The PM was not wrong when he called the situation “appalling”. If it is a crisis, though, it is probably a slow-moving one. It is likely that the new study has simply revealed how bad things have been for years.
In 2022, the National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA), the predecessor to CIPS, showed that 58% of Year 8 students were behind curriculum expectations. At first blush, it looks as if CIPS shows a sharp 20 percentage point decline in just two years. However, important differences between the two studies must be considered.
The studies are based on different curricula. NMSSA was based on the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum, whereas CIPS is based on the provisional ‘refreshed’ Te Mātaiaho curriculum, published in 2023. Te Mātaiaho provides more detail about curriculum expectations than the earlier curriculum. Had the NMSSA assessments been set with the same level of curriculum detail as CIPS, it might have shown similar results.
The picture emerging from NMSSA was not pretty, but with the sharper resolution provided by CIPS, it looks decidedly ugly. It is clear that Education Minister Erica Stanford means to do something about it, and fast. It is equally clear that fast work will be required if there is to be any hope of meeting the government’s target of 80% of Year 8 students meeting curriculum expectations by 2030.
The Prime Minister announced a range of measures to improve maths teaching in our primary schools. The revised maths curriculum for Years 0-8 will be rolled out a year early, in 2025 rather than 2026 as originally planned. Professional development will receive a funding boost to the tune of $20 million. Students identified as falling substantially behind in semi-annual testing will be given targeted teaching. Prospective teachers will need 14 credits in maths at NCEA Level 2.
The measure likely to be most effective in the short term is the provision of workbooks for students with accompanying guidebooks for teachers. Minister Stanford has said that these resources will come from a range of providers. While they will need to be brought into line with our national curriculum, resources like these can quickly improve student achievement in maths.
The guidebooks are essentially manuals on how to teach maths. As a short-term measure, they are necessary. In the longer term, though, they are not a substitute for improving primary teachers’ confidence and expertise in maths.
A report from the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2021 concluded that work “supporting and enhancing teachers’ discipline and pedagogical knowledge” is necessary. The stark fact is that too many of our primary school teachers are not equipped with the knowledge or the confidence to keep students on track with the maths curriculum.
Lest I be accused of ‘teacher bashing’, none of this is teachers’ fault. Many did not receive a solid maths education at school themselves. Moreover, the amount of time dedicated to maths knowledge and teaching in university teacher education programmes – which produce about 90% of New Zealand’s teachers – is woefully inadequate. Teachers need much better preparation to bring the maths curriculum to life in our classrooms.
The professional development and the requirement for new teachers to have NCEA level 2 credits in maths will help, but they will not be enough on their own. Spread over around 150,000 teachers, $20 million will not go that far and while the NCEA requirement will certainly be better than the status quo, it is not an especially high bar.
The revised curriculum will be carefully sequenced to ensure that maths teaching follows a logical and rigorous progression. And whatever critics may say about Minister Stanford’s requirement for semi-annual testing, early identification of students struggling with maths is essential if they are to have any chance of catching up. While the new curriculum can contribute to a decisive improvement, its success depends on teachers’ ability to deliver it.
The only durable solution will be to improve the preparation for maths teaching in teacher education programmes. They must include more focus on the teaching of maths. Prospective teachers should not be able to graduate without demonstrating their proficiency in teaching the subject. Training far more specialist maths teachers for primary schools would also be beneficial.
The Prime Minister and the Minister of Education are right to approach the primary school maths situation with urgency. Unfortunately, however, there is no quick fix for the dismal state of maths achievement in many of our primary schools.
The measures announced by the Prime Minister will provide necessary life support for primary maths teaching, but the road to recovery will be long. Paying serious attention to teacher education would demonstrate that the government is in it for the long haul.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
In 2022, the National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA), the predecessor to CIPS, showed that 58% of Year 8 students were behind curriculum expectations. At first blush, it looks as if CIPS shows a sharp 20 percentage point decline in just two years. However, important differences between the two studies must be considered.
The studies are based on different curricula. NMSSA was based on the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum, whereas CIPS is based on the provisional ‘refreshed’ Te Mātaiaho curriculum, published in 2023. Te Mātaiaho provides more detail about curriculum expectations than the earlier curriculum. Had the NMSSA assessments been set with the same level of curriculum detail as CIPS, it might have shown similar results.
The picture emerging from NMSSA was not pretty, but with the sharper resolution provided by CIPS, it looks decidedly ugly. It is clear that Education Minister Erica Stanford means to do something about it, and fast. It is equally clear that fast work will be required if there is to be any hope of meeting the government’s target of 80% of Year 8 students meeting curriculum expectations by 2030.
