Lesson Plans

Start your first lesson on exploring the significance of ANZAC Day and how New Zealand remembers the Great War and its consequences. This Powerpoint offers presenter’s notes to help teachers plan lessons and covers a range of topics in manner seeking to spark discussion in the classroom. You can download the presentation by clicking this button below.

In collaboration with Defyd Williams and John Thurston, we are pleased to share with teachers lesson plans targeting each year group.

Click the left button to go to the lesson planner and the right button to access the shared drive which contains further useful information.

Curriculum Links

In Response to the New Curriculum:

The parts of the curriculum we chose to focus on: (taken from the Y’s 9-10 pages, specifically ‘Changing views on conflict’ and the ‘Do’ sections https://aotearoahistories.education.govt.nz/years-9-10/know#18-75)

• ‘Responses that reflected personal or public views, such as volunteering, conscription, the Māori Battalion, Cook Islands and Niue contributions to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the First World War.’

• ‘Essential jobs in Aotearoa New Zealand and who did them them – nursing, auxiliaries, military intelligence, the home front, and peacekeeping.’

• ‘Objections to participation (for example, conscientious objection and protests) views about participation (for example, by Sir Apirana Ngata and Te Puea Hērangi).’

• ‘How have different groups of people in our community responded to the international conflicts that Aotearoa New Zealand has been involved in?’

• ‘What kinds of jobs were these people doing?’

• ‘I can identify the attitudes and values that motivated people in the past and compare them with attitudes and values of today.’

• ‘I can use historical sources, giving deliberate attention to mātauranga Māori sources, to gather evidence to answer my questions about the past. I can identify views that are missing and note how this may affect my answers.

• I can construct an historical sequence of related events and changes, show how long ago they happened, and say how other people might construct the sequence differently.

• We also considered the strong emphasis on local history in the new curriculum.

Our Action (note that the text below contains hyperlinks, taking you to the specific parts of our site which respond to curriculum objectives):

‘Responses that reflected personal or public views, such as volunteering, conscription, the Māori Battalion, Cook Islands and Niue contributions to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the First World War:’ & ‘How have different groups of people in our community responded to the international conflicts that Aotearoa New Zealand has been involved in?’

• Our critical thinking page discusses Maori resistance to conscription as well as reasons why Māori soldiers volunteered to participate. Various important figures in this debate amongst Maori are referenced including: Te Puea, Kenana, Pōmare and Ngata.

• A number of our personal stories feature Māori soldiers. We use these stories to discuss other relevant aspects of the war. Some of these stories feature archetypical characters created from the stories of a number of real individuals, others are purely the stories of real people. One of our stories features a New Zealand soldier who was conscripted, through his story, we are able to discuss this issue and feature an activity for students.

• One of our soldiers in the personal stories section was part of the occupation of then German Samoa.

• Another story asks students to assume the role of a nurse attempting to convince her parents to be allowed to volunteer to serve.

• One of our educational resources discusses the origins of the war and New Zealand’s obligations as part of the British Empire.

‘Objections to participation (for example, conscientious objection and protests) views about participation (for example, by Sir Apirana Ngata and Te Puea Hērangi).’

• As previously referenced, there is a section on Māori views regarding participation in the Great War, from both the pro-participation camp and those against.

‘What kinds of jobs were these people doing?’ – our personal stories section explores the roles of a variety of people during the war.

• There is an extensive section on the personal stories of people involved in the Great War in different roles. Many soldiers are featured, from varying backgrounds. Stories also feature a nurse, a pilot and a decorated pioneer. One story also features a German perspective which serves as an interesting basis for comparison regarding motivations for participation.

• An extensive section seeks to illustrate ‘Life at War.’

‘I can identify the attitudes and values that motivated people in the past and compare them with attitudes and values of today.’

• Various parts of our website point to a wide range of motivating values for New Zealanders in the past. This is mostly in the context of their participation in the Great War. Responses to the Great War from New Zealanders today are also present on our Educational Resources page and our Community page. The impacts of New Zealand’s participation in the Great War are also explored in significant detail in the NCEA section, both in the sources booklet download and the exemplar essay.

