Curriculum integration

Social Sciences | English | Science | Technology

Living Heritage provides a learning opportunity that reflects the following vision and principles of The New Zealand Curriculum.

• independent and lifelong learning;
• valuing New Zealand's different cultures and experiences, traditions, histories, and languages.

Living Heritage provides schools with a curriculum-based activity, integrating information and communications technology (ICT) into a number of curriculum areas, including:

• Science
• Social Science
• Technology
• English and Language

Living Heritage also incorporates the following Key Competencies:

• Thinking
• Using language, symbols and texts
• Managing self
• Relating to others
• Participating and contributing

Living Heritage fits into classroom programmes because:

• it can be used as an ICT component;
• it promotes interaction, mentoring, and resource-sharing in the classroom, in the school, and between schools;
• it preserves and displays students' work worldwide.

Relevant curriculum strands and aims

Click here for the English or Maori curriculum documents.

Social Sciences

Aim

The social sciences learning area is about how societies work and how people can participate as critical, active, informed, and responsible citizens. Contexts are drawn from the past, present, and future and from places within and beyond New Zealand. See Social sciences curriculum achievement objectives

Strands

Achievement objectives for social studies at levels 1–5 integrate concepts from one or more of four conceptual strands:

• Identity, Culture, and Organisation
• Place and Environment
• Continuity and Change
• The Economic World

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English

Aim

Literacy in English gives students access to the understanding, knowledge, and skills they need to participate fully in the social, cultural, political, and economic life of New Zealand and the wider world. To be successful participants, they need to be effective oral, written, and visual communicators who are able to think critically and in depth. See English curriculum achievement objectives

English is structured around two interconnected strands, each encompassing the oral, written, and visual forms of the language. The strands differentiate between the modes in which students are primarily:

• making meaning of ideas or information they receive (Listening, Reading, and Viewing)
• creating meaning for themselves or others (Speaking, Writing, and Presenting).

The achievement objectives within each strand suggest progressions through which most students move as they become more effective oral, written, and visual communicators. Using a set of underpinning processes and strategies, students develop knowledge, skills, and understandings related to:

• text purposes and audiences
• ideas within language contexts
• language features that enhance texts
• the structure and organisation of texts.

Students need to practise making meaning and creating meaning at each level of the curriculum. This need is reflected in the way that the achievement objectives are structured. As they progress, students use their skills to engage with tasks and texts that are increasingly sophisticated and challenging, and they do this in increasing depth.

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Science

Aim

The fundamental aims of science education are expressed as a series of achievement aims, grouped by strand. (For these, see the Science curriculum achievement objectives) The achievement objectives at each level are derived from the aims and are similarly grouped by strand.

Strands

The learning area comprises five strands:

• Nature of Science
• Living World
• Planet Earth and Beyond
• Physical World
• Material WorldAim

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Technology

Aim

The aim is for students to develop a broad technological literacy that will equip them to participate in society as informed citizens and give them access to technology-related careers. They learn practical skills as they develop models, products, and systems. They also learn about technology as a field of human activity, experiencing and/or exploring historical and contemporary examples of technology from a variety of contexts.

Technology is associated with the transformation of energy, information, and materials. Technological areas include structural, control, food, and information and communications technology and biotechnology.

Relevant contexts can be as varied as computer game software, food products, worm farming, security systems, costumes and stage props, signage, and taonga. See Technology curriculum achievement objectives

Strands

The learning area comprises three strands:

• Technological Practice
• Technological Knowledge
• Nature of Technology

Teaching and learning programmes will integrate all three, though a particular unit of work may focus on just one or two.

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