The Prime Minister announced a range of measures to improve maths teaching in our primary schools. The revised maths curriculum for Years 0-8 will be rolled out a year early, in 2025 rather than 2026 as originally planned. Professional development will receive a funding boost to the tune of $20 million. Students identified as falling substantially behind in semi-annual testing will be given targeted teaching. Prospective teachers will need 14 credits in maths at NCEA Level 2.
The measure likely to be most effective in the short term is the provision of workbooks for students with accompanying guidebooks for teachers. Minister Stanford has said that these resources will come from a range of providers. While they will need to be brought into line with our national curriculum, resources like these can quickly improve student achievement in maths.
The guidebooks are essentially manuals on how to teach maths. As a short-term measure, they are necessary. In the longer term, though, they are not a substitute for improving primary teachers’ confidence and expertise in maths.
A report from the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2021 concluded that work “supporting and enhancing teachers’ discipline and pedagogical knowledge” is necessary. The stark fact is that too many of our primary school teachers are not equipped with the knowledge or the confidence to keep students on track with the maths curriculum.
Lest I be accused of ‘teacher bashing’, none of this is teachers’ fault. Many did not receive a solid maths education at school themselves. Moreover, the amount of time dedicated to maths knowledge and teaching in university teacher education programmes – which produce about 90% of New Zealand’s teachers – is woefully inadequate. Teachers need much better preparation to bring the maths curriculum to life in our classrooms.
The professional development and the requirement for new teachers to have NCEA level 2 credits in maths will help, but they will not be enough on their own. Spread over around 150,000 teachers, $20 million will not go that far and while the NCEA requirement will certainly be better than the status quo, it is not an especially high bar.
The revised curriculum will be carefully sequenced to ensure that maths teaching follows a logical and rigorous progression. And whatever critics may say about Minister Stanford’s requirement for semi-annual testing, early identification of students struggling with maths is essential if they are to have any chance of catching up. While the new curriculum can contribute to a decisive improvement, its success depends on teachers’ ability to deliver it.
The only durable solution will be to improve the preparation for maths teaching in teacher education programmes. They must include more focus on the teaching of maths. Prospective teachers should not be able to graduate without demonstrating their proficiency in teaching the subject. Training far more specialist maths teachers for primary schools would also be beneficial.
The Prime Minister and the Minister of Education are right to approach the primary school maths situation with urgency. Unfortunately, however, there is no quick fix for the dismal state of maths achievement in many of our primary schools.
The measures announced by the Prime Minister will provide necessary life support for primary maths teaching, but the road to recovery will be long. Paying serious attention to teacher education would demonstrate that the government is in it for the long haul.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
11 comments:
Everyone is in a frenzy over poor performance in arithmetic (as I'll call it below high school level) but overfocusing on one problem issue can lead to a piecemeal approach and rather lop-sided planning. Effective planning for improvement begins with a holistic appraisal of what a particular level of education is supposed to be about and how its objectives are best met.
The NZ school system has a longish primary phase - the global norm is 6 or 7 years while NZ primary schooling goes to 8 years. However, it should be noted that the last two of these occur either in a separate institution (Intermediate, the norm in urban areas) or as an institutional component of a high school (Form 1-7/Year 9-13 schools, the norm in rural areas).
There is subject-specialised teaching in Year 7 and 8, for instance in science we find labs in intermediate and of course in Y9-13 schools that the intermediate classes can avail themselves of. Teachers who teach science to Year 7 and 8 are, or should be, better academically qualified in science than Year 1-6 teachers, and have been, or should have been, subjected to intensive training in science education. However, when making international comparisons, bear in mind that Year 8 may be primary here but is secondary in most countries.
Between Year 1 and 6 we get more subject differentiation but teachers at those levels tend to be 'generalists'.
We should not approach primary schooling as a unitary entity in terms of educational goals. We need to distinguish between lower primary (1-3), middle primary (4-6), and upper primary/intermediate (7-8).
Proper planning and curriculum design begin with the functions of schooling at each of these three stages. The acquisition of literacy and numeracy should be the principal objectives at lower primary level. At middle primary, the main focus remains on these albeit packaged differently from subject to subject.
Intermediate involves subject specialisation for some subjects with others (usually Language and Social Studies) continuing to be taught by generalists.
How do arithmetic and maths fit into this? At lower primary level, we need the basics of numeracy to be instilled. Any teacher incapable of doing this should not be in the job. At middle primary level, more complex ideas and procedures are introduced. Teachers need specific training in these. At upper primary level, there is a strong case to be made for specialist maths teachers. However, it is too late at that stage to address gross deficiencies in the most basic arithmetical skills as the kids have by then developed a mental block towards arithmetic.
