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Māori History Māori History in the NZ Curriculum

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Related resources

Resources you can use to shape a place-based programme of learning

  • Living Heritage: Identity
    The students at Waipaoa Station School in the Gisborne district have learned about who theyarethrough their pepeha or mihi and have researched a significant person and event from their local area. This is the first chapter of their trilogy on identity.
  • Māori prophetic movements – ngā poropiti
    Prophecy was part of traditional Māori society. It was practised by tohunga and matakite (seers). As Christianity brought by missionaries took hold, prophets combined Māori and Christian traditions.
  • Topic Explorer
    Curated sets of resources for schools on a selection of topics. Topics include: Anzac, Famous New Zealanders, Māori heroes, Leaders and people, Traditional Māori culture and customs, Treaty of Waitangi.
  • Primary sources galleries
    Image and video galleries on a range of themes, including: Māori, New Zealand culture and heritage, People, Places, Politics and government, War and remembrance.
  • High interest topics
    Curated collections of content and links suitable for the New Zealand curriculum on a range of topics, including: Famous New Zealanders, Gallipoli Campaign, Immigration to New Zealand – recent and historic, Māori history, Māori protocol, New Zealand and Samoa in World War One, New Zealand First World War battles, New Zealand’s 19th-century wars, Treaty of Waitangi.
  • Many Answers / Ngā Whakautu Maha
    A free online reference service for New Zealand school students, staffed by librarians. The site displays information from questions submitted by students, as well as “Hot topics” which give an overview of a topic and links to resources on topics such as, Māori, Pasifika and World War One.
  • National Library of New Zealand
    Searchable database of digital material and records relating to non-digital materials including books, journals, newspapers, images and oral histories.
  • Papers Past
    A searchable database of digitised New Zealand newspapers, magazines, letters, diaries, and parliamentary papers from the 19th and 20th centuries.
  • Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision
    Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision’s Film and Video Collection, predominantly of New Zealand material, consists of more than 160,000 moving image items dating from 1895 to the present day. Some material is accessible online. It includes EM and MM content. Teachers can contact them and they will put together a package of sound, video and archival material relevant to class topics.
  • Huia Histories of Māori, Danny Keenan, 2012
    This comprehensive history of Aotearoa New Zealand, written entirely from Māori viewpoints, using Māori customary structures, takes a fresh look at what Māori history is and how it is different from that formerly portrayed. As a post-colonial history, it provides a range of fresh views on events in the past.

    Written by sixteen Māori scholars, all specialists in their fields, the book covers histories of descent, the land, people, and autonomy and includes writing on customary law, ancestral law, the natural world, Māori urban protest, customary language, health, politics and cultural expression. The book is richly illustrated with over 100 photographs.
  • The New Oxford History of New Zealand, Giselle Byrnes (ed), 2009
    A snapshot of the state of historical scholarship in early twenty-first century New Zealand. It includes chapters by Atholl Anderson, Judith Binney, Jim McAloon, Roberto Rabel.
  • Tangata Whenua:  An illustrated history, Atholl Anderson, Judith Binney, Aroha Harris et al, 2014
    Charts the sweep of Māori history from ancient origins through to the twenty-first century. Through narrative and images, it offers a striking overview of the past, grounded in specific localities and histories.
  • What is a social inquiry? Crafting questions that lead to deeper knowledge about society and citizenship, Bronwyn E. Wood, in set 2013:no.3
    The 2007 New Zealand curriculum introduced the idea of a “social inquiry” in the social studies curriculum. However, it appears that the nature and purpose of a social inquiry is still unclear to many teachers. The purpose of this article is to clarify what a social inquiry is, to examine its origins within the social sciences, and to consider the contribution it can make to inquiry learning.

    The article draws on empirical data from a secondary-school-wide, local-community social inquiry. An analysis of the questions students and teachers asked in this social inquiry revealed that three broad types of learning outcomes were generated through this process: information-based, values-based, and citizenship-based outcomes. The article concludes by suggesting a number of ways social inquiry questions could be crafted to support informational and transformational/citizenship outcomes for social studies students. 

  • What's significant in our backyard? (PDF, 10.9 MB) 
    In this social studies unit, developed for year 11, students understand how the causes and consequences of past events that  are of significance to New Zealanders shape the lives of people and society, and how people’s perspectives on past events that are of significance to New Zealanders differ.

    Disclaimer: This unit has not been edited or quality reviewed by the Ministry of Education. It is an example of what groups of teachers have developed as they worked with local iwi on developing a resource for local schools, using local history.