Contexts

Ideas for using different contexts as a way to shape your history programme. Each context gives ideas for teaching and learning, as well as useful resources, NCEA assessment exemplars, and video stories from iwi, New Zealand history teachers, and secondary students.

The Treaty

Te Tiriti o Waitangi is New Zealand’s founding document, and as such, it should underpin any programme development. For some classes however, you may chose the Treaty itself as a focus of study. There is an abundance of rich resources available to students and teachers to support this study. It provides an opportunity for students to examine the long-term consequences…

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Resistance and conflict

Māori history is marked by a great deal of conflict, and by resistance, active and passive, to colonial action. It is likely that conflict and resistance will have affected the local community at times, and the local community will have had connections to conflicts at national and global levels.

For students, local landmarks and natural resources are a foundation for looking…

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Place

Using a place-based approach to learning acknowledges that history occurs in a specific local context. Even events that are seen as globally or nationally significant will have different effects and consequences at a local level.

A place-based approach helps students to develop new perspectives on where they are and allows them to personalise their historic learning. They have an opportunity to…

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Iwi and local history

Developing a programme around iwi and local history allows students to make a real connection to who they are. For all students, a connection to the community, land, and people of the past gives them a sense of identity, belonging, and connection to where they are now.

Iwi or hapū historians are able to provide perspectives that may not be found…

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