Many of you will have read and heard about the recent Government’s announcement about maths.  For many of you, the data that was quoted would be absolutely alarming and I’m sure would leave you questioning maths teaching in New Zealand, and at ŌPS.  And rightly so, the headlines and sound bites are alarming!

When you see that “only 22% of Year 8 students are at or above curriculum expectation, and 63% of our Year 8 students are more than a year below curriculum benchmark for mathematics”, that is a huge concern.  This has been repeated many times by the Prime Minister and our Minister of Education in the media.

However, I do believe that this data is misleading. The testing was done on a small sample of students, measured against the 2023 draft curriculum expectations without any teaching of these expectations. The goalposts were shifted and it appears the public haven't been told this.  

“What we’re seeing in mathematics is a change in curriculum and a new benchmarking process rather than a change in achievement,” notes one of the study leads, Dr Charles Darr.  “We’ve been tracking student achievement in mathematics at Year 8 for more than 10 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.”  

This has not been mentioned in the headlines or sound bites.

Our school data looks quite different to this data.  Our mid - year data shows our Year 8 students exceeding government target of 80% of students achieving at or above expectations.  Of course, our data is measured against our current curriculum expectations, as that is the document we have to use at present.  It is not fair to measure a child’s academic progress and achievement, or a teacher’s or school’s performance, against expectations that have not been taught as the teacher’s have not been exposed to this new curriculum.

Even though our achievement data looks very good, this does not mean that we are against professional learning for teachers in maths, in fact this was what we had planned to focus on in 2025 anyway.  At ŌPS, we have been doing a lot of learning about literacy over the past 3 years, meaning we are ahead of the game in this area.  Because of this, we are well placed to take on new learning about maths next year.  Many other schools are not so fortunate, and they will be attempting to make huge changes to teaching in our two biggest curriculum areas.  I feel for the teachers and students in these schools, as I believe it is an unreasonable expectation to make these huge shifts in teaching in such a short time frame.

There is an urgency around curriculum changes by our current government, but on the ground, we see a greater urgency needed in learning support. The growing number of diverse learners, who do not come with support or funding, is impacting the learning opportunities we can provide for all children. If we are going to address the curriculum, we must address learning support at the same time.  This does not appear to be something the current government is listening to. 

When you read these announcements from the government, I encourage you to look deeper at what is being shared.  Talk to teachers and principals about what is really happening in schools. 

Please remember, when we talk about issues in our health sector, we seldom blame the doctors or nurses, we talk about the system and funding.  We don’t have members of the public and politicians saying what medical tests should be done, what should be prescribed and how they should do surgery.  But when it comes to education, people are very quick to blame the teachers for declining achievement and there are seldom conversations about the system, societal changes or funding.  Politicians and often social commentators appear to think that they are experts in pedagogy, assessment and teaching.

Our teachers come to school to do the best job they can, working in a very challenging political environment, and they always have your children’s best interests at heart.  Please keep that in mind next time you are having a conversation about education in our country.