As I did for the consultation on the draft Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum, I’m publishing here an edited and abridged version of my submission on the draft Social Sciences curriculum, which includes History.
The Coalition Agreement commitment and the ERO report
I recognise that the current Government has a commitment, as part of the Coalition Agreement between the National and Act parties, to ‘restore balance to the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories’ curriculum. While I do not agree with this framing about the need to ‘restore balance’, and it is unclear exactly what this phrase is intended to mean, I suggest that the commitment does not require the wholesale abandonment of the previous curriculum.
I note first that the Coalition Agreement refers to changes to the existing curriculum, focused on Aotearoa New Zealand histories (ANZH), and not the replacement of the previous curriculum with one that features much more global content.
Second, the Cabinet paper that sought agreement to the changes to the ANZH curriculum cited the Education Review Office (ERO) report on implementation of the ANZH curriculum as both a reason for change and an indication of the need for ‘rebalancing’.[1] Others have been critical of the ERO report, but I am not in a position to assess its content. Instead, I want to highlight that the changes to the History curriculum do not in fact seem to be based on the findings of the ERO report.
For a start, the ERO report had many positive findings about the ANZH curriculum, which had been compulsory for less than a year at the time of the review. Where it found areas for improvement, these could have been accommodated through relatively targeted changes to the ANZH curriculum. Such changes could also have accommodated the Coalition Agreement’s requirement for ‘rebalancing’.
For example:
- The review found that it is important to retain a link to global contexts and events. As discussed below, this is entirely possible without losing the curriculum’s Aotearoa New Zealand focus.
- The review noted the need for clearer expectations about what needs to be covered. This could have been achieved without reaching the level of prescription in the new draft Social Sciences Curriculum.
- The review commented that schools were prioritising ANZH over other Social Sciences topics. This is a legitimate concern, and it seems appropriate to situate the History strand within the broader Social Sciences curriculum. However, far from creating space for the other parts of the curriculum, the new History strand seeks to cover more topics, while also covering numerous topics in the other Social Sciences strands.
In my view, the approach recommended in the ERO report and endorsed by Cabinet in December 2024 required only some relatively modest changes to the existing ANZH curriculum, not its complete replacement.
The approach of the draft curriculum
A key challenge for any national history curriculum is striking the right balance between prescription and flexibility, and between global, national and local contexts. There is also a balance to be struck between teaching about how we understand the past, and providing information about what happened in the past. While students should be encouraged to explore histories for themselves and to form their own opinions, the curriculum also needs to provide them with some basic intellectual and factual contexts within which to understand these histories.
However, I am concerned that the current draft of the Social Sciences Curriculum does not get these balances right. It includes too much factual content at the expense of learning about historical inquiry, and too much global history at the expense of Aotearoa New Zealand history.
‘Knowledge’ and ‘practice’
I recognise that this curriculum is part of a broader ‘knowledge-rich’ approach. However, history is not primarily a discipline about knowledge, if ‘knowledge’ means learning facts. History is about analysing evidence and developing evidence-based interpretations about what happened in the past and why.
Learning how to investigate and think critically about the past is fundamental to understanding history. I am pleased that the draft curriculum states that it ‘encourages curiosity about the past’, and that students will learn ‘practices’ (skills, strategies and applications) as well as ‘knowledge’. The ‘knowledge’ component of the draft curriculum is much more developed than the ‘practices’ component, however.
I believe the curriculum is wildly unrealistic in the amount of factual material teachers are expected to cover and students are expected to learn. It appears that students are to be stuffed with knowledge like foie gras geese, and it is hard to believe that much of this information will stick. The broadly chronological approach is also problematic, because it means that topics are not necessarily appropriately targeted to the age of the students.
It is worth noting that, while it appears that elements of the draft curriculum may have drawn on the curriculum in England, the English education system is potentially about to turn away from an overly narrow and prescriptive curriculum. The final report of the Curriculum and Assessment Review recommended, among other matters, that the UK Government make changes to the History curriculum to:
Support the wider teaching of History’s inherent diversity, including through the analysis of a wide range of sources and, where appropriate, local history. …
Ensure understanding of disciplinary knowledge is advanced and concerns about overload are tackled.[2]
Professor Rebecca Harris of the University of Reading, responding to the review, commented that:
The changes to the history curriculum are to be welcomed. …The intention to review the extraordinary amount of content that is required at GCSE is particularly welcome, given the challenges this presents for teachers and students – this should make it easier for everyone to better understand topics, rather than charging through them.[3]
Local and global histories
The draft curriculum has also moved away from the focus on Aotearoa New Zealand histories, and now includes a large amount of material on the histories of other countries. It is not inherently wrong for New Zealand students to learn about the histories of other places, including countries their ancestors may have come from. However, it is simply not realistic to try to cover the history of much of the world, while also covering the other three strands of the Social Sciences Curriculum.
