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Future-Ready Capabilities: Building Adaptive Learners for a Complex World

Explore a uniquely Aotearoa-New Zealand framework developing six future-ready capabilities to equip learners for ecological, cultural, digital, creative, collective, and adaptive challenges in education and beyond. Featuring input from Kylie Horgan and Philly Wintle from the work each is doing in their respective school contexts.

Education◦

www.edrising.net
A movement,
not a moment
Setting the Scene

Background
Future-ready capabilities presents a new framework that emerged from the
conversations of a group of educators, researchers and business leaders at the
EdRising event held in Auckland in July, 2026. It comes from a starting point that is
uniquely Aotearoa-New Zealand. Rather than adapting an international model, it was
built from the ground up by people who brought their own professional knowledge and
cultural contexts to the task. The result is six capabilities: ecological thinking, cultural
fluency, digital wisdom, creative problem solving, collective agency and leadership, and
adaptive resilience. They’re attentive to the obligations of this place – to Te Tiriti o
Waitangi, to our Pacific identity, to the environmental realities we face – while still
holding onto the familiar ground of critical thinking, self-management, and
communication.

The conditions our young people will
need to navigate into the future….
• Climate and environmental disruption
• Geopolitical instability and global conflict
• Rapid technological and AI transformation
• Changing work and economic security
• Erosion of trust and threats to democracy
• Information abundance and complexity
• Growing inequity and social fragmentation
• Rapid social and demographic change

Five Pou
1. They provide the guardrails for system change
2. They keep transformation grounded in purpose,
place and people
3. They ensure innovation strengthens equity,
inclusion and belonging rather than widening
existing gaps.
4. They connect the different parts of the system
5. They create the conditions for people to adapt and
innovate
6. They help us design for the future without losing
sight of what matters most.
https://futuremakers.nz/thought-pieces/five-pou-future-education/

Future-ready capabilities
● Subjects give us knowledge; capabilities help us use
it.
● The future’s challenges cross disciplinary boundaries.
● New situations require us to transfer, connect and
apply what we know.
● Rapid change means learners must be able to adapt
and keep learning.
● Complex problems require judgement, collaboration,
creativity and agency.
● Education should prepare learners not only to know,
but to do, think, relate and act.
https://futuremakers.nz/thought-pieces/future-ready-capabilities/

Why these things matter
Our young people will inherit a world characterised by complexity, uncertainty and
accelerating change.
● Knowledge remains essential — but knowing is no longer enough.
Learners need the capabilities to connect, apply, question and create with what they know.
● The challenges they will face will not fit neatly within subjects, sectors or systems.
They will need to think across boundaries, work with others and navigate complexity.
● Their future cannot be predicted — so we must prepare them to shape it.
Agency, adaptability, creativity, critical thinking and sound judgement become essential.
● This requires more than changing the curriculum.
We need a system designed around relationships, inclusion, professional capability,
responsiveness and a shared sense of purpose.
● Our task is not to prepare young people for a future we can describe.
It is to equip them to thrive in — and contribute to creating — the future that emerges.

WEBINAR BRIEFING / FUTURES LABS
INFUSING
CAPABILITIES
INTO FUTURES
LABS
How futures literacy becomes a
practical framework for growing the six
future-focused capabilities.
→
✦

THE RELATIONSHIP
FUTURES LITERACY
IS THE METHOD.
The six capabilities describe the kind of learners,
organisations and communities the method is
designed to grow.
TOOLS
signals · scenarios
futures triangle · backcasting
prototyping
→
PRACTICES
notice · question
connect · imagine
choose · act · adapt
→
CAPABILITY
GROWTH
01
ECOLOGICAL
THINKING
02
CULTURAL
FLUENCY
03
DIGITAL
WISDOM
04
CREATIVE PROBLEM
SOLVING
05
COLLECTIVE
AGENCY
& LEADERSHIP
06
ADAPTIVE
RESILIENCE
✦

THE LAB PROCESS
SIX LENSES
INSIDE THE LAB.
The capabilities become lenses used repeatedly as learners move from noticing change to
acting with agency.
06
01
NOTICE CHANGE
Digital Wisdom
read signals and question
information
02
MAP SYSTEMS
Ecological Thinking
trace relationships and
consequences
03
ASK WHOSE
FUTURE?
Cultural Fluency
include worldviews, place and
power
04
IMAGINE
ALTERNATIVES
Creative Problem
Solving
generate possible and preferred
futures
05
CHOOSE + ACT
TOGETHER
Collective Agency &
Leadership
move from ideas to shared
action
06
REFLECT +
ADAPT
Adaptive Resilience
learn, adjust and keep going
NOT SIX SEPARATE LESSONS. SIX REPEATED WAYS OF SEEING.

LOCAL
TO
GLOBA
L
PATHWAY
✦
BEYOND THE CLASSROOM
FROM FUTURES LABS
TO LEARNING
COMMUNITIES.
The same six capabilities can become a shared
commitment across schools and public learning spaces.
SCHOOLS MUSEUMS GALLERIES
LIBRARIES COUNCILS COMMUNITY SPACES
Designed this way, Futures Labs can build evidence for a wider learning ecology:
inclusive learning, community learning, workplace links, wise technology use,
quality learning and a culture of lifelong learning.
UNESCO GNLC ALIGNMENT
Source: UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities Guiding Documents; Future-Focused Capabilities Framework.

