Learning+areas

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Overview of all learning areas:


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=Learning Areas in the School Curriculum=

Values, key competencies,and learning areas in the School Curriculum
The New Zealand Curriculum identifies values to be encouraged and modelled and to be explored by students, key competencies that students will develop over time and in a range of settings, and learning areas that describe what they will come to know and do. Schools need to consider how each of these aspects of the curriculum will be promoted and developed in teaching and learning. They can do this in different ways. Schools may, for example, decide to organise their curriculum around one of these three aspects (values, key competencies, or learning areas) and deliberately weave the other two through their programmes. Alternatively, they may decide to organise their curriculum around central themes, integrating values, key competencies, knowledge, and skills across a number of learning areas. Or they may use another approach or a combination of approaches. The values, competencies, knowledge, and skills that students will need for addressing real-life situations are rarely confined to one part of the curriculum. Wherever possible, schools should aim to design their curriculum so that learning crosses apparent boundaries.

Learning areas
The learning area statements (pages 18–33) describe the essential nature of each learning area, how it can contribute to a young person’s education, and how it is structured. These statements, rather than the achievement objectives, should be the starting point for developing programmes of learning suited to students’ needs and interests. Schools are then able to select achievement objectives to fit those programmes. None of the strands in the required learning areas is optional, but in some learning areas, particular strands may be emphasised at different times or in different years. Schools should have a clear rationale for doing this and should ensure that each strand receives due emphasis over the longer term. Links between learning areas should be explored. This can lead, for example, to units of work or broad programmes designed to: • develop students’ knowledge and understandings in relation to major social, political, and economic shifts of the day, for example, through studies of Asia and the Pacific Rim; • develop students’ financial capability, positioning them to make well-informed financial decisions throughout their lives.

Future focus
Future-focused issues are a rich source of learning opportunities. They encourage the making of connections across the learning areas, values, and key competencies, and they are relevant to students’ futures. Such issues include: • sustainability – exploring the long-term impact of social, cultural, scientific, technological, economic, or political practices on society and the environment; • citizenship – exploring what it means to be a citizen and to contribute to the development and well-being of society; • enterprise – exploring what it is to be innovative and entrepreneurial; • globalisation – exploring what it means to be part of a global community and to live amongst diverse cultures.

PAGE 38 THE NEW ZEALAND CURRICULUM [|Curr -TEXT_040.pdf] PAGE 39 THE NEW ZEALAND CURRICULUM [|Curr -TEXT_041.pdf]

http://www.ppta.org.nz/index.php/resources/curriculum-support/curric-resources/cat_view/147-curriculum-resources/163-learning-areas--subjects