Video & Transcript: Unpacking the Draft Science Learning Area (Year 9-10)

For kaiako who couldn’t make the Science Years9-10 (draft content) presentation "Unpacking the Draft Science Learning Area "on 4 December 2025, Bay Science has transcribed the session alongside the presentation slides.

Watch the Recording

Transcript: Unpacking the Draft Science Learning Area

• Sections in green relate to the Science learning area.

• Click on any of the slides to navigate the slide deck left or right.

	Kia ora koutou. It's 3:30, and I'm going to start this webinar on Unpacking Science Years 9 to 10 of the New Zealand Curriculum, Te Mātaiaho. Kia ora. Welcome to the presentation. Ko Catherine Law toku ingoa, he tumuaki o Te Kura Kohine o Ōtākoro. I'm Catherine Law. I am actually the principal of Avonside Girls High School, but I am delivering this webinar today because I was a member of the Curriculum Coherence Group, and currently I am seconded into the ministry to work on the 11 to 13 group. So, welcome to any of you that I have spoken to before. There is no chat or question and answer function in this presentation format. If you have any questions, note them - down towards the end of the presentation, a slide will explain where to send your questions and how to get feedback. I'm going to open the presentation today with a karakia. This karakia was gifted to us by Doctor Wayne Ngata. Wayne is pleased to see us continuing to use Te Mātaiaho, and Māori Ministry Advisory group has backed our approach with Te Mātaiaho going forward. Karakia (spoken as presented).
	What this presentation will cover today: Developing a New Zealand curriculum; What's in the curriculum? A closer look at science. A bit about reporting to parents and smart supports for teachers. And what you can do now.
	Our strength in national curriculum is knowledge-rich, grounded in the science of learning, and nationally consistent so that we can enable learners to get a world leading education wherever they go to school. The New Zealand curriculum was made clearer and easier to use, supporting teachers to raise achievement and reduce the equity gap. By introducing greater direction and clearer progressions to the national curriculum. It provides greater clarity for teachers about what to teach and how and when to teach it from Years 0 to 13. This ensures our national curriculum is internationally comparable and focused on excellence, providing New Zealand students with the knowledge, skills and capabilities to thrive in the workforce and in society.
	The ministry's definition of a knowledge rich curriculum refers to a curriculum that clearly specifies what students are expected to know and be able to do for every learning area and year level. It supports mastery over time by providing content that is carefully selected, sequenced, and coherent to make sure that students build deep, transferable understandings.
https://vimeo.com/1131494347?fl=pl&fe=sh	NB: Even though this video was part of the webinar slides it was not played. However, it was streamed during the Y0-8 video.
	We've been on quite a journey, as you know, developing the draft curriculum over the last 18 months – at the bottom of this diagram, you can see that we have things through a couple of iterative stages of content development. This framework is drafted drawing on research evidence, academic papers, other jurisdictions and good practice pedagogy consulting with international and national academics and curriculum design experts. The Ministry of Education writing teams develop the content with input from and collaboration with teachers and school leaders and subject matter experts from the sector and academia. Then, the content goes through a continual review and refinement involving subject matter, expert sector representatives, focus groups, consultation with school leaders and teachers – and that's what we're up to right now, before the sign off from the Coherence Group, and finally by the Minister. Formal release of the full and final curriculum. Then we publish the approved curriculum and a package of support materials, including what you told us and how we responded, reports summarising what we heard and the actions we took to respond to that feedback. So as you can see, the content goes through quite a lot of stages drafting, review, reviewing, refining before it is finalised.