APPLICATION / CONTEXT AS THE LAB
ONE EVENT.
SIX LENSES.
MANY POSSIBLE
FUTURES.
A current event becomes a Futures Lab learning opportunity
when learners move from reaction to inquiry to action.
WHAT CHANGES WHEN WE ASK...
Not only “what can we
learn?”
but “what should happen
next?”
ECOLOGICAL
What ripples beyond Earth?
CULTURAL
Whose Moon stories are missing?
DIGITAL
Who shapes the headline?
CREATIVE
How might we design better?
COLLECTIVE
Who gets a say?
RESILIENT
What systems help us adapt?
CONTEXT → CAPABILITY PRACTICE → WISER FUTURES

Agency isn’t just about ‘me’!
https://futuremakers.nz/agency-by-design/

Education as hope building
Hope is defined as the perceived
capability to derive pathways to desired
goals, and motivate oneself via agency
thinking to pursue those pathways

www.edrising.net
A movement,
not a moment
Setting the Scene
Thank You

Future-Ready Capabilities: Building Adaptive Learners for a Complex World

1.
www.edrising.net A movement, not amoment Setting the Scene
2.
Background Future-ready capabilities presentsa new framework that emerged from the conversations of a group of educators, researchers and business leaders at the EdRising event held in Auckland in July, 2026. It comes from a starting point that is uniquely Aotearoa-New Zealand. Rather than adapting an international model, it was built from the ground up by people who brought their own professional knowledge and cultural contexts to the task. The result is six capabilities: ecological thinking, cultural fluency, digital wisdom, creative problem solving, collective agency and leadership, and adaptive resilience. They’re attentive to the obligations of this place – to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, to our Pacific identity, to the environmental realities we face – while still holding onto the familiar ground of critical thinking, self-management, and communication.
3.
The conditions ouryoung people will need to navigate into the future…. • Climate and environmental disruption • Geopolitical instability and global conflict • Rapid technological and AI transformation • Changing work and economic security • Erosion of trust and threats to democracy • Information abundance and complexity • Growing inequity and social fragmentation • Rapid social and demographic change
4.
Five Pou 1. Theyprovide the guardrails for system change 2. They keep transformation grounded in purpose, place and people 3. They ensure innovation strengthens equity, inclusion and belonging rather than widening existing gaps. 4. They connect the different parts of the system 5. They create the conditions for people to adapt and innovate 6. They help us design for the future without losing sight of what matters most. https://futuremakers.nz/thought-pieces/five-pou-future-education/
5.
Future-ready capabilities ● Subjectsgive us knowledge; capabilities help us use it. ● The future’s challenges cross disciplinary boundaries. ● New situations require us to transfer, connect and apply what we know. ● Rapid change means learners must be able to adapt and keep learning. ● Complex problems require judgement, collaboration, creativity and agency. ● Education should prepare learners not only to know, but to do, think, relate and act. https://futuremakers.nz/thought-pieces/future-ready-capabilities/
7.
