Pathways to school and kura
Content from pages 51–58 of Te Whāriki: Early Childhood Curriculum
Te manu e kai ana i te miro, nōna te ngahere; te manu e kai ana i te mātauranga nōna te ao.
The bird who partakes of the miro berry owns the forest; the bird who partakes of education owns the world.
Learning is a journey that begins before birth and continues throughout life. Each part of the education system has a responsibility for supporting children (and the adults they become) on this lifelong journey of exploration. Kaiako and new entrants teachers support children by affirming their identity and culture, connecting with and building on their funds of knowledge and having positive expectations for their learning.
Young children look forward to going on to school or kura, and they expect it to be different, but they do not always anticipate quite how different the expectations, structures and routines may be. By working together, kaiako, new entrants teachers, parents and whānau (and, where involved, specialist support services) can support children’s learning continuity as they make this crucial transition.
Content sections
- A similar vision
- Te Whāriki and The New Zealand Curriculum
- Te Whāriki and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa
- Te Whāriki and Te Aho Matua
- Links by strand to The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa
- Supporting transitions
A similar vision
Te Whāriki, The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa all have a similar vision for young people.
Te Whāriki aspires for children to be
"competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make a valued contribution to society."
The New Zealand Curriculum, a curriculum for English-medium schooling, has a vision for young people who are
"confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners and who in their school years will continue to develop the values, knowledge and competencies that will enable them to live full and satisfying lives."
Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, a parallel curriculum for Māori-medium schooling, aspires to develop
"successful learners, who will grow as competent and confident learners, effective communicators in the Māori world, healthy of mind, body and soul and secure in their identity and sense of belonging. They will have the skills and knowledge to participate in and contribute to Māori society and the wider world."
Te Whāriki and The New Zealand Curriculum
There are close parallels between Te Whāriki and The New Zealand Curriculum. In both, learning is seen to take place in the space between what the educational environment offers and the knowledge and experiences that children bring with them.
The two curriculums are based on similar principles and have similar approaches to valued learning. Like Te Whāriki’s weaving of principles and strands, The New Zealand Curriculum views the curriculum as a weaving together of different elements:
"Schools may ... decide to organise their curriculum around ... values, key competencies, or learning areas and deliberately weave the other two through their programmes ... [or] around central themes, integrating values, key competencies, knowledge, and skills across a number of learning areas."
In Te Whāriki, learning dispositions and working theories are seen to be closely interrelated. The same is true of the key competencies and learning areas in The New Zealand Curriculum. In both cases the approach to learning recognises the need for a ‘split screen’ pedagogy that maintains a dual focus on the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ of learning.
The New Zealand Curriculum groups understandings about the world in learning areas such as science, mathematics and the arts; in Te Whāriki, these are woven through the strands (for example, while mathematics is explicit in communication and exploration, it is also implicit in other strands).
While the key competencies are all tightly interrelated and woven in complex ways into the learning areas, it is nevertheless possible to identify many links between The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Whāriki. The following tables points to some of the ways in which the key competencies, values and learning areas of The New Zealand Curriculum build on the learning outcomes of Te Whāriki. These can serve as a starting place for exploring curriculum connections in more depth.
Te Whāriki and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa
Both Te Whāriki and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa envisage a culturally competent child who is able to move confidently between te ao Māori and te ao Pākehā.
Both documents are grounded in a holistic view of human development that encompasses the attributes that complete the child: te tinana, te hinengaro, te wairua and te whatumanawa. These attributes are interwoven as in a whāriki and interdependent like the parts of the harakeke plant.
Te Whāriki acknowledges that, for Māori, the child is a link to the world of the ancestors and to the new world, connected to people, places, things and the spiritual realm; they belong to whānau, hapū and iwi and they are a kaitiaki of te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Te Marautanga o Aotearoa aspires for all graduates of Māori-medium education to have high levels of educational, social and cultural success, a wide range of life skills, and a wide range of career choices. As in Te Whāriki, the principles of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa are strongly connected to te Tiriti o Waitangi; the learner is the centre of teaching and learning; they have a wide range of life skills, a high level of personal awareness, and achieve their potential; school, whānau, hapū and iwi and community work together; environmental health is personal health. The principles lead to values and attitudes. Each kura will work with whānau, hapū, iwi and community to define the values and attitudes that matter.