	The main objective of schooling in New Zealand is to support every student to attain the highest possible educational achievement and to grow a love of lifelong learning. This whakapapa here has been reframed as a system approach. All these components are connected and work together to bring about change. There are seven components, each component building from the stem ‘mātai’ meaning to observe, examine and deliberately consider. The whakapapa starts with Mātairangi; that’s the guiding kaupapa. It lays out what it is that we're all intending to achieve here. So this is about reflecting Te Tiriti o Waitangi, excellent and equitable outcomes. It's about having high expectations, and it's about knowledge rich learning that's informed, inclusive and informed by the science of learning. Mātaitipu, our vision to put ambition and achievement at the very heart of the education system so that it is aspirational, equitable and deeply inspiring, where lifelong learning is a journey, and every student is empowered to fulfill their unique potential. Mātainuku. This is about making sure all students are developing capabilities, literacy, and mathematics that are essential to support lifelong learning. These capabilities are holistic attributes that help students adapt to and apply learning in diverse contexts. For example, self-management, problem solving, and creativity. These capabilities are now embedded in and across the knowledge and practices of each learning area - I'll touch more on these again, Mātaiaho, within Mātaiaho is the place where our learning areas sit. That's where you will see the teaching sequences in each of the learning areas.  Mātaioho signals the important role of teachers and leaders in bringing the curriculum to life in schools and classrooms using evidence-informed pedagogies and practices that enable all students to access the full scope of the curriculum and progress in their learning. Mātairea is about progress, and a focus on progress requires high quality assessment information to be used to inform the development and implementation of teaching and learning programs, communicate student progress and achievement to parents, and monitor and evaluate how well the school is supporting every student to progress and achieve across the curriculum.  And one of the key aspects of Te Mātaiaho is Mātaiahikā, and that’s the connections with whanau, the connections with community connections with hapū, and how they are made with the school to connect the learner to the communities, their family and whanau.
https://vimeo.com/1138303521?fl=pl&fe=sh	Graeme Aitken has been involved in the work on this curriculum for some time, and he's going to talk about the changes to the Understand-Know-Do or what we call the UKD framework, and why we've changed the structure to be what it is now. Video plays Tēnā koutou. My name is Graeme Aitken. I’m a member of the Curriculum Coherence Group. On the release of the English and Maths learning areas, many were asking: what has happened to UKD — Understand, Know, Do — and it’s a fair enough question. The interwoven strands diagram and the colourful UKD progress outcomes had gone. So why did this happen? UKD originated in the design of the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum. The use of a small set of overarching big ideas — the “understands” — worked well for that curriculum, as did the framing of the “do’s” around the practices of thinking like an historian. At the time, we saw the value of UKD as an organising framework for curriculum. So when, as a member of Ohu Arataki, I became involved with the refresh of other learning areas, I was committed to retaining the UKD structure. But even in those early days, as we began to work with other areas, we found it hard to disentangle the “understands” and the “knows”. Retaining the UKD framing was becoming apparent as a lot of work for a single subject. History was not as easily or meaningfully transferable to learning areas comprising multiple subjects, strands, and elements. The understand–know distinction was especially challenging for writing teams. During the initial refresh, they certainly wrote the big ideas about each learning area, but to keep them at a high level and distinct from the “know”, they became more expressions of the nature, purpose, and value of the learning area — conceptual framings that had characterised Aotearoa New Zealand Histories. As a member of the Curriculum Coherence Group for the new curriculum, I was keen to continue to work with Understand–Know–Do, the UKD structure, but I found the same challenges emerging that we experienced in the refresh. Especially writing “understands” that lived consistently with what we learned. And outside of New Zealand Histories, we found that the “understands” carried more meaning when expressed at the strand — in other words, at the subject level. So you will still see some of them retained within the learning area structure section of the new curriculum. For example, in Mathematics and Statistics: “Algebra develops students’ understanding of how patterns and relationships can be represented using symbols, graphs, and diagrams.” But even these are at a high level. It is really through the interaction of the “knows” and the “do’s” that the most meaningful understandings emerge — not in their prior determination at the overarching level of the learning area. This brings us to now. And today, each learning area sets out a year-by-year teaching sequence, organised around knowledge and practices. The knowledge is clearly defined — now shifted from a separate box at the start of each phase, and organised instead in a year-by-year sequence within the strands and elements of the learning area. These “knows” incorporate both factual content and content at the level of broader understanding. But why change “do” to “practices”? There are two main reasons why this happened. First, as we found with Aotearoa New Zealand Histories, the subjects or disciplines that contribute to each learning area are characterised by particular ways of working and thinking. So, for example, working and thinking as an artist, a musician, an athlete, a scientist, a mathematician, and so on. These ways of working are more than isolated acts of doing — they are connected practices. And so we thought the idea of “disciplinary practices” was a more accurate representation than could be captured by the word “do”. We were also concerned that the word “do” naturally generated an outcome-based frame — what students can do — rather than a teaching frame for what teachers need to teach. So in summary: while the visibility and convenient shorthand of the UKD structure is not as apparent, the underlying idea of knowledge and practice interacting to develop student understanding hasn’t changed. It is just that the process of working with learning areas over a number of years has led to a re-organisation to locate the understanding–knowledge–practice relationship at the level of the teaching sequence — the level at which most teachers will work. Thank you, Graeme, and we want to thank Graeme for his work, in producing this video for us.
