This article describes some of the local Aotearoa New Zealand context of a general ‘mainstream’ undergraduate counselling degree. Students' learning is shaped to produce a professional practice for the local context of Aotearoa New Zealand. As counsellor educators informed by social constructionism, we detail our theoretical position and our intention to teach in ways that produce an interweaving between indigenous models of practice and selected western theories and practice. We outline our rationale for reshaping the first year ‘core’ counselling modules; our interrogation of taken-for-granted assumptions; and include a description of the reshaping of our first year ‘core’ counselling curriculum where we invoke a metaphor of weaving.