Te Whāriki and Te Aho Matua
Te Aho Matua is a philosophical document that sets out the principles underpinning kura kaupapa Māori. These principles relate to six areas: te ira tangata (the human essence), te reo (language), ngā iwi (people), te ao (the world), āhuatanga ako (circumstances of learning) and te tino uaratanga (essential values).
Like the principles that underpin Te Whāriki and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, those in Te Aho Matua derive from a holistic view of human development and envisage young people who:
"... develop free, open and inquiring minds alert to every area of knowledge which they choose to pursue in their lives; become competent thinkers, listeners, speakers, readers and writers in both Māori and English ... delight in using their creative talents ... manifest self-esteem, self-confidence, self-discipline and well-developed qualities of leadership ... manifest physical and spiritual well-being ... are secure in the knowledge of their ancestral links to the divine source of all humanity; are high achievers who exemplify the hopes and aspirations of their people."5
5. For further information see the Ministry of Education’s website.
Links to The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa
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Strand 1: Wellbeing | Mana atua
Learning outcomes
Over time and with guidance and encouragement, children become increasingly capable of:
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Keeping themselves healthy and caring for themselves | te oranga nui
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Managing themselves and expressing their feelings and needs | te whakahua whakaaro
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Keeping themselves and others safe from harm | te noho haumaru
The weaving
The weaving
Local curriculum design involves a complex weaving of principles and strands (Te Whāriki), values, key competencies and learning areas (The New Zealand Curriculum) as children and young people engage in learning experiences.
Local curriculum design involves a complex weaving of principles and strands (Te Whāriki), values and learning areas (Te Marautanga o Aotearoa) as children and young people engage in learning experiences.
Examples of New Zealand curriculum links to Wellbeing | Mana atua
Examples of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa links to Wellbeing | Mana atua
Key competency: Managing self
For example, students have a ‘can do’ attitude and see themselves as capable learners. They are enterprising, reliable and resilient, set personal goals and have strategies for meeting challenges.
Learning area: Health and physical education
Students learn about their own wellbeing, and that of others and society, in health-related movement contexts.
Learning area: Social sciences
Students explore how societies work and how they can participate and take action as critical, informed and responsible citizens.
Values
Individual learners develop values and attitudes that help them to identify and understand their own personal values and beliefs.
Learning area: Hauora (waiora strand)
Students will explore and learn about food and nutrition that sustain the physical body, and explore the notion of sustenance that contributes to the wellbeing of mind and spirit. Students will also describe, consider and analyse aspects of personal growth and development, safety and safe practices.
Learning area: Hauora (tangata strand)
Students will describe and analyse human relationships in a variety of contexts, both personal and those of others.
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Strand 2: Belonging | Mana whenua
Learning outcomes
Over time and with guidance and encouragement, children become increasingly capable of:
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Making connections between people, places and things in their world | te waihanga hononga
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Taking part in caring for this place | te manaaki i te taiao
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Understanding how things work here and adapting to change | te mārama ki te āhua o ngā whakahaere me te mōhio ki te panoni
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Showing respect for kaupapa, rules and the rights of others | te mahi whakaute
The weaving
The weaving
Local curriculum design involves a complex weaving of principles and strands (Te Whāriki), values, key competencies and learning areas (The New Zealand Curriculum) as children and young people engage in learning experiences.
Local curriculum design involves a complex weaving of principles and strands (Te Whāriki), values and learning areas (Te Marautanga o Aotearoa) as children and young people engage in learning experiences.
Examples of New Zealand curriculum links to Wellbeing | Mana whenua
Examples of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa links to Wellbeing | Mana whenua
Key competency: Participating and contributing
For example, students have a capacity to contribute appropriately as a group member, make connections with others and create opportunities for the group. They have a sense of belonging and the confidence to participate in new contexts. They understand the importance of balancing rights, roles and responsibilities and contributing to the quality and sustainability of social, cultural, physical and economic environments.
Learning area: Social sciences
Students explore how societies work and how they can participate and take action as critical, informed and responsible citizens.