It is essential that students growing up in Aotearoa New Zealand understand something about the history of the country in which they live. The purpose of mandating the teaching of Aotearoa New Zealand histories was to ensure that students would learn about and explore for themselves the events, people and social forces that shaped this country. The requirement to teach this history resulted from the petition of Ōtorohanga College students, who were shocked to discover how little they knew about events of the New Zealand Wars that had taken place not far from where they lived. I fear that, as a result of the shift to global histories, a new generation of students will grow up with a poor understanding of their own country’s history.
I recognise that the draft curriculum still includes much Aotearoa New Zealand content, but that content will now be swamped by a vast amount of non-New Zealand material. I am not arguing that the history of Aotearoa New Zealand should be seen in isolation from the rest of the world. On the contrary, it is essential that national and local histories be situated in their global context – but this should be from an Aotearoa-centric perspective. New Zealand’s histories have always been connected with those of the wider world, and from a starting point of their own country students can and should learn about how Aotearoa was bound into international systems by ties of migration, trade, war, empire, travel, and cultural and knowledge exchange. Learning about ancient Egypt or governance in Elizabethan England, however, is less important for New Zealand students.
Imperial history
I will not attempt a critique of the whole of the History strand of the draft curriculum, but will focus on one topic of interest to me, the history of empire.
I note for a start that the draft curriculum uses language that, consciously or not, reflects colonial attitudes towards indigenous cultures, such as the use of the terms ‘Stone Age’ and ‘civilisation/civilising’.
During Years 7 and 8, the draft curriculum includes specific topics relating to European imperial expansion. I have two concerns about this content.
First, it appears to sanitise the motivations for and impacts of empire. For example, imperial expansion is said to be ‘Motivated by missionary work, civilising ideals, and national prestige’, although the draft also acknowledges that European countries ‘Sought access to new markets, raw materials and secure trade routes’. I suggest that it is not controversial among historians to say that imperial expansion was primarily motivated by economic and national self-interest, including in the exploitation of the land, resources and labour of indigenous peoples. Notions such as ‘civilising ideals’, which in any case were imbued with a sense of racial superiority, were self-justifications but not motivations for imperial control. The draft curriculum also makes little mention of the impacts of imperial expansion on colonised peoples, or of indigenous resistance to colonisation (apart from a mention of the 1857 Indian Uprising).
Second, the draft curriculum fails to make connections between empire and Aotearoa New Zealand. Modern New Zealand grew out of imperial expansion, and New Zealand was fully integrated into imperial networks. Charlotte Macdonald’s 2025 Ockham-shortlisted book Garrison World: Redcoat Soldiers in New Zealand and Across the British Empire (which I understand is to be distributed in schools) illustrates these connections and networks beautifully. The discussion of the Transatlantic slave trade in Year 7, for example, could discuss how the slave trade and the Abolitionist movement influenced developments in Aotearoa New Zealand. New Zealand’s role as a colonial power in its own right in the Pacific could also feature more (though it is mentioned briefly in the topics for Year 10).
Making history engaging
I am also disappointed that the draft curriculum almost completely ignores the history of those things that bring meaning and pleasure to people’s lives, including the arts, sport, popular culture, religion, food, clothes, and social beliefs and practices. Topics such as these could be a great way of catching the attention and interest of students, while still illustrating bigger themes: for example, the history of sport can reveal much about gender, class, racism, national identity and international relations.
My biggest fear about the Social Sciences Curriculum is that students will be bombarded with facts, and will find history dull and dispiriting as a result. My greatest hope is that they will be inspired and excited to learn more about the past, and will carry this excitement through into their adult lives. A lot will depend on how the curriculum is taught and how it is made relevant at the local level. Sadly, however, due to the replacement of the previous curriculum, a lot of the work that has already gone into making the teaching of history locally relevant seems likely to have been wasted.
[1] ‘Aotearoa New Zealand histories and relationships and sexuality education’, paper for the Cabinet Social Outcomes Committee, December 2024; Education Review Office, Teaching Histories: Implementation of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories and the Refreshed Social Sciences Learning Area, 2024.
[2] Curriculum and Assessment Review (UK), Building a World-class Curriculum for All: Final Report, November 2025, p 86. Emphasis added.
[3] ‘Curriculum and Assessment Review: expert comments’, University of Reading, 5 November 2025. Emphasis added.
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