Science Curriculum Years 0-10: What Changed Between August and the Gazetted November 2026 Release?
With the Science Curriculum Years 0-10 now officially gazetted in November 2026 under the Education (The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa) National Curriculum Statement 2026, kaiako and science departments across Aotearoa are asking what actually changed since the "finalised" August release.
Rather than cross-checking 32 pages of curriculum tables line by line, Bay Science has compiled a visual comparison overlay resource for kaiako and kura. By layering transparent PDFs of the August 2026 and November 2026 documents on top of one another—just like two overhead projector transparencies—any updated areas where text edits, removals, or layout shifts occurred immediately show up as scrambled text.
See our analysis here:
Most changes between the August and November documents appear to be minor proofreading fixes, but there are important updates to the front, a complete swap of the Year 7 and Year 8 Ecosystems practices, and several wording refinements across Phases 1 to 4.
We hope this comparison resource saves your department and kura valuable planning time as you prepare for 2027. If you spot any other details or want to share your whakaaro with the wider science education community, get in touch with us anytime.
Also, don't miss the following updates:
Refinements made to the NZC (via Tāhurangi, Nov 5).
National Curriculum Statement 2026 gazetted (Tāhurangi, Nov 5)
The document 'Climate Change in the Year 0-10 New Zealand Curriculum' has also been replaced (Nov 5?) with one small fix: Year 6 is no longer listed under Phase 3. This follows an AEC x BSc webinar (Nov 4) where the typo was identified.
PS: Did you know that we send out a free weekly newsletter to your inbox? Sign up using the form below and check out last week's edition here.
Comments