Why these thingsmatter Our young people will inherit a world characterised by complexity, uncertainty and accelerating change. ● Knowledge remains essential — but knowing is no longer enough. Learners need the capabilities to connect, apply, question and create with what they know. ● The challenges they will face will not fit neatly within subjects, sectors or systems. They will need to think across boundaries, work with others and navigate complexity. ● Their future cannot be predicted — so we must prepare them to shape it. Agency, adaptability, creativity, critical thinking and sound judgement become essential. ● This requires more than changing the curriculum. We need a system designed around relationships, inclusion, professional capability, responsiveness and a shared sense of purpose. ● Our task is not to prepare young people for a future we can describe. It is to equip them to thrive in — and contribute to creating — the future that emerges.
8.
WEBINAR BRIEFING /FUTURES LABS INFUSING CAPABILITIES INTO FUTURES LABS How futures literacy becomes a practical framework for growing the six future-focused capabilities. → ✦
9.
THE RELATIONSHIP FUTURES LITERACY ISTHE METHOD. The six capabilities describe the kind of learners, organisations and communities the method is designed to grow. TOOLS signals · scenarios futures triangle · backcasting prototyping → PRACTICES notice · question connect · imagine choose · act · adapt → CAPABILITY GROWTH 01 ECOLOGICAL THINKING 02 CULTURAL FLUENCY 03 DIGITAL WISDOM 04 CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING 05 COLLECTIVE AGENCY & LEADERSHIP 06 ADAPTIVE RESILIENCE ✦
10.
THE LAB PROCESS SIXLENSES INSIDE THE LAB. The capabilities become lenses used repeatedly as learners move from noticing change to acting with agency. 06 01 NOTICE CHANGE Digital Wisdom read signals and question information 02 MAP SYSTEMS Ecological Thinking trace relationships and consequences 03 ASK WHOSE FUTURE? Cultural Fluency include worldviews, place and power 04 IMAGINE ALTERNATIVES Creative Problem Solving generate possible and preferred futures 05 CHOOSE + ACT TOGETHER Collective Agency & Leadership move from ideas to shared action 06 REFLECT + ADAPT Adaptive Resilience learn, adjust and keep going NOT SIX SEPARATE LESSONS. SIX REPEATED WAYS OF SEEING.
11.
LOCAL TO GLOBA L PATHWAY ✦ BEYOND THE CLASSROOM FROMFUTURES LABS TO LEARNING COMMUNITIES. The same six capabilities can become a shared commitment across schools and public learning spaces. SCHOOLS MUSEUMS GALLERIES LIBRARIES COUNCILS COMMUNITY SPACES Designed this way, Futures Labs can build evidence for a wider learning ecology: inclusive learning, community learning, workplace links, wise technology use, quality learning and a culture of lifelong learning. UNESCO GNLC ALIGNMENT Source: UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities Guiding Documents; Future-Focused Capabilities Framework.
12.
APPLICATION / CONTEXTAS THE LAB ONE EVENT. SIX LENSES. MANY POSSIBLE FUTURES. A current event becomes a Futures Lab learning opportunity when learners move from reaction to inquiry to action. WHAT CHANGES WHEN WE ASK... Not only “what can we learn?” but “what should happen next?” ECOLOGICAL What ripples beyond Earth? CULTURAL Whose Moon stories are missing? DIGITAL Who shapes the headline? CREATIVE How might we design better? COLLECTIVE Who gets a say? RESILIENT What systems help us adapt? CONTEXT → CAPABILITY PRACTICE → WISER FUTURES
24.
Agency isn’t justabout ‘me’! https://futuremakers.nz/agency-by-design/
25.
Education as hopebuilding Hope is defined as the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals, and motivate oneself via agency thinking to pursue those pathways
26.
www.edrising.net A movement, not amoment Setting the Scene Thank You