	So let's talk about the learning area structure. The design of the knowledge rich curriculum is essential in bridging the knowledge gap. It is nationally consistent and explicit. At the top, we begin with the core principle, a knowledge rich curriculum that is underpinned by the science of learning, meaning that it's designed around how students learn best. This curriculum is structured across all learning areas, as you'll be aware. English, mathematics and statistics, science of course, technology, social sciences, learning languages, the arts and health and physical education – and each learning area includes a purpose statement which explains why the knowledge matters and identifies key conceptual understandings. The curriculum is organised into year by year teaching sequences with clear expectations for what students learn, and teachers teach at each year. Within each learning area there are knowledge strands which group related knowledge and practices into distinctly disciplinary foci - disciplinary knowledge, content, concepts, and understanding, and disciplinary practices which are the way students engage with and apply that knowledge.  Then, through this design, students also develop capabilities; capabilities are broad, holistic attributes that enables students to adapt, apply and transfer their learning and diverse and changing contexts that encompass knowledge, skills, dispositions, values and attitudes and are embedded within and across the knowledge and practices of each learning area. So together, this structure ensures deep, coherent and transferable learning across all subjects and all year levels. And I'll now go into the detail for the science Learning area.
	The new learning area content is of course much more detailed than in 2007. So to get an overview of the complete learning area content quickly and succinctly, these first few pages make great starting points. The whakatauki, the purpose statement and the learning area structure and the introduction.
	The Learning Area whakatauki. Mā te whakaaro nui e, hanga te whare; mā te mātauranga e whakau. By great thought the house is built; by knowledge it is made firm.
	The purpose statement is here for you to have a look at. It captures these important ideas. Science gives students knowledge and skills to explore the physical and biological world. Students learn to observe, ask questions, investigate, analyse data, and communicate using scientific conventions. Science is evidence-based and shaped by inquiry, critique, and social and cultural contexts. Scientific knowledge evolves through multiple studies and requires well-supported explanations. Science is collaborative and iterative, valuing innovation, evidence-based descent(?). Students apply disciplinary knowledge and practices to real world phenomena, and science is a human endeavor influenced by diverse times, places, and cultures, including Te ao Māori perspectives.
	The first paragraph of the introduction summarises the learning journey across Years 0 to 10, and this describes why the science is important and how it contributes to a student's education. It captures the enduring big ideas in science that students develop understanding of over the years, and it sets out the content for teaching and learning programs. Each subsequent paragraph focuses on one phase of learning. So, for example, in years 9 to 10, teachers guide students to apply scientific knowledge and practices to increasingly abstract and disciplinary contexts.
	The learning areas structure. This page provides descriptions of the two strands. They are physical science, which focuses on matter, energy, forces, motion, earth and space systems. It builds understanding of how physical systems behave and interact, and how reasoning and modeling explain and predict phenomena. Biological science focuses on organisms, body systems, genetics, ecosystems, and biological processes. It builds understanding of how living systems function and change, and how science connects to health, sustainability and biodiversity.  These strands are broken down into elements. Physical science; the elements are materials, chemical reactions, matter interactions and energy, motion and forces, Earth systems, Earth and space. Biological science breaks down into organism diversity, body systems, and ecosystems. Within these elements, there are: knowledge, the core concepts of physical and biological sciences; the practices, skills such as observing, questioning, investigating, analyzing, and communicating scientifically; and then contexts, real world applications and cultural perspectives, including Te ao Māori. Key things to notice about the structure are that teaching is organised by strands and elements, but teachers have flexibility to adjust order, emphasis, and context to meet their learners' needs. Knowledge and practices are integrated, ensuring students supply scientific ideas through inquiry and real world investigations. Human stories and cultural perspectives, including Te ao Māori, are embedded to enrich understanding and engagement.