Learning area: Science
Students explore how both the natural and physical world and science itself work so that they can participate as critical, informed and responsible citizens in a society in which science plays a significant role.
Values
The learner understands the values of their whānau, hapū and iwi, enabling access to the Māori world. They also know their identity and origins.
Learning area: Tikanga ā-iwi
Students develop their knowledge and understanding of peoples’ interactions with places and environments and how people sustain the environment.
Learning area: Hangarau
Students investigate their own world, explore the beliefs and values of people and the use of natural materials in past and present times. They carefully consider the values and beliefs reflected in a solution in order to understand the outcome of relationships.
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Strand 3: Contribution | Mana tangata
Learning outcomes
Over time and with guidance and encouragement, children become increasingly capable of:
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Treating others fairly and including them in play | te ngākau makuru
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Recognising and appreciating their own ability to learn | te rangatiratanga
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Using a range of strategies and skills to play and learn with others | te ngākau aroha
The weaving
The weaving
Local curriculum design involves a complex weaving of principles and strands (Te Whāriki), values, key competencies and learning areas (The New Zealand Curriculum) as children and young people engage in learning experiences. Local curriculum design involves a complex weaving of principles and strands (Te Whāriki), values, key competencies and learning areas (Te Marautanga o Aotearoa) as children and young people engage in learning experiences. Examples of New Zealand Curriculum links to Contribution | Mana tangata
Examples of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa links to Contribution | Mana tangata
Key competency: Relating to others
For example, students interact effectively with a diverse range of people in a variety of contexts. They learn to listen actively, recognise different points of view, negotiate and share ideas.
Learning area: Health and physical education
Students learn about their own wellbeing, and that of others and society, in health-related movement contexts.
Learning area: Learning languages
Students learn to communicate in additional languages, develop their capacity to learn further languages, and explore different world views in relation to their own.
Values
Individual learners develop values and attitudes of empathy and regard for friends and for the school whānau.
The learner works cooperatively with peers and in groups.
Learning area: Hangarau
Students examine the values and beliefs of other cultures or people to adapt solutions accordingly and to determine and understand practice.
Learning area: Hauora (tangata strand)
Students will describe and analyse human relationships in a variety of contexts, both personal and those of others.
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Strand 4: Communication | Mana reo
Learning outcomes
Over time and with guidance and encouragement, children become increasingly capable of:
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Using gesture and movement to express themselves | he kōrero ā-tinana
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Understanding oral language and using it for a range of purposes | he kōrero ā-waha
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Enjoying hearing stories and retelling and creating them | he kōrero paki
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Recognising print symbols and concepts and using them with enjoyment, meaning and purpose | he kōrero tuhituhi
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Recognising mathematical symbols and concepts and using them with enjoyment, meaning and purpose | he kōrero pāngarau
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Expressing their feelings and ideas using a wide range of materials and modes | he kōrero auaha
The weaving
The weaving
Local curriculum design involves a complex weaving of principles and strands (Te Whāriki), values, key competencies and learning areas (The New Zealand Curriculum) as children and young people engage in learning experiences. Local curriculum design involves a complex weaving of principles and strands (Te Whāriki), values, key competencies and learning areas (Te Marautanga o Aotearoa) as children and young people engage in learning experiences. Examples of New Zealand Curriculum links to Communication | Mana reo
Examples of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa links to Communication | Mana reo
Key competency: Using language, symbols and texts
For example, students work with and make meaning of the codes in which knowledge is expressed. They learn that languages and symbols are systems for representing and communicating information, experiences and ideas.
Learning area: English
Students study, use and enjoy language and literature communicated orally, visually or in writing.
Learning area: Mathematics and statistics
Students explore relationships in quantities, space and data and learn to express these relationships in ways that help them to make sense of the world around them.
Learning area: The arts
Students explore, refine and communicate ideas as they connect thinking, imagination, senses and feelings to create works and respond to the works of others.
Learning area: Learning languages
Students learn to communicate in additional languages, develop their capacity to learn further languages, and explore different world views in relation to their own.
Values
Individual learners develop values and attitudes which lead to a desire to participate in all school learning activities, whether by contributing ideas, reading or listening.
