the curriculum is inadequate for supporting young people to critically engage with the world around them. Alongside a sanitising of New Zealand history, students learn that discrimination and prejudice occur in other countries or the past, with little scope to explore how our social and political systems in Aotearoa do not always work as intended. For students who experience discrimination in their daily lives such a curriculum risks alienating them from learning and schools.
“Compared to the draft version of the curriculum, the final version has clearer emphasis on conceptual knowledge and some reduction in content. There are still concerns about these aspects of the curriculum, but the improvements are noted.”
Conflict of interest statement: “I do not have any conflicts of interest regarding the social sciences curriculum.”
Dr Karen Finn, Lecturer, School of Education, Auckland University of Technology, comments:
“Centring concepts, which are foundational to the teaching of social sciences in Aotearoa New Zealand but were missing in the draft curriculum, is a response to feedback. Concepts give a more coherent body of knowledge and skills within each Strand. However, the Civics and Society and Financial and Economic Activity Strands have statements instead of concepts and in the Practices section of each Strand not all bolded terms are conceptual. No Māori concepts are included.
“The suggested knowledge is more neatly formed into topics and founded on concepts, which are central to social sciences. This is important for teachers and students to understand why they are studying certain things. However, coverage of the numerous bulletpoints within each Strand and topic may not be possible within the time allocated to Social Sciences teaching. There is an imbalance in the quantity of content between the Strands, with an overemphasis on history. The Ministry has responded to feedback by including Practices related to social inquiry and social action. These subject specific practices are foundation skills for social sciences. However, the Practices do not support students to develop their critical engagement.
“Concepts are not well developed within the geography Strand. The Year 4 study of Australia is a descriptive regional geography than conceptual. This develops students’ memorisation of facts but not their conceptual understanding and lacks conceptual development from Year 3 into processes.
“Geography knowledge lacks mātauranga Māori. Where it is included, mātauranga Māori is as singular additive bulletpoints and treated as descriptive rather than explanatory. This curriculum misses the opportunity to learn from well-developed mātauranga Māori about the environment that is explanatory and conceptual.
“The geography curriculum does not place enough emphasis on climate change and sustainability, which are important knowledges for our young people as future citizens.”
Conflict of interest statement: “I do not have any conflicts of interest regarding the social sciences curriculum.”
Professor Chris Eames, School of Education, University of Waikato, comments:
“I am pleased to see some really positive changes in the final Social Sciences Years 0-10 Curriculum. There is more evidence of the role of active participation by young people in their communities being encouraged. This occurs early on in the Purpose Statement and then is further represented at one level by a doubling of the use of the term ‘participation’ from 11 to 22 across the Curriculum. The tone around participation remains weaker than desirable but it does at least signal to teachers that they can and should be preparing active citizens for the future.
“Similarly, there is an encouraging increase in the presence of sustainability as a concept sprinkled through the Curriculum (a numeric mention increase from 5 to 21), although this inflation is partly due to repetition in the framing of concepts, and many refer to financial sustainability only, with no regard for the other aspects of sustainability to which economics must be connected.
“The new section on Organisation of the Teaching Sequence is potentially helpful for teachers but it is noteworthy that the knowledge and practices are represented as ‘teaching requirements’ rather than learning objectives, which stands at odds with a Curriculum that has been described as, and should be, learner-centred.
“It is very positive to see a much stronger emphasis on the place of concepts in Social Science Learning and the idea that concepts should traverse years and contexts for learning. This is a welcome improvement. This is emphasised by the inclusion of a clear conceptual knowledge statement for each strand and year level, akin to the Big Ideas of the previous Te Mātaiaho iteration, and that these statements are now tied more closely to the practices.
“The framing of the practices has brought them more clearly in line with established Social Science skill development and connects these to pedagogical approaches which have been shown to be effective. The inclusion of more emphasis on relating to community and context through teaching and learning is also valuable.
“The brief mention of capabilities indicates that there has been little development of these, and although basically sound, are not aspirational for the futures that young people face. They appear mired in the functionalist, reproductive mode of education rather than fostering the sort of transformations that young people will need to engage in for an increasingly complex and uncertain world. Aspects such as values and action remain under-played. It is to be hoped that the final version of Te Mātaiaho to be released in September will address these deficiencies, as to not do this would mean a missed opportunity.
“The reduction of material in many years and strands is very welcome, and the use of case studies to provide teaching options will go some way to alleviate the heavy prescription of the curriculum. It is also pleasing to see that some material has been re-oriented to be learner-focused e.g children’s lives in Pompeii, and that other material such as Stone Age and Ancient Egypt have been moved to later years, where learners are more likely to be able to engage with the ideas.
