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Teachers at Awa, Rua and Niu all made frequent reference to multi-disciplinary perceptions of integration, whereas Pakirehua’s teachers viewed it as a less valuable form of integration.

Although the teachers at Niu College shared mixed perceptions of integration, they practised more consistently multi-disciplinary integration than any of the other schools. All lessons observed at Niu College were linked to the term’s school wide theme. All four learning areas made explicit and implicit links to this theme in all learning activities, as described by the teachers and Deputy Principal in their discussions. At Niu, multi-disciplinary integration is an integral part of the teaching and learning guidelines, which advise that “the curriculum learning areas will be covered in the context of individual units of work that relate to a school-wide theme each term” (p. 2). Each of Niu’s teachers and the Deputy Principal emphasised the value of making connections from each subject to a common theme, enabling coverage of “a range of achievement objectives from different curriculum areas, through teaching in English with links to what they’re learning in other areas”. They were also the only school that made an attempt to link to other learning areas not included in the integrated programme, also illustrated in the guidelines: “Specialist learning programmes develop the specific knowledge and skills relevant to the specialist learning area, while still making links to the learning that occurs in the integrated learning programmes of work” (p. 3).

Rua High’s teachers’ perceptions of curriculum integration were divided. Several staff showed a multi-disciplinary view of integration, and others a more trans- disciplinary view. The teachers at Rua that had a multi-disciplinary perception of integration made several references to the separate subject areas, with comments such as: “Making links between Science and Social Studies”; “You can use what you’ve learnt in Maths to do this thing in Science”; “You’ve got four teachers with different ways of looking at the world”. Those who had a more multi-disciplinary outlook at Rua reflected this to varying degree in their practice by attempting to link their teaching to the group’s agreed upon theme. Sophie described how “I will be ‘dancing around the theme’ for parts of our Light topic next term.” However, it appeared that not all of the groups of teachers at Rua had collaborated on a theme that had links to all four learning areas. I observed little or no reference to other learning areas or a theme in some lessons, despite the teachers attesting to do so in the focus group session: “We are referring to what is being taught in other subjects, and how this fits into what we are looking at in Social Studies,” (Vanessa), and “I look for links and connections with the agreed on theme/question,” (Charlie). After the focus group Rua’s teachers agreed with each other about how useful it had been to discuss the roots and philosophy of their programme as

a group, which they felt had helped them to clarify what integration meant to them. However, their uncertainty surrounding the future of the programme, due to recent changes in the senior management team (discussed further in section 5.3 and Chapter Six), could explain the less integrated practice at Rua High.

Awa’s perceptions of curriculum integration ranged from multi- to trans- disciplinary, but their practices reflected inter-disciplinary integration. When asked to describe curriculum integration there was an initial tendency across Awa’s teachers to depict a multi-disciplinary model where the content of several learning areas was linked to a context or theme, while still teaching the subjects discretely. Rose described curriculum integration as “coming up with a context and then looking at it within our subject areas. We come up with the idea and then link it.” This echoed Aroha’s view that, “it’s about making links between curriculum areas. You’re still teaching separate subjects - the skills and content of English and the skills and content of Social Studies - referring to both of those subjects in the other one.” The planning documents provided by Awa High reflect a multi-disciplinary model of curriculum integration, with the year’s teaching mapped out on a grid, linking each of the four learning area’s content to an overarching termly theme where possible. However, none of the observed teachers at Awa made reference to the other subject areas, or a theme, during the observed lessons. Awa High’s teachers’ perceptions of curriculum integration were more inter-disciplinary in nature than the other schools’. There was a collective belief that curriculum integration was as much concerned with how one taught as with what one taught, whereas pedagogy was not directly associated with curriculum integration by any of the other schools. Awa’s teachers and Principal were in consensus that the way they teach is the key element to their integration, which was evident in all data collected. Rose, one of the longest standing members of the programme, portrayed curriculum integration at Awa as:

Integrating through pedagogy – it’s the way that we teach. The way that we’ve used common strategies in our classrooms, has been really positive and has been a strength of [the programme] for a long time... the Maths, the English, the Science, the Social Studies teachers are all kind of [teaching] the same way. I think that’s really powerful.

Lily, a teacher at Awa, described that when integration was happening in her classroom “students are using different skills and knowledge from different curriculum areas to

accomplish a task”. Angela, another teacher at Awa, explained how “the head of department of Social Studies will tell me what I am doing in my Year Nine class next year ... then I plan my Year Nine English to make the skills link to that topic.... I’m set up right before the year even starts” These examples demonstrate Awa’s predominantly inter- disciplinary practice. This may also reflect that despite constraints on the level to which they can teach across learning areas, the teachers are still able to integrate through pedagogy.

Pakirehua College’s participants’ only reference to multi-disciplinary methods were to describe them as “disconnected“, “unpurposeful”, and “less cohesive”.