Editor's Notes

#1 Background and overview of the Future-Ready Capabilities - how they came to be etc. (Derek) Why these things matter - importance of focus on capabilities - alongside foundation skills etc. Need to prepare learners who can face the future etc. Kylie - case study of how you've used these in the work you're doing with the future-focus lens Philly - use current context of Kelston GGS to illustrate how you're promoting these capabilities in the programmes offered there - and why this is important for the girls you teach there Summary - weave together the capabilities illustrated to reaffirm the importance of place-based and student-led environmental education in our schools, kura and communities.
#2 Future-ready capabilities presents a new framework that emerged from the conversations of a group of educators, researchers and business leaders at the EdRising event held in Auckland in July, 2026. It comes from a starting point that is uniquely Aotearoa-New Zealand. Rather than adapting an international model, it was built from the ground up by people who brought their own professional knowledge and cultural contexts to the task. The result is six capabilities: ecological thinking, cultural fluency, digital wisdom, creative problem solving, collective agency and leadership, and adaptive resilience. They’re attentive to the obligations of this place – to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, to our Pacific identity, to the environmental realities we face – while still holding onto the familiar ground of critical thinking, self-management, and communication.
#3 Climate and environmental disruption Climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion and environmental degradation will reshape where and how people live. Geopolitical instability and global conflict A more contested and unpredictable world, with conflict, migration, economic tensions and shifting global power. Rapid technological and AI transformation AI, automation, biotechnology and other emerging technologies will transform how we work, learn, communicate and make decisions. Changing work and economic security Careers will be less predictable, employment patterns will continue to shift, and people will need to continually adapt and reinvent themselves. Erosion of trust and threats to democracy Misinformation, polarisation, declining institutional trust and challenges to democratic participation will place greater demands on citizens. Information abundance and complexity Young people will face an unprecedented volume of information, competing narratives and increasingly sophisticated attempts to influence what they think and believe. Growing inequality and social fragmentation Unequal access to resources, opportunity and technology may widen divides within and between communities. Rapid social and demographic change Changing population patterns, migration, cultural diversity and evolving identities will require greater capacity to live and work across difference.
#4 They provide the guardrails for system change — a shared sense of direction without prescribing a single pathway. They keep transformation grounded in purpose, place and people — not simply in structures, technologies or trends. They ensure innovation strengthens equity, inclusion and belonging rather than widening existing gaps. They connect the different parts of the system — recognising that learning, leadership, relationships, structures and accountability are interdependent. They create the conditions for people to adapt and innovate while maintaining coherence and collective responsibility. They help us design for the future without losing sight of what matters most.
#8 Open with the shift: Futures Labs are not an extra programme or a careers activity. They are a practical way to help young people rehearse uncertainty, imagine alternatives and grow the capabilities our stakeholders have named as important.
#9 This is the core explanatory slide: Futures literacy provides the tools and habits of practice. The six capabilities are not a separate add-on; they are what the lab is trying to develop through those tools and practices.
#10 Talk through this as the lab rhythm. Learners notice change, map systems, ask whose future is being imagined, generate alternatives, choose action and then reflect. Each move activates one or more capabilities.
#11 Finish by widening the frame. Futures Labs can be a seed for something larger: a public learning ecology where schools, museums, libraries, galleries and councils can demonstrate a shared commitment to lifelong, future-focused learning.
#20 I'm trying to catch my thoughts around ecological thinking, global warming, and climate fragility — and specifically, as a Pākehā, learning about the cultural lenses through which climate change is understood here. At the centre of what I'm learning is this: caring for land is caring for identity. It's about keeping pūrākau — stories — alive, so that mana whenua can stay in close connection with their histories. Rāhui is a, from a Pākehā-learner's perspective, is a ban on entering certain spaces to allow for regeneration and healing. In the Waitākere Ranges in West Auckland, there has been a rāhui in place for a significant amount of time in parts of the ranges, to fight kauri dieback — a disease that gets into the roots of kauri trees and destroys forests. I'm learning how significant rāhui is, and how the regeneration of the forest is tied not only to the environment, but to whakapapa — to lineage — and to pūrākau and heritage. The Waitākere Ranges' other name is Te Wao Nui a Tiriwa, the great forest of Tiriwa. Tiriwa is a tupuna— a Turehu — of Te Kawerau ā Maki, mana whenua of the ranges. There are many pūrākau about Tiriwa. So when we're thinking about rāhui, we're thinking about whakapapa — about restoring the forest so that lineage, and the stories that carry it, continue to thrive. A further example is the Whau River. Historically it was used as a gateway, or portage, between the Waitematā Harbour and the Manukau Harbour — a vital artery for trade and for the sustainability of ancestors. A lot of work has gone into reclaiming, treating, and cleaning up this waterway. KGC was involved in a clean up project for this awa last year. We have a strong community in the west and a commitment to the environment - we have to also make sure that as a part of our commitment to the environment, we are keeping the stories attached to those places and people front and centre. As a third-generation New Zealander, I understand the importance of that waterway. But it's powerful to learn that it's also part of the history of my friends from Te Kawerau ā Maki — that there are pūrākau attached to that river, and that if the river is sick, or not treated with respect, those stories are poisoned and diminished too. The health of the river and the health of the story are the same thing. So when we're thinking ecologically, we're not just thinking about the environment itself — we're thinking about the identity of the people whose histories are connected to that environment. We have a real responsibility to keep pūrākau alive, to respect whakapapa, to respect ancestry, to respect mana whenua. That's a beautiful part of the journey many of us are on as tauiwi — not only to learn, but to participate, as kaitiaki, in keeping the places we live in healthy and thriving, so mana whenua can stay in close connection with their own histories, and those stories stay in the spotlight. Something else worth sitting with is the place of identity within ecological thinking more broadly. I think here of an artwork I saw at the Christchurch Art Gallery, about climate fragility and displacement in the