Principal News

You may have seen in the media recently, significant changes to the New Zealand Mathematics curriculum are coming.

These changes come in response to a concerning decline in national mathematics achievement. A new statistic has been repeated many times in recent weeks by the Minister in power that only 22% of students are achieving at the expected level, and only 12% of Maori students are achieving in mathematics.

I am reminded of the old saying there are lies, damn lies and statistics.  

We need to understand where these results come from.  A study was commissioned that included testing a relatively small sample size of students in 40 schools across the country based on the new, untaught expectations that have been in development for some time.  

Please do not think that children in New Zealand have got significantly worse at mathematics over the last few years.  To use an Olympic Analogy, it is like the 100m sprinters who have been working towards the goal of winning the 100m being told at the start line they now racing the 400 metres.

As Charles Darr, one of the lead researchers involved in the study stated, "We've been tracking student achievement in mathematics at Year 8 for more than ten years, and in that time, there has been no evidence for improvement or decline. We do have a new draft curriculum, however, and the provisional benchmarking exercise we carried out indicates it requires a higher level of proficiency than the 2007 curriculum."

The Ministry of Education is introducing a "knowledge-rich" mathematics and pāngarau curriculum to address these concerns. This curriculum will emphasise “structured mathematics”, which involves teaching foundational skills through carefully sequenced content, visual and hands-on learning, and explicit instruction.

The Ministry of Education is currently reviewing programmes that will be approved for use in school.  One of them is likely to be Prime Mathematics.

Here at Tahuna, we introduced the Prime Mathematics Programme as part of our overall mathematics programme two years ago.  We are pleased to report that our students using this programme have shown significant improvement in their understanding and application of mathematical concepts.  We shared our results with you in this article last year.  https://hail.to/tahuna-normal-intermediate/article/CyUiwBw 

This is a testament to our mathematics programme's effectiveness and proactive approach to improving mathematics education at Tahuna, where we are committed to providing our students with the best possible mathematics education. 

Nga mihi

Simon Clarke

Principal