This work explores the use of learning theories in curriculum development and gathers evidence for what good practice in this area looks like. By exploring the academic literature in this area, the authors hope to find information that curriculum documents do not provide. The following research questions were proposed: (1) Is there evidence of learning theory being used in national curriculum development? (2) How is learning theory used in national curriculum development? and (3) How should learning theory be used in national curriculum development? To allow for the issues to be explored in sufficient depth, the authors focused on the curricula of two jurisdictions. Working from a list of countries/jurisdictions which had recently undergone curriculum redevelopment, the authors conducted a simple literature search to identify those which appeared to have sufficient academic literature for analysis. Based on this, New Zealand and Ontario (Canada) were chosen as the focus for this study.