Pacific. Tuvalu is a powerful example of a culture and people whose home — and whose stories — are under threat because of climate change. What does it mean for the Tuvaluan community in New Zealand to know that, as a result of human behaviour on Earth, their home and heritage are under threat? What can we do, not only in our daily lives and politically, but in schools, to support the identities of young people whose homes and heritage are vulnerable? I don't have the answers. But I think it's incredibly important to hold onto the fact that ecological thinking isn't just about looking after this beautiful planet — it's about protecting identity itself, and the lifeline between people and their stories. I work and live in Te Wao Nui a Tiriwa, in the Waitākere Ranges, with a predominantly Pacific student population in a predominantly Pacific community. I have a responsibility to keep challenging and opening my thinking — to understand how deeply the environment is tied to identity and pūrākau, and what it feels like for our young people to have their feet on the soil. It is a real privilege for us, as tauiwi, to get to participate in that lifeline — to help keep mana whenua's stories close, alive, and in the spotlight. That privilege, more than anything, is the provocation I want to keep front and centre in the conversations I have with young people about who they are.
#21 I'm now collecting my thoughts on the idea of cultural fluency, in a world that is becoming increasingly diverse. At the heart of this, for me, is identity — and the responsibility to help keep stories alive so that people can stay in close connection with their own histories. It's vital that we have cultural fluency — that we understand how to move and operate in different spaces, where the people around us have different ways of knowing and seeing, different faiths, systems of belief, and languages. It's a beautiful aspiration that all of us can be in these diverse, rich, exciting spaces with people whose lived experiences differ from our own, and authentically engage, connect, learn, and work together collectively. But before that aspiration, we first need to understand something: there are so many young people in New Zealand — and globally — who first need fluency, confidence, and the ability to be self-determining in their own cultural identity, before they can turn outward to engage with others. Thinking of my own community and the young people I serve: Pacific languages are in decline. There were significant moments of Pacific migration to New Zealand in the sixties and seventies, and migration has continued since. So we have first- and second-generation New Zealanders who, whilst connected to their cultural identity, may not have fluency in language, or a deep connection to their homeland — to the stories that carry that identity. That's a complex thing for people to navigate. It's not something I have lived experience of, because being Pākehā, the Pākehā experience is a privileged one in this world. I don't have to think about reclaiming my language, my heritage, or my stories. Instead, I need to be curious, invested, and committed to engaging with worldviews outside my own, and with the history of the land I call home. That's a very different activity to negotiating who you are because of a loss of heritage language and heritage story. This is where the idea of Kuleana feels important. Kuleana is an element of the Pacific values framework, and translates as responsibility — a Hawaiian concept that has been taken up more broadly across Pacific education contexts as both an individual and a collective responsibility. As part of our Kuleana to our Pacific students, their families, and our communities, we have to understand the complexity of those identities, and think hard about the actions we're taking to support young people sustaining identities that are tied to homelands under threat. It's not enough to admire that complexity from a distance; Kuleana asks something of us in return. So yes, young people need cultural fluency to be futures-ready. But alongside that, there needs to be security in their own identity — an unbroken connection to their own stories, whatever that looks like. I don't have all the answers here — more questions about how I fulfil my own Kuleana: how I work alongside young people, their families, and my community, to help protect that connection, rather than get in its way. Something we do at our school to support this is offering three bilingual pathways: Samoan, Tongan, and Māori. That's an opportunity not just for young people already fluent in their heritage language, but for young people who are reclaiming their cultural identity — reclaiming their own stories. There's real, beautiful collective agency and partnership there, as young people work with teachers in a classroom setting where, day by day, they become more firmly footed in who they are — in what it means for them to be Tangata Whenua, Samoan, or Tongan, and in keeping their own histories alive within themselves. It's something that, whilst I'm not personally part of that kaupapa at our school, I feel is a real privilege to witness — to work somewhere those pathways are offered, where young people get to stay in close connection with the stories that make them who they are, and where I get to hold, in some small way, my own Kuleana toward that.
#22 This is a strand of this talk I hold with real honesty, because it's about my own conditioning, and how much I'm still unlearning it in real time. I was raised to face outward. My parents are pragmatic in the extreme — sentimental, yes, but zero frills, zero fuss. Boomers who got on with it, figured things out themselves, and built a life through sheer self-reliance. That's the model I was handed: independent, agentic, self-determining, encouraged to leave home and build my own life. There was never really an expectation for me to face inward, toward the family unit — not because they didn't care, but because "figuring it out yourself" was the whole ethos. It was our parents' role to get our waka pointing in the right direction, and support us pushing it off shore. That's not the world the young people I support come from. They are deeply connected to family, community, church, with additional inward-facing responsibilities I was never asked to carry. The collectivism is already there, fully formed. My question is how I support young people to face both outward, to their futures, and inward, to their families and communities — without ever having lived that dual orientation myself. I feel this most acutely in the pastoral space, as a Deputy Principal. When an incident happens, I can feel a predetermined outcome forming almost immediately — the same outward-facing, decisive instinct, showing up again. As a senior leadership team, we're working with Tautai o le Moana, Wayfinders of the Ocean, and in recent PD we returned to the idea of talanoa. Not new to me, but I found myself drawn back into it — thinking about my own pragmatism, my own solutions-focus, and what talanoa actually asks of me in the pastoral space: to be genuinely present, patient, even while bound by time and purpose, and to let that partnership with whānau shape my thinking around an appropriate outcome, rather than arriving with it already formed. We're a restorative school — being responsive doesn't mean being inconsistent or without consequence, but it does mean genuinely engaging with the understanding of young people and their whānau, not just associating behaviours with outcomes. That's the real learning: dialling down the part of me that's solutions- and outcomes-centred, and replacing that urgency with an investment in the present.

