How does the past shape who we are today? This includes networks and connections and the stories woven into people’s diverse identities. You will learn about the social and cultural importance of community, heritage, traditions, knowledge and values.

Students learn about how people perceive, represent, interpret, and interact with places and environments. We will explore the economic, cultural, and recreational significance of places for people. How do communities seek to enhance liveability with the resources they have available?

You will learn how societies organise systems and rules to create unity and order, roles and responsibilities related to these systems and rules, and the impact of them on people’s freedom and experience of justice. It explores how people exercise their rights and responsibilities and participate in acts of citizenship.

Students learn about the ways in which people participate in economic activities and about the consumption, and production of goods and services which result in exchanges and interconnections. You develop an understanding of how economic decisions affect individuals and communities and can result in national and global consequences for equity and for people’s wellbeing.

Students will understand big ideas such as how colonisation and settlement have been central to Aotearoa NZ's histories for the past 200 years, how Maori history is the  foundational and continuous history of NZ and how the course of Aotearoa NZ's history has been shaped by the use of power.