Learning area: Ngā toi
Students investigate, use, develop knowledge of and explain how physical movement and the voice are used and applied in a wide range of dramatic contexts.
Learning area: Pāngarau
Students explore the use of the patterns and relationships seen in aspects of quantity, sets of data, and space and time.
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Strand 5: Exploration | Mana aotūroa
Learning outcomes
Over time and with guidance and encouragement, children become increasingly capable of:
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Playing, imagining, inventing and experimenting | te whakaaro me te tūhurahura i te pūtaiao
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Moving confidently and challenging themselves physically | te wero ā-tinana
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Using a range of strategies for reasoning and problem solving | te hīraurau hopanga
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Making sense of their worlds by generating and refining working theories | te rangahau me te mātauranga
The weaving
The weaving
Local curriculum design involves a complex weaving of principles and strands (Te Whāriki), values, key competencies and learning areas (The New Zealand Curriculum) as children and young people engage in learning experiences. Local curriculum design involves a complex weaving of principles and strands (Te Whāriki), values, key competencies and learning areas (Te Marautanga o Aotearoa) as children and young people engage in learning experiences. Examples of New Zealand Curriculum links to Contribution | Mana aotūroa
Examples of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa links to Contribution | Mana aotūroa
Key competency: Thinking
Students use creative, critical and metacognitive processes to make sense of information, experiences and ideas. Intellectual curiosity is at the heart of this competency.
They develop as competent thinkers and problem solvers who actively seek, use and create knowledge, ask questions and challenge the basis of assumptions and perceptions.
Learning area: Science
Students explore how both the natural and physical world and science itself work so that they can participate as critical, informed and responsible citizens in a society in which science plays a significant role.
Learning area: Technology
Students learn to be innovative developers of products and systems and discerning consumers who will make a difference in the world.
Learning area: Health and physical education
Students learn about their own wellbeing, and that of others and society, in health-related movement contexts.
Learning area: Mathematics and statistics
Students explore relationships in quantities, space and data and learn to express these relationships in ways that help them to make sense of the world around them.
Values
Individual learners develop values and attitudes of understanding, awareness and aptitude in all learning as a guide into the contemporary world.
The learner understands the values of their whānau, hapū and iwi, enabling access to the Māori world.
Learning area: Pūtaiao
The student will gain competence in the skills of research, experimentation, investigation and problem solving.
The student will develop scientific literacy as well as physical, ethical and cognitive competence.
Learning area: Hangarau
Students will explore and investigate properties of materials within each context of learning. They will also consider processes and production systems within technologies. These are reflected in the designs and plans produced by students.
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Supporting transitions
Kaiako recognise and show where and how children’s early learning connects with the key competencies, values and learning areas of The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa. At the same time new entrants teachers will be aware of the principles and strands of Te Whāriki and deliberately build on the foundations that have already been laid.
The New Zealand Curriculum is explicit about supporting transitions in the coherence principle, where the expectation is that curriculum “... provides for coherent transitions and opens up pathways to future learning”.
A later section in The New Zealand Curriculum expands on the implications for teachers:
The transition from early childhood education to school is supported when the school:
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fosters a child’s relationships with teachers and other children and affirms their identity
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builds on the learning experiences that the child brings with them
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considers the child’s whole experience of school
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is welcoming of family and whānau.
For Māori the whānau is the ideal social unit for raising children. Relationships between whānau members span generations. Children inherit the legacy of the past and they reach for the future. This past-present-future relationship can be seen in Te Whāriki, Te Marautanga o Aotearoa and the principles of Te Aho Matua: as the child learns in kaupapa Māori settings, relationships at each stage will continue to take account of the past, present and future.
Kaiako have a responsibility to maintain and strengthen the relationship between Te Whāriki and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa and – for those associated with kura kaupapa Māori – the principles found in Te Aho Matua. If each part of the sector nurtures its relationship with the others, a stronger, more cohesive collective is the result, and children can expect to experience joined-up transitions between settings.
Given that children do not have to attend school until they are six years old, there can be some flexibility and overlap in the use of Te Whāriki and the curriculum documents for school and kura.
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