A good suggestion someone at our Kura had was that instead of year by year teaching topics their should be a phase focus as this would then support more multilevel teaching classes - which is the nature of lots of schools within NZ.
The New Zealand Curriculum - Technology (Oct 2025)
Single Strand in Years 0-6 Design, Make, and Innovate: Focuses on design processes and making simple outcomes. It develops students’ understanding of how ideas are explored, tested, and refined to meet needs and how design choices affect people and environments. Progressive focus within this strand at each phase Y0-3 - Teaches Support Students = Observations and simple making Y4-6 - Teachers guide students to be more purposefully creative = Purposeful design and digital integration Y7-8 - Students engage in rigorous Design processes = Authentic needs and multistrand integration Years 7-8 moves to 4 strands (all to be covered), and then to 5 strands in years 9 & 10 (must do at least 2 strands) |
P What are the positives of your learning area? | M What are the negatives of your area? | I What parts do you find interesting? |
Design Make Innovate is the single strand from years 0-6 and then branches off into further substrands in intermediate & secondary school - Personally I think this process is more simplistic than previous Technology version but yet still requires that human cultural and technological impact to be a lens to design,make and innovate using. - This human aspect is specifically still written into the curriculum (Sustainability, Ethics and social change are woven within) Computational thinking still integrated early in teaching sequence (but with unplugged focus) Computation thinking a big drive from Y7 Lots of links to play make create too. Designed so that the complexity of tools increases as students progress through year levels. (But some discussion around specific tools especially in younger years e.g. needling before scissor use??? Tools and examples are not indicative but to be used as starting points to spark ideas - BUT … the downside is that will people go outside of these as they are already quite full on? - Maybe we could unpack what we already do and see what we are doing that fits already.   | Digital Technologies* not included until year 6. THIS IS - Too little too late when students are already coming to school digitally literate. Students need to be taught Cybersafety all the way through and this is NOT allowed for in this curriculum. - Also a big mismatch with KEN as the cyber safety is a big push from year 0. PARENTS are not teaching cybersafety at home and therefore students are coming to school with misconceptions on this and these need to be managed early! Lots creating accounts, signing up for things and giving out personal information to outside people even before coming into schools Digital tools in classrooms can be used earlier successful and this is reflected in many schools already without loosing focus on the basics (and it in fact adds depth to the hour a day process for schools. Schools who are doing this well will continue to do so as it works for both students, whanau and teachers. This means that the learning that students are required to do in year 6 is ALREADY DONE and is actually very short sighted of the curriculum. Limiting a curriculum as ‘some students in NZ’ don’t have devices is short sighted - The approach to not teach any basics until year 6 is perhaps again too little to late. There would be VERY FEW students outside of school who do not have access to digital devices - so learning to use them as TOOLS for learning as opposed to just Toys should be key to all key stakeholders in education.
Resourcing, storage and maintaining equipment required for each year level. These can be expensive and therefore need storing between use, and schools will need to factor in replacement and repairs. Lots to cover in an already time poor curriculum and Technology if done well needs to go through several rounds of ‘design, make, innovate’ on a single project to truly reflect this process and embed it into practice. Lots of stuff being presented and taught at year 4 is what students have been learning about in year 7 & 8 - Are they developmentally ready for this? The amount of time required to teach means that a surface level of these skills will be taught and may not be revisited frequently to ensure that are embedded into students schema of learning (that spin off or surface or indepth) Looking at the MOE plan on time allocation (we have been told we don’t have to use this model but do have to stick with it - teach 1 hour a day of reading, writing and maths LOL so when factoring in quality learning in other curriculum areas this is a miss match (as with all other curriculum areas) All Strands and areas must be covered IN FULL through to year 8 and then only meeting minimum requirements from year 9. Specific people to focus on and do case studies on as part of a year by year technology focus may not fit the design processes you (as a teacher) are covering and to do it as described is ‘extra’. Should this be so stipulated or should this be up to teachers to choose someone to focus on based on the technological problems/focuses they are covering. | Digital devices “not required” until year 6 - Instead some things can be taught through unplugged activities. Don't say you can’t use it. Äll knowledge and practices can be covered with or without the use of digital devices. Opportunities to integrate with other curriculum areas but to do indepth this is not enough Shifts from 2017 Curriculum to 2025 (mostly structural and progressional)
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