Future-Ready Capabilities: Building Adaptive Learners for a Complex World

1.
www.edrising.net A movement, not amoment Setting the Scene
2.
Background Future-ready capabilities presentsa new framework that emerged from the conversations of a group of educators, researchers and business leaders at the EdRising event held in Auckland in July, 2026. It comes from a starting point that is uniquely Aotearoa-New Zealand. Rather than adapting an international model, it was built from the ground up by people who brought their own professional knowledge and cultural contexts to the task. The result is six capabilities: ecological thinking, cultural fluency, digital wisdom, creative problem solving, collective agency and leadership, and adaptive resilience. They’re attentive to the obligations of this place – to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, to our Pacific identity, to the environmental realities we face – while still holding onto the familiar ground of critical thinking, self-management, and communication.
3.
The conditions ouryoung people will need to navigate into the future…. • Climate and environmental disruption • Geopolitical instability and global conflict • Rapid technological and AI transformation • Changing work and economic security • Erosion of trust and threats to democracy • Information abundance and complexity • Growing inequity and social fragmentation • Rapid social and demographic change
4.
Five Pou 1. Theyprovide the guardrails for system change 2. They keep transformation grounded in purpose, place and people 3. They ensure innovation strengthens equity, inclusion and belonging rather than widening existing gaps. 4. They connect the different parts of the system 5. They create the conditions for people to adapt and innovate 6. They help us design for the future without losing sight of what matters most. https://futuremakers.nz/thought-pieces/five-pou-future-education/
5.
Future-ready capabilities ● Subjectsgive us knowledge; capabilities help us use it. ● The future’s challenges cross disciplinary boundaries. ● New situations require us to transfer, connect and apply what we know. ● Rapid change means learners must be able to adapt and keep learning. ● Complex problems require judgement, collaboration, creativity and agency. ● Education should prepare learners not only to know, but to do, think, relate and act. https://futuremakers.nz/thought-pieces/future-ready-capabilities/
7.
Why these thingsmatter Our young people will inherit a world characterised by complexity, uncertainty and accelerating change. ● Knowledge remains essential — but knowing is no longer enough. Learners need the capabilities to connect, apply, question and create with what they know. ● The challenges they will face will not fit neatly within subjects, sectors or systems. They will need to think across boundaries, work with others and navigate complexity. ● Their future cannot be predicted — so we must prepare them to shape it. Agency, adaptability, creativity, critical thinking and sound judgement become essential. ● This requires more than changing the curriculum. We need a system designed around relationships, inclusion, professional capability, responsiveness and a shared sense of purpose. ● Our task is not to prepare young people for a future we can describe. It is to equip them to thrive in — and contribute to creating — the future that emerges.
8.
WEBINAR BRIEFING /FUTURES LABS INFUSING CAPABILITIES INTO FUTURES LABS How futures literacy becomes a practical framework for growing the six future-focused capabilities. → ✦
9.
THE RELATIONSHIP FUTURES LITERACY ISTHE METHOD. The six capabilities describe the kind of learners, organisations and communities the method is designed to grow. TOOLS signals · scenarios futures triangle · backcasting prototyping → PRACTICES notice · question connect · imagine choose · act · adapt → CAPABILITY GROWTH 01 ECOLOGICAL THINKING 02 CULTURAL FLUENCY 03 DIGITAL WISDOM 04 CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING 05 COLLECTIVE AGENCY & LEADERSHIP 06 ADAPTIVE RESILIENCE ✦
10.
THE LAB PROCESS SIXLENSES INSIDE THE LAB. The capabilities become lenses used repeatedly as learners move from noticing change to acting with agency. 06 01 NOTICE CHANGE Digital Wisdom read signals and question information 02 MAP SYSTEMS Ecological Thinking trace relationships and consequences 03 ASK WHOSE FUTURE? Cultural Fluency include worldviews, place and power 04 IMAGINE ALTERNATIVES Creative Problem Solving generate possible and preferred futures 05 CHOOSE + ACT TOGETHER Collective Agency & Leadership move from ideas to shared action 06 REFLECT + ADAPT Adaptive Resilience learn, adjust and keep going NOT SIX SEPARATE LESSONS. SIX REPEATED WAYS OF SEEING.
11.
LOCAL TO GLOBA L PATHWAY ✦ BEYOND THE CLASSROOM FROMFUTURES LABS TO LEARNING COMMUNITIES. The same six capabilities can become a shared commitment across schools and public learning spaces. SCHOOLS MUSEUMS GALLERIES LIBRARIES COUNCILS COMMUNITY SPACES Designed this way, Futures Labs can build evidence for a wider learning ecology: inclusive learning, community learning, workplace links, wise technology use, quality learning and a culture of lifelong learning. UNESCO GNLC ALIGNMENT Source: UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities Guiding Documents; Future-Focused Capabilities Framework.
12.
APPLICATION / CONTEXTAS THE LAB ONE EVENT. SIX LENSES. MANY POSSIBLE FUTURES. A current event becomes a Futures Lab learning opportunity when learners move from reaction to inquiry to action. WHAT CHANGES WHEN WE ASK... Not only “what can we learn?” but “what should happen next?” ECOLOGICAL What ripples beyond Earth? CULTURAL Whose Moon stories are missing? DIGITAL Who shapes the headline? CREATIVE How might we design better? COLLECTIVE Who gets a say? RESILIENT What systems help us adapt? CONTEXT → CAPABILITY PRACTICE → WISER FUTURES
24.
Agency isn’t justabout ‘me’! https://futuremakers.nz/agency-by-design/
25.
Education as hopebuilding Hope is defined as the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals, and motivate oneself via agency thinking to pursue those pathways
26.
www.edrising.net A movement, not amoment Setting the Scene Thank You