	The knowledge statements and the practice statements are designed to be used by kaiako and kura to create learning programs for ākonga that build coherent conceptual, procedural, and cognitive understanding. The application of weaving together the knowledge and the practices should be the starting point for planning units, lessons by kaiako and kura to then apply contextual and pedagogical approaches that are appropriate and are engaging for their ākonga and communities. So next we'll have a look at an example of the knowledge and practices from year nine and ten, physical science strand, and the matter element.
	The knowledge statements are not extra content. They make explicit what students need to know to be able to carry out the practice. The practices emphasise inquiry skills like observing, questioning, analyzing data. Teachers have flexibility to adapt the sequence to their learners, adding relevant contexts.  In this example, the knowledge about elements, molecules, and compounds are provided while the practices here are focusing on observation of macro scale, providing examples of pure substances in everyday life, as well as analysing standard chemical symbols to distinguish and interpret that information. Interpreting provided chemical formulas to identify the number of atoms of a given element in a compound.  The pedagogical delivery in a classroom with these knowledge and practice statements could be applied in a variety of different ways.
	So what to notice as you look at the science curriculum, you will notice that the Nature of Science strand is no longer a separate component. Instead, it's key aspects such as inquiry, evidence based reasoning and science communication are embedded within the practices for each element and each year level. These practices are designed to align with recognised cognitive development models, including Piaget stage of cognitive growth and principles from the science of learning. They support progressive schema building by introducing skills and strategies at developmentally appropriate stages, ensuring that students can integrate new knowledge effectively. The practices are not an additional set of tasks, and nor are they exhaustive. Rather, they represent core skills, strategies, and applications that should be explicitly taught alongside the knowledge statements. They provide a framework for how students engage with scientific ideas through investigation, modeling, and reasoning. While all these practices are connected to the suggested context, experienced teachers can adapt them to alternative contexts as needed, maintaining coherence within the intended learning progression.
	Importantly, the curriculum explicitly embeds diverse perspectives, including Te ao Māori to enrich scientific thinking. This learning will not be left to chance. Additionally, explicit references to integrated teaching opportunities are signaled where prior knowledge or a cross learning area connection have been identified as not to be missed learning. You will notice the explicit reference of mātauranga Māori within the teaching sequence that supports the learning of science. This example has the year nine and ten ecosystems element highlighted in blue. Throughout the teaching sequence, you will notice references to prior learning, connections between different elements within the sequence, and links to other learning areas. These references are highlighted in yellow. They are not exhaustive, but they do signpost opportunities for integration within and across the learning areas.
	Throughout this teaching sequence, you'll also notice examples of influential scientists and inventors. These individuals represent a wide range of times, places, and perspectives. Some are living today, shaping the progress of our collective scientific understanding. Others come from ancient civilizations, reminding us that science is a human endeavor, and it has developed and continues to develop over time. It is part of the human story. These examples are not just about theories or discoveries. They are about people, values, and impacts. These stories can help students see science not just as a tool, but as part of a bigger conversation about people and possibilities.
	Agriculture and horticulture provide rich, real world context that teachers can use to apply science knowledge and practices across the curriculum. These contexts are particularly well-suited to the biological science strand, where concepts such as plant structure, reproduction, growth, and ecosystems can be directly linked to agricultural and horticultural practices. For example, understanding photosynthesis, nutrient cycles, and soil composition can be explored through crop production or garden systems. Similarly, scientific practices like investigating, modeling, and predicting can be embedded in activities such as testing soil quality, monitoring plant health, or evaluating sustainable farming methods. Using these contexts help students to see the relevance of science in everyday life, and support some learning that connects theory with practical application.
