LEARNING AT SCHOOL

Our Learning

At Te Kura o Puhinui we follow Te Mātahaio / NZ curriculum.  

The curriculum is currently undergoing a refresh with subjects being updated over a five year implementation period. 

As of February 2025, Warkworth School has been implementing the Refreshed English and Mathematics and Statistics Curriculum.


Currently the NZ Curriculum covers eight learning areas:

English  |  Mathematics and Statistics  |  the Arts   |  Learning Languages  |   Health and Physical Education  |  Science  |  Social Sciences - this includes NZ Histories |  Technology

Read more about the Refreshed NZ Curriculum here.

Read more about the English Curriculum here

Read more about the Mathematics and Statistics curriculum here

Phases of learning: 

The curriculum is divided into phases of learning with year level descriptors for each phase of learning. 

Teachers plan appropriate learning experiences that best suits the learning needs of the students in their year groups. Our communities use flexible grouping to ensure that students are being catered for.

Within the Primary years the curriculum is divided into two phases with three year levels within each phase.

Phase 1 : First 6 months, Year 1, Year 2 ,Year 3 

Phase 2:  Year 4, Year 5, Year 6 

A requirement of the Refreshed Curriculum is that all students complete one hour of Reading, Writing and Mathematics during the school day. 

Our school follows the BSLA structured literacy approach and we currently use Oxford Mathematics to support our rich mathematics programme.

Our teachers are kept at the forefront of best practice teaching and learning and personalise the learning to best cater for the needs of the students in our school context.

Currently, our local context provides us with opportunities to make learning real and meaningful by connecting it to experiences that are within the experiences of our learners and to utilise these experiences to cover all of the learning areas within Te Mātahaio / NZ curriculum.    These experiences are based on their world which is situated in the Rodney District within Auckland City, and connected to mana whenua - Ngāti  Manuhiri, then radiates beyond this to our country, Aotearoa | New Zealand, and into our global community.

Using the Rodney District and Ngāti Manuhiri as a starting point means including local resources and resource personnel to anchor new learning.


  • Concern about the state of their local playground led to a collaborative planning project to upgrade the playground on Shoesmith Reserve.

    The perspective of our student users was embraced by the Council planning team and the development, currently in progress, incorporated a range of their ideas.

    The experience reinforced their self-belief as empowered learners who can make a difference to their lives and the lives of others.

  • Wanting to build a ‘Little Library’, a group of young learners in Year 2 sought the help of The Men’s Shed in Warkworth to build three little libraries to place in community locations as a means of gifting books to homes and encouraging home reading.

    This collaborative project was the culmination to learning in the social sciences strand of the curriculum.

  • Understanding Matariki requires an understanding of some science concepts about the planet earth, the solar system and the constellations.

    It also requires an understanding of te ao Māori and the impact of the celestial bodies on the horticultural activities of tangata whenua.

    Our teachers linked to this learning, in the first instance with Dr Ihirangi Heke, Ngāti Manuhiri, and then to Star Lab, to strengthen their understanding of these important concepts.

  • A programme of learning about the Leigh Marine Reserve (which includes snorkelling tuition) so that learners can see for themselves the impact on marine life of having a reserve, thus triggering their commitment to becoming thoughtful kaitiaki (guardians) of our marine environments, wherever they may live in the future. 

Our School Context

Our school context includes utilising innovative learning practice and making the best use of our innovative learning environments. Each learning environment has different types of spaces with different types of furniture to support a variety of styles of learning.

  • Small breakout spaces for quiet, contemplative individual work.

  • Wet areas for creative, construction projects and visual artworks.

  • Larger spaces with collaboration tables for collaborative learning.

  • Tiered seating spaces for demonstrations and celebrations of learning.