Editor's Notes

#1 Background and overview of the Future-Ready Capabilities - how they came to be etc. (Derek) Why these things matter - importance of focus on capabilities - alongside foundation skills etc. Need to prepare learners who can face the future etc. Kylie - case study of how you've used these in the work you're doing with the future-focus lens Philly - use current context of Kelston GGS to illustrate how you're promoting these capabilities in the programmes offered there - and why this is important for the girls you teach there Summary - weave together the capabilities illustrated to reaffirm the importance of place-based and student-led environmental education in our schools, kura and communities.
#2 Future-ready capabilities presents a new framework that emerged from the conversations of a group of educators, researchers and business leaders at the EdRising event held in Auckland in July, 2026. It comes from a starting point that is uniquely Aotearoa-New Zealand. Rather than adapting an international model, it was built from the ground up by people who brought their own professional knowledge and cultural contexts to the task. The result is six capabilities: ecological thinking, cultural fluency, digital wisdom, creative problem solving, collective agency and leadership, and adaptive resilience. They’re attentive to the obligations of this place – to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, to our Pacific identity, to the environmental realities we face – while still holding onto the familiar ground of critical thinking, self-management, and communication.
#3 Climate and environmental disruption Climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion and environmental degradation will reshape where and how people live. Geopolitical instability and global conflict A more contested and unpredictable world, with conflict, migration, economic tensions and shifting global power. Rapid technological and AI transformation AI, automation, biotechnology and other emerging technologies will transform how we work, learn, communicate and make decisions. Changing work and economic security Careers will be less predictable, employment patterns will continue to shift, and people will need to continually adapt and reinvent themselves. Erosion of trust and threats to democracy Misinformation, polarisation, declining institutional trust and challenges to democratic participation will place greater demands on citizens. Information abundance and complexity Young people will face an unprecedented volume of information, competing narratives and increasingly sophisticated attempts to influence what they think and believe. Growing inequality and social fragmentation Unequal access to resources, opportunity and technology may widen divides within and between communities. Rapid social and demographic change Changing population patterns, migration, cultural diversity and evolving identities will require greater capacity to live and work across difference.
#4 They provide the guardrails for system change — a shared sense of direction without prescribing a single pathway. They keep transformation grounded in purpose, place and people — not simply in structures, technologies or trends. They ensure innovation strengthens equity, inclusion and belonging rather than widening existing gaps. They connect the different parts of the system — recognising that learning, leadership, relationships, structures and accountability are interdependent. They create the conditions for people to adapt and innovate while maintaining coherence and collective responsibility. They help us design for the future without losing sight of what matters most.
#8 Open with the shift: Futures Labs are not an extra programme or a careers activity. They are a practical way to help young people rehearse uncertainty, imagine alternatives and grow the capabilities our stakeholders have named as important.
#9 This is the core explanatory slide: Futures literacy provides the tools and habits of practice. The six capabilities are not a separate add-on; they are what the lab is trying to develop through those tools and practices.
#10 Talk through this as the lab rhythm. Learners notice change, map systems, ask whose future is being imagined, generate alternatives, choose action and then reflect. Each move activates one or more capabilities.
#11 Finish by widening the frame. Futures Labs can be a seed for something larger: a public learning ecology where schools, museums, libraries, galleries and councils can demonstrate a shared commitment to lifelong, future-focused learning.
#20 I'm trying to catch my thoughts around ecological thinking, global warming, and climate fragility — and specifically, as a Pākehā, learning about the cultural lenses through which climate change is understood here. At the centre of what I'm learning is this: caring for land is caring for identity. It's about keeping pūrākau — stories — alive, so that mana whenua can stay in close connection with their histories. Rāhui is a, from a Pākehā-learner's perspective, is a ban on entering certain spaces to allow for regeneration and healing. In the Waitākere Ranges in West Auckland, there has been a rāhui in place for a significant amount of time in parts of the ranges, to fight kauri dieback — a disease that gets into the roots of kauri trees and destroys forests. I'm learning how significant rāhui is, and how the regeneration of the forest is tied not only to the environment, but to whakapapa — to lineage — and to pūrākau and heritage. The Waitākere Ranges' other name is Te Wao Nui a Tiriwa, the great forest of Tiriwa. Tiriwa is a tupuna— a Turehu — of Te Kawerau ā Maki, mana whenua of the ranges. There are many pūrākau about Tiriwa. So when we're thinking about rāhui, we're thinking about whakapapa — about restoring the forest so that lineage, and the stories that carry it, continue to thrive. A further example is the Whau River. Historically it was used as a gateway, or portage, between the Waitematā Harbour and the Manukau Harbour — a vital artery for trade and for the sustainability of ancestors. A lot of work has gone into reclaiming, treating, and cleaning up this waterway. KGC was involved in a clean up project for this awa last year. We have a strong community in the west and a commitment to the environment - we have to also make sure that as a part of our commitment to the environment, we are keeping the stories attached to those places and people front and centre. As a third-generation New Zealander, I understand the importance of that waterway. But it's powerful to learn that it's also part of the history of my friends from Te Kawerau ā Maki — that there are pūrākau attached to that river, and that if the river is sick, or not treated with respect, those stories are poisoned and diminished too. The health of the river and the health of the story are the same thing. So when we're thinking ecologically, we're not just thinking about the environment itself — we're thinking about the identity of the people whose histories are connected to that environment. We have a real responsibility to keep pūrākau alive, to respect whakapapa, to respect ancestry, to respect mana whenua. That's a beautiful part of the journey many of us are on as tauiwi — not only to learn, but to participate, as kaitiaki, in keeping the places we live in healthy and thriving, so mana whenua can stay in close connection with their own histories, and those stories stay in the spotlight. Something else worth sitting with is the place of identity within ecological thinking more broadly. I think here of an artwork I saw at the Christchurch Art Gallery, about climate fragility and displacement in the Pacific. Tuvalu is a powerful example of a culture and people whose home — and whose stories — are under threat