New Zealand ECE teachers talk about Te Whāriki

Abstract

This article presents a group of nine New Zealand early childhood teachers’ understandings of aspects of their educational planning and practice related to the implementation of the national curriculum document – Te Whāriki. We discuss one of the research questions: What are New Zealand teachers’ understandings of learning, knowledge and strategies in their educational work with children and planning, and how is this related to the national curriculum? To conclude our
discussion some of the main findings in this study are briefly related to findings in two parallel, and independent, studies carried out in Sweden and Norway (Alvestad, 2004a, Alvestad & Berge, 2009).