“One major concern remains. As climate change becomes more and more prominent in our lives, and the actions being taken by societies to address these stagnate, it is bewildering to think that a Ministry of Education responsible for preparing young people for their futures has provided a Social Sciences curriculum in which the term climate change does not feature once, required knowledge about climate is scattered across year levels, and there is scant connection made between human activities and our changing climate.
“This is a travesty of omission, at a time where other countries are taking significant steps to include climate change in their curricula, we are woefully under-preparing our young people by disavowing the responsibility borne of creating climate change ourselves. This is very disappointing!”
Conflict of interest statement: “I have not been involved in any construction of the curriculum so perceive no conflict of interest other than being a teacher educator who uses the curriculum.”
Jack Webster, Education Researcher & Professional Teaching Fellow, University of Auckland, comments:
“The new curriculum has a clear ideological framing as it is more detailed and has a focus on what content needs to be taught (Knowledge) and how it should be taught (Practices). Teachers may welcome more guidance on what content to teach, yet there seems to be an imbalance across the four Social Science strands with history having more prominence. The curriculum’s emphasis on local contexts and community knowledge offers valuable scope to explore locally relevant issues, but this sits uneasily alongside extensive prescribed content, particularly in Phase 4, where opportunities to incorporate local perspectives appear limited across history, economics and geography.
“The emphasis on global citizenship in phase 4, particularly its attention to fairness, participation and students’ engagement with wider social issues, is notable. However, the curriculum provides limited clarity about what GCE means in the NZ context, with its framing appearing to draw broadly on international understandings and the UN Sustainable Development Goals rather than articulating a distinct local conception, and there is no mention of climate change — a significant global issue, particularly as wildfires spread around the world — anywhere in the curriculum.
“Teachers need sufficient space to explore how digital technologies are changing how societies function and how knowledge and evidence are produced and evaluated. The Social Science learning area aims to support students to understand society, evaluate perspectives and evidence, and participate as informed citizens; these aims increasingly require students to consider how digital technologies mediate all three.”
Dr Carrie Swanson, Senior Lecturer, Teacher Education, Auckland University of Technology, comments:
“Curricular change is a contested space and is ideologically driven. Science curriculums tend to be either focus on teaching for future scientists or scientific literacy or both. The 2007 framework curriculum was progressive and focused on ensuring students could critically navigate a science-focused society. Having a framework curriculum meant that there was scope to integrate and explore relevant issues. However, primary teachers who did not take science at higher secondary school level or have had the opportunity for professional development in the area may lack confidence in teaching science.
“The recently released science curriculum takes us back to a transmission model, and rather than integrating ideas, the knowledge has been siloed. This curriculum has a very western focus, largely positioning science as value free, and lacking connection to te ao Māori especially in phases One to Three.
“Science knowledge has been separated into two main strands – the Physical sciences (Physics and Earth and Space) and Biological Sciences (Biology and Ecology). It is worth mentioning that landforms, natural hazards and volcanoes are now placed in the geography section of the Social Sciences curriculum. The 2007 document had a strand known as the Nature of Science, this is no longer a major focus, but aspects of it can be seen in the purpose statement. There is return to the science capabilities, in terms of Investigate, Evaluate, Communicate and Apply scientific knowledge. Of concern, Climate change has been removed from the final version; this was present in the 2025 draft.
“Rather than focusing on what students learn, this curriculum focuses on what teachers are required to teach in terms of knowledge and scientific practices. This means that for each year level, teacher need to teach the facts, concepts and theories around a specific science concept, like ‘pushes and pulls affect the movement of all objects’. In addition, they must teach specific skills strategies and application like ‘predicting’. There is better cohesion between the different levels in the final version, with learning being developed over time.
“While teachers know what is required to be taught, there is less opportunity to make learning relevant. One important change between the October 2025 draft document, and 2026 version, is the acknowledgement of the expertise of teachers in making teaching ‘alive’ by connecting science to the local context and communities. This may go some way to mitigate the lack of connection to te ao Māori and Pacific knowledge systems in the document.
“While clear direction is useful, the sheer volume of facts to be covered is problematic in terms of teacher workload. Having such a large number of facts could have the unforeseen consequence of teachers ‘covering’ the curriculum rather than teaching for meaning. Which in turn suggests to learners that science is knowing facts lessening the importance of the science capabilities. Therefore, it is pleasing that the science curriculum can be phased in over 2027, as planning for 2027 is already underway, and time is needed to ensure teachers are comfortable with the content and delivery.”
“I have not worked on the New Zealand science curriculum. However, I have been part of a working group for a recently released White Paper from the Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA) entitled Science Education: Fit for the future.”