• Several primary sources are also featured in our recommended readings, many of these books provide an insight into the minds of New Zealanders who participated in the war directly.

‘I can use historical sources, giving deliberate attention to mātauranga Māori sources, to gather evidence to answer my questions about the past. I can identify views that are missing and note how this may affect my answers’ & ‘I can construct an historical sequence of related events and changes, show how long ago they happened, and say how other people might construct the sequence differently.’

As mentioned, primary sources are featured on the site or students are referred to them by us. These sources come from a variety of perspectives, both Māori and non-Māori. The site uses a variety of approaches to achieve this. We include Māori music and imagery, references to Māori artwork and carvings and many other forms of expression. Songs like the one below add some colour to the story and bring learners closer to their history.

An awareness of narrative and perspective is built through the trial of Field Marshal Haig page which aims to highlight how historical figures can be viewed as heroic of villainous for different reasons. This page shows how emphasising certain events and developing a sequence or story based on different evidence can result in different perspectives.

A specific effort is made to get students to think about how certain information and perspectives can be excluded from historical narratives in the sources booklet in the NCEA section.

Again, Maori perspectives are mentioned on the page pertaining to their participation in the Great War, of particular relevance is then then recent nature of the colonial New Zealand Wars (in living memory), which is highlighted in this section.

The strong emphasis on local history in the new curriculum:

• Monuments activity, students are instructed on how to take a name and number from their local war memorial and tell the story of the soldier it represents. This aims to help students develop research skills and make a first-hand contribution in telling their local community’s history.

• If this is not possible for local community schools, students can assist in the ‘citizen science’ effort called ‘Measuring the ANZACs,’ which sees students transcribing primary sources and developing a profile on a randomly selected soldier or nurse. The incredible responses of students who engaged in this activity are shown on our website’s community page.

The Previous Curriculum (some skills that students can learn here may still be relevant):

The strands we chose were:

Place and Environment

Aim: Students will understand:
people’s interaction with places and the environment;
The ways in which people represent and interpret place and environment

Time, Continuity, and Change

Aim: Students will understand:
relationships between people and events through time;
interpretations of these relationships

ACHIEVEMENT OBJECTIVES:

Level Three:
How different groups view and use places and environment;
How and why people express a sense of belonging to particular places and environments
How the actions of people in the past changed the lives of others;
How the past is recorded and remembered in different ways.

Level Four:
How places reflect past interactions of people with the environment;
why and how people find out about places and environments
causes and effects of events that have shaped   the lives of a group of people;
how and why people experience events in different ways.

Our action:

In terms of designing activities, we used the key competencies of the New Zealand curriculum as a framework.

Participating and Contributing:

• Discussing the five profiles as a class.

• Otto Schmidt's activity involves collaboration between students to immerse them in the setting of the war.

Managing Self:

• Every student ‘adopts’ an ANZAC through the ‘Measuring ANZACs’ site and conducts self directed research on them.

• Students are let loose on the internet and a teacher is relying entirely on their level of engagement on the site to stay on task and not open up another tab and become distracted. That is why this site has been set out to be as visually appealing as possible and interactive along with various challenges and fascinating sections that makes teachers jobs easier by enthusing students.

Thinking:

• Trial of Field Marshall Haig as a concluding activity, this also made the students think critically about the content and Haig's actions.

Relating to others

• Kahoot (team quiz). Laying a poppy for a World War One soldier online to Auckland cenotaph.

• Imagine you are one of the five profile characters. Imagine you are Hemi Maaka, lying in a hospital bed after your father has died. Write a diary entry about your experience. Write a letter home from Edith McLeod at Passchendaele. Write an obituary for Thomas Griffiths. Use the interactive tool below to see whether you would be conscripted, then write us a letter from the front. What is life like in the trenches? Did you see Hugh make his final walk into the Glencorse woods? Tell us your stories, share them on our social media sites. We shall never forget. Imagine you are Hugh Munce. Describe how you would have felt learning that you have been conscripted.

Using language, symbols, text:

• The various written response activities require this.