	Similarly, the draft curriculum introduces three key changes to Earth and space science. First, the planet Earth and beyond strand now sits within the physical science strand under the Earth system and Earth and space elements. Secondly, the social sciences learning area now includes geological, geo morphological and some earth systems content. Third, astronomy remains in the curriculum, but is now explicitly detailed and distributed across phases to align with guidance from the science of learning.
	Lastly, the curriculum has addressed outdated energy concept models that incorrectly classified energy transfer mechanisms, for example, light, sound, heat, electricity as energy forms or types, and use misleading notions such as flow. Leaving these misconceptions uncorrected risked reinforcing inaccurate ideas and student understanding. The revised curriculum now reflects contemporary physics concepts like clearly distinguishing energy forms from the ways energy is transferred or transformed. These updates support a more knowledge rich approach to science education help futureproof students' conceptual understanding of energy. They are evident in updated descriptions of energy concepts across all disciplines.
	The refreshed curriculum framework provides guidance to help schools plan teaching time across some learning areas. This time allocation advice in the curriculum framework reflects what many schools are already doing in practice. Schools retain flexibility to make decisions that best suit their learners and local context. And of course, for those of us in the secondary sector, some of this is already organized within the way timetables happen in secondary schools, and much of the hours in particular, are specified for primary and intermediate.
	There are lots of really useful resources to help you lead and to share with your staff for examples, videos, templates and posters, type in Roadshow into the search in Tāhūrangi for all the roadshow products. These include an overview of science at the various levels, and then an example of an annual plan for science, and then taking one of the topics showing what a unit plan might look like. These are examples only, might be useful for you to use as an example when looking at how you might plan in science.  Next year, we intend to make more curriculum resources available. For example, learning kits that align with unit plans, providing guidance teachers need to deliver the lessons that make up the unit. Curriculum overview products, timetabling, learning area narratives and curriculum intent products, example exemplars and templates for annual and term plans, unit and weekly plans, and an online tool to support teachers planning. Teacher only days and curriculum day materials will be available shortly for Term 1 2026.
	Te mātaioho and mātairea sections of the framework signal the important role of teachers and leaders in bringing the curriculum to life in schools and classrooms. The section provides useful direction on planning for coherent and effective learning, teaching with clarity and purpose, underpinned by the science of learning, creating responsive learning environments. And this image from mātaioho also shows the dynamic relationship between curriculum, teaching and assessment.
	So what can you do now? We encourage you to become familiar with the Science Draft Learning Area in the upcoming months. Take a look at the FAQs and resources on the roadshow area of Tāhūrangi. You can find these by typing Roadshow into the search or into the drop down menu under implementation supports in the top navigation strip. The video recording of this presentation will be published on Tāhūrangi in a few days. Just go to the New Zealand Curriculum Online page and select the Unpacking the NZC Learning Areas presentations title on the latest news carousel.  And, we will be inviting teachers and schools to participate in the in-class trialing of the draft learning areas in Term 1 next year, so keep an eye out on Tāhūrangi and the Bulletin for school leaders for more information.
	I acknowledge that this session has packed in quite a lot, and thank you so much for your time. If you have questions, please email to our National Curriculum and refresh mailbox at NationalCurriculum.Refresh@education.govt.nz And when you've had a good look through the draft science learning area and to match it all and are ready to share your feedback or suggestions on it, there is a form on Tāhūrangi to complete. The consultation closes on Friday the 24th of April.
	Thank you so much for listening today. Especially at the end of term for most of you, and please do use the resources that are available to you and please do provide feedback on the available links. Kua hikitia te kaupapa, Kua takoto te wero, Me hoe tahi i runga i te whakaaro kotahi, Tiaki tō tāua oranga Kia kaha ai mo te tuku taonga Kia tutuki ngā hiahia mō Ka Hikitia Tihei mauriora! Ki te whai ao! Ki te whao oranga e! Mauriora! I wish you all the best, for your, holiday breaks. Kakite.