New Secondary Science Teaching Resources for the New Zealand Curriculum
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
The Ministry of Education has published a set of new resources to support the Year 9 Draft Science Learning Area, as well as other Learning Areas of the curriculum. Resources for Te Marautanga o Aotearoa will be released as they become available.
For science, the resources include:
An example of a Year 9 Annual Plan (2 pages)
A Science 'Learning Kit' (195 pages)
The Learning Kits are comprised of the annual plan above (2 pages), unit plan (13 pages) and lesson plans (181 pages).
Annual Plan
Unit Plan
Lesson Plan
At the time of writing, the Tāhūrangi website notes that the plans do not include all the details of the curriculum content, with more unit and lesson plans for more year levels being available over time.
Feedback on the Learning Kit
The Ministry is also inviting feedback on the learning kits. We have collated the survey questions below for convenience.
Prior to Question 10 below, a quick check of the feedback questions suggests that answering 'Not at all', 'Strongly Disagree' or 'Disagree' are the only means of revealing additional questions with room for comment and further elaboration. |
Which learning area's resources would you like to give feedback on today?
Did the structure of the annual plan make it easy to understand the year‑long overview?
Did the structure of the unit plan make it easy to understand the sequence of learning and key ideas?
Did the structure of the lesson plans make it easy to understand each lesson’s flow and teaching steps?
The content across the annual, unit, and lesson plans is high‑quality and supports a strong understanding of the refreshed curriculum.
The knowledge included in these resources is accurate, sufficiently rigorous, and appropriate for the year level.
The learning kit reflects diverse perspectives and supports inclusive, culturally responsive teaching
The amount of content provided is manageable and realistic to use in my school's teaching timetable.
Overall, the content across the annual, unit, and lesson plans is useful and supports effective planning and teaching.
What aspects of the resource content (annual, unit, or lesson plans) did you find most helpful or valuable?
What would you like to see more of in future versions of these resources?
Is there anything within these resources that you feel is unnecessary or unhelpful?
If you are open to being contacted for follow‑up feedback, please enter your email address.
Would you like to provide optional additional information about your school? If you answer No, the survey closes without the opportunity to review your responses. If you answer Yes, the questions below are prompted.
What type of school do you work in?
What size is your school's roll?
How would you describe the rurality of your school?
What is your role at your school?
Reminders for our readers:
Feedback on the draft science curriculum closes on April 24th, 2026.
Bay Science is still collecting your Initial Impressions on the draft science Learning Area to formulate an organisational level response. This will close on February 13th; however, we will also be providing our readers with the opportunity to contribute more specific and detailed feedback this term.
Bay Science has released our first bulletin, The Briefing, for 2026.
Comments