because of climate change. What does it mean for the Tuvaluan community in New Zealand to know that, as a result of human behaviour on Earth, their home and heritage are under threat? What can we do, not only in our daily lives and politically, but in schools, to support the identities of young people whose homes and heritage are vulnerable? I don't have the answers. But I think it's incredibly important to hold onto the fact that ecological thinking isn't just about looking after this beautiful planet — it's about protecting identity itself, and the lifeline between people and their stories. I work and live in Te Wao Nui a Tiriwa, in the Waitākere Ranges, with a predominantly Pacific student population in a predominantly Pacific community. I have a responsibility to keep challenging and opening my thinking — to understand how deeply the environment is tied to identity and pūrākau, and what it feels like for our young people to have their feet on the soil. It is a real privilege for us, as tauiwi, to get to participate in that lifeline — to help keep mana whenua's stories close, alive, and in the spotlight. That privilege, more than anything, is the provocation I want to keep front and centre in the conversations I have with young people about who they are.
#21 I'm now collecting my thoughts on the idea of cultural fluency, in a world that is becoming increasingly diverse. At the heart of this, for me, is identity — and the responsibility to help keep stories alive so that people can stay in close connection with their own histories. It's vital that we have cultural fluency — that we understand how to move and operate in different spaces, where the people around us have different ways of knowing and seeing, different faiths, systems of belief, and languages. It's a beautiful aspiration that all of us can be in these diverse, rich, exciting spaces with people whose lived experiences differ from our own, and authentically engage, connect, learn, and work together collectively. But before that aspiration, we first need to understand something: there are so many young people in New Zealand — and globally — who first need fluency, confidence, and the ability to be self-determining in their own cultural identity, before they can turn outward to engage with others. Thinking of my own community and the young people I serve: Pacific languages are in decline. There were significant moments of Pacific migration to New Zealand in the sixties and seventies, and migration has continued since. So we have first- and second-generation New Zealanders who, whilst connected to their cultural identity, may not have fluency in language, or a deep connection to their homeland — to the stories that carry that identity. That's a complex thing for people to navigate. It's not something I have lived experience of, because being Pākehā, the Pākehā experience is a privileged one in this world. I don't have to think about reclaiming my language, my heritage, or my stories. Instead, I need to be curious, invested, and committed to engaging with worldviews outside my own, and with the history of the land I call home. That's a very different activity to negotiating who you are because of a loss of heritage language and heritage story. This is where the idea of Kuleana feels important. Kuleana is an element of the Pacific values framework, and translates as responsibility — a Hawaiian concept that has been taken up more broadly across Pacific education contexts as both an individual and a collective responsibility. As part of our Kuleana to our Pacific students, their families, and our communities, we have to understand the complexity of those identities, and think hard about the actions we're taking to support young people sustaining identities that are tied to homelands under threat. It's not enough to admire that complexity from a distance; Kuleana asks something of us in return. So yes, young people need cultural fluency to be futures-ready. But alongside that, there needs to be security in their own identity — an unbroken connection to their own stories, whatever that looks like. I don't have all the answers here — more questions about how I fulfil my own Kuleana: how I work alongside young people, their families, and my community, to help protect that connection, rather than get in its way. Something we do at our school to support this is offering three bilingual pathways: Samoan, Tongan, and Māori. That's an opportunity not just for young people already fluent in their heritage language, but for young people who are reclaiming their cultural identity — reclaiming their own stories. There's real, beautiful collective agency and partnership there, as young people work with teachers in a classroom setting where, day by day, they become more firmly footed in who they are — in what it means for them to be Tangata Whenua, Samoan, or Tongan, and in keeping their own histories alive within themselves. It's something that, whilst I'm not personally part of that kaupapa at our school, I feel is a real privilege to witness — to work somewhere those pathways are offered, where young people get to stay in close connection with the stories that make them who they are, and where I get to hold, in some small way, my own Kuleana toward that.
#22 This is a strand of this talk I hold with real honesty, because it's about my own conditioning, and how much I'm still unlearning it in real time. I was raised to face outward. My parents are pragmatic in the extreme — sentimental, yes, but zero frills, zero fuss. Boomers who got on with it, figured things out themselves, and built a life through sheer self-reliance. That's the model I was handed: independent, agentic, self-determining, encouraged to leave home and build my own life. There was never really an expectation for me to face inward, toward the family unit — not because they didn't care, but because "figuring it out yourself" was the whole ethos. It was our parents' role to get our waka pointing in the right direction, and support us pushing it off shore. That's not the world the young people I support come from. They are deeply connected to family, community, church, with additional inward-facing responsibilities I was never asked to carry. The collectivism is already there, fully formed. My question is how I support young people to face both outward, to their futures, and inward, to their families and communities — without ever having lived that dual orientation myself. I feel this most acutely in the pastoral space, as a Deputy Principal. When an incident happens, I can feel a predetermined outcome forming almost immediately — the same outward-facing, decisive instinct, showing up again. As a senior leadership team, we're working with Tautai o le Moana, Wayfinders of the Ocean, and in recent PD we returned to the idea of talanoa. Not new to me, but I found myself drawn back into it — thinking about my own pragmatism, my own solutions-focus, and what talanoa actually asks of me in the pastoral space: to be genuinely present, patient, even while bound by time and purpose, and to let that partnership with whānau shape my thinking around an appropriate outcome, rather than arriving with it already formed. We're a restorative school — being responsive doesn't mean being inconsistent or without consequence, but it does mean genuinely engaging with the understanding of young people and their whānau, not just associating behaviours with outcomes. That's the real learning: dialling down the part of me that's solutions- and outcomes-centred, and replacing that urgency with an investment in the present.

Future-Ready Capabilities: Building Adaptive Learners for a Complex World

Future-Ready Capabilities: Building Adaptive Learners for a Complex World

Editor's Notes

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