I agree whole-heartedly that lots of socks need to be pulled up in relation to numeracy, but I do think that the issue is best addressed within a holistic mindset that addresses the whole rather than isolated parts.
While the STATE is involved in the indoctrination and dumbing down process masquerading as education, hey parents, keep your kids away from the state and look to home schooling your kids.
So, while we might all well ask what is our Government doing about this decline in our education system that has been in the making for decades and we finally look to the Minister and our teachers for answers to this slow-motion train wreck that is costing a generation or more of our children their futures, what has the Chief Executive (Holsted) of the MoE being doing for the last eight years at the helm? Or is this another highly paid bureaucratic role with no apparent responsibility?
At least Cheatle (of the US Secret Service) and Haskell (Wellington Water) knew when their under-performance was beyond any excuse and did the right (and only) thing. How long is it appropriate for us (who pays all the salaries and bears the consequences) to have to continue to wait?
And yes, it's by no means the answer, for the swamp is large, but it's a very good start.
Thirty -three years ago the results of a survey test of 700 first year p primary student teachers at Auckland College of Education (ACE) revealed disturbing results. 27% could not measure the length of a pencil placed against a ruler, 13 % could not work out 10% of a figure and 41% could not calculate 12.5% of a figure, 41% also couldn't answer the question : find the price of one litre of petrol if 4.15L costs $3.69. All these are at intermediate school level at least.
You would have to ask "What had the student teachers then been taught during their 12 years at school ? " Unfortunately quite the wrong conclusion was reached and NZ maths standards have consequently plummeted even further this century. Instead of addressing the content poor curriculum, the false idea of lack of mathematical processes became the focus and hence an even more constructivist approach was put into the curriculum. Grrrrrr!
When are we going to benefit from the hindsight that Progressive Education never admits its failures and never intends to change its ideology?
Reference 'Challenging NZ Science', p57, Michael Mathews
Ministry of Education should have a dedicated TV channel with a qualified teacher running exact copy of the curriculum so parents, pupils and needing adults can log in and learn in theri own time . The curriculum can be an investment unchanged for decades to teach maths or plain arithmetic . Even those in prison could learn maths .
Last week the Herald published examples of problems that Year 8 students were supposed to be able to answer. They included questions like add one half and one quarter. So seriously, it is taking schools eight years to teach kids that, which all my class at primary school could do by standard one. So if most current primary school students haven't even got that far, how far have they gone? Kindergarten level? No wonder young people today are so easily manipulated by propaganda.
Basil, that sounds like a good idea . However, the Min.of Ed. are extremely unlikely to want to do that. You see , they believe they are the professional experts and parents are pesky ignorant people who interfere and agitate against their superior knowledge and perfect ideology. Progressive Education works hard to keep parents down and out of their schemes. As a blogger on this site reported when he sensibly taught his own children just one way of doing an arithmetic algorithm.( educobble for two figure multiplying steps etc ) , his children in school were told not to do it that way.
That's all part of the plan in destroying basic education by introducing unnecessarily complex strategies that confuse and confound not just the children but the parents as well. Back last century when they started introducing all this insane New Maths. , a professor of Maths. went to his infant primer child's class , to listen to the class teacher explaining set theory and Venn diagrams . He said he couldn't understand it !
sorry - i don't understand why teachers are expected to have any math proficiency beyond ncea level 1. i see that university entrance expects math proficiency of 10 credits achieved at level 1 - why not change that to begin with? many courses in science & engineering expect an addition cutoff in math (and other specific subjects) beyond UE - why can't the teaching qualification insist on the same? what's the point in shaming teachers who have simply followed the rules (that they did not put in place)?
Anonymous 6:32, if you can count on your fingers you're just about at NCEA Level 1. In fact you can attain NCEA1 in 'maths' without ever doing any mathematics, just arithmetic. Next you'll be calling the times tables 'maths' and offering an NCEA credit for every times table memorised.
I am now confused about what NZCA level 2 is. It had been suggested that it old Form 6 which would seem far in excess of the needs for proficent teaching of the basic arithmetic which served all so well certainly to the 1960s.
Venn diagrams possibly intrigue the able and inqusitive but has anyone ever consciously sorted any everyday problem by application of one?
If teachers are not to bore the able and continue to hold them back as now so as to not show up the others, some streaming.
in some guise will be essential.
Despite maths to considerable tertiary level, for everyday arithmetic I still "carry" and "borrow and pay back" as taught eons ago. It also worked well for my father who had just one year of secondary in the 1920s.
Presumably the Teaching Council is frantically working to replace all those seminars on pander to maori topics with courses on basic arithmetic and how to teach it.
You and I would have been able to attain NCEA2 in maths when we were in Form 3, Arthur.
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