Weaving Te Whāriki: Aotearoa New Zealand's Early Childhood Curriculum Document in Theory and Practice

NEW EDITION WILL BE AVAILABLE FROM 20 FEBRUARY 2013. View details

When the Ministry of Education released the draft version of Te Whäriki, Aotearoa New Zealand's early childhood curriculum document, in 1993, the early childhood community greeted it with enthusiasm. This was a remarkable achievement on the part of the writers of the document, given that the idea of a single national 'curriculum' for New Zealand's diverse early childhood services was practically unheard of until the late 1980s.

Weaving Te Whäriki draws together current perspectives on Te Whäriki, ten years after it was first disseminated. The book's chapters tell the story of its early development and some of the ways it has been used, as well as raising important questions about its ongoing potential in a culturally and pedagogically diverse early childhood sector. The book includes writing by some of the original writers of Te Whäriki, as well as perspectives from beyond New Zealand, reflecting the impact Te Whäriki has had on ongoing debates about early childhood curriculum internationally.

Early childhood teachers and teachers in training, teacher educators, and other academics will all find Weaving Te Whäriki a timely and scholarly source of ideas about Te Whariki and about early childhood curriculum in general.

Joce Nuttall is a senior lecturer in the School of Professional Development at the Christchurch College of Education. Her research mainly focuses on in-service teacher professional development in early childhood education, particularly teacher cognition and teachers' understandings of early childhood curriculum.