Minister announces curriculum timelines for schools and kura
13 June 2024
The Minister of Education has provided information about the timing for updating the national curriculum – The New Zealand Curriculum for English medium, and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa for Māori medium.
Both The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa (TMoA) are being updated and made available in phases, and schools and kura have until the beginning of 2027 to start using the fully refreshed national curriculum.
Timelines
- Term 1, 2025: Schools and kura must teach the updated English and Te Reo Rangatira curriculum for Years 0 to 6, and maths and pāngarau for Years 0 to 8.
- Term 1, 2026: Schools and kura with Years 7 to 13 must teach the updated English and Te Reo Rangatira curriculum and mathematics and statistics and Pāngarau for Years 9 to 13. Requiring the use of these learning areas and wāhanga ako in 2026 will give secondary schools lead-in time for implementation. The Ministry will work with NZQA to make sure NCEA achievement standards only assess content that is in the updated national curriculum.
These timelines have been updated to reflect the latest government announcement.
The fully updated national curriculum, including all the other learning areas, wāhanga ako and subjects, will be available for all schools and kura to use throughout 2026, giving a full year of implementation support before it’s officially required from 2027.
To make sure teachers and kaiako have time to focus on maths and pāngarau, the Minister of Education has also agreed that the timeline for the new science and technology curriculum will be pushed out. This will now align with other learning areas – draft curricula will be available for use and open for feedback in Term 3, 2025. Teachers and kaiako in years 7-13 for English and te reo Rangatira and in years 9-13 for maths and pāngarau can still expect to see drafts of this material this year for feedback.
More information about the updated timelines and direction for the national curriculum is available here:
Please note this version has been updated on 14 June 2024 to correct an error in the timeline for Te Marautanga o Aotearoa on page 2.
Other changes
- Evidence-based teaching practices will be included in the national curriculum, sitting alongside the knowledge, skills, and capabilities being taught.
For Years 11 – 13, learning areas and wāhanga ako will be broken out into subjects to more clearly align with NCEA achievement standards and senior secondary programmes of learning.
More detail about the New Zealand Curriculum Refresh
More detail about Te Marautanga o Aotearoa redesign