Refreshed mathematics and statistics learning area
The mathematics and statistics learning area has been refreshed as part of Te Mātaiaho | the refreshed New Zealand curriculum.
It will need to be used in schools and kura from the start of 2025.
The Ministry engaged widely with the education sector, ākonga, whānau, iwi and communities. Read our feedback reports here.
This page includes a range of supports to help schools and kura start using the refreshed mathematics and statistics learning area, including guides, videos and classroom materials.
Guide for getting started
The guide for getting started will help you:
- Learn about the key changes in mathematics and statistics
- Find starting points to explore and use the refreshed curriculum content
- Connect to resources, guidance material, supports, and Professional Learning Development (PLD).
Progression in Action
The Progression in Action guidance supports you to notice the cumulative depth and breadth from one Progress Outcome to the next to help you design rich learning opportunities for your students.
By viewing them as a complete set, you can see progression across the phases of the learner pathway to ensure consistent expectations in your programme planning.
Planning
The planning templates and examples support you to develop your mathematics and statistics programme or individual units. They link the whakapapa framework of Te Mātaiaho to the planning process.
Learning area content cards
School leaders and kaiako can use the cards to plan a mathematics and statistics programme. These cards are available to download below (we recommend you print them single sided).
Video example of kahui ako participating in a planning session with curriculum content cards
The cards were updated on 6 November 2023, with minor corrections for accuracy.
Learning in Action Videos
These videos show teachers trialling new mathematics and statistics curriculum content. They discuss their planning processes, and a range of teaching strategies and learning activities.
Te Mātaiaho
Mathematics and Statistics in action
Years 0-3, Video 1:
Decision making and planning, and connections with whānau, hapū, and iwi
These schools share their first thoughts as they look at their current planning using the refreshed mathematics and statistics learning area curriculum content.
Use these videos as you build awareness and grow understanding of Te Mātaiaho, the refreshed NZ curriculum.
Louise Graham, Assistant Principal — Tirimoana Primary
At Tirimoana School, we have a school overview for the whole year and that's been developed from our own localised curriculum. We've now been aligning the new curriculum with our own localised curriculum and to do that we have been working in our Kāhui Ako across nine schools and we've had a team of maths teachers working together, agreeing on what should be taught at the end of each phase. And then we've been back mapping. So if this needs to be taught at year three, what do we expect at year two? What do we expect at year one?
Mātaioho | School curriculum design and review
Notice how kaiako:
- Plan collaboratively
- Learn together and make use of the expertise within the school
- Build on what is already going on in the local curriculum
Rhiannon Wilcox, Year 1 Teacher — Tirimoana Primary
As a Kāhui Ako, we've been looking at the new Understand, Know, and Do relating that to how we can incorporate that into our planning, and then we've been bringing back all of our ideas and our suggestions, meeting in professional learning groups, which is across year levels. So having teachers from year one to year six allows us to have conversations about what we expect learners to know at certain year levels and having that expertise to feedback so that it's not just year one teachers thinking this is what we need to do. We have looked at measurement and we have cross checked that with our localised curriculum to inform our planning for term two, to make it really clear for teachers, we have our maths leader and then we have our maths specialist teachers that all teachers feel very confident to go to for ideas and clarification over things.
Connecting to place and community
Notice how kaiako:
- Build on existing relationships within the local community
- Invite whānau to share their knowledge and aspirations for ākonga
- Plan purposeful tasks that relate to wider contexts relevant to communities, cultures, interests and aspirations of ākonga
Rhiannon Wilcox, Year 1 Teacher — Tirimoana Primary
As a year one teacher, we have a strong connection with whānau. We see them daily in the mornings, after school. It makes it really easy for parents to feel confident to talk about any concerns or questions about what we might be doing in the classroom. We also use online platforms and email to communicate about the learning that's going on at school. As a school, we're very multicultural and with that in mind, we need to make sure that we're strengthening the confidence of our learners to feel good about mathematics and feel successful. We host a hui each year and we invite whānau to come share their ideas about what they would like their children to be learning. From the ideas from our whānau hui, we use those, we collate them and we use it to inform our planning.
Wendy Liddell, Maths Specialist Teacher — Tirimoana Primary
Connection and weaving, the two big must dos. Parents will often volunteer their services and their knowledge, which is always gratefully received.
Mātaitipu | Vision for young people
Notice how kaiako:
- Identify ākonga interests, prior knowledge, and needs
- Select purposeful contexts for ākonga to develop mathematical skills
- Make relevant connections between learning and ākonga experiences
- Share data and provide additional support as needed
Rhiannon Wilcox, Year 1 Teacher — Tirimoana Primary
Relationships are really important and we spend a long time at the beginning of the year getting to know our students themselves, getting to know the whānau and what we can do to use their backgrounds and their prior knowledge to help us with our planning for the year.
Wendy Liddell, Maths Specialist Teacher — Tirimoana Primary
We ask children what they already know and this is not just done in the form of a pretest, this is done in the form of a conversation. As we look at the refresh and we look at our own localised curriculum, we're coming to agreed understandings about the importance of explicit teaching to make sure the children have the knowledge, to make sure that they know how this knowledge is relevant and connected to their culture, their lives. We're talking about area and perimeter at the moment. I did have a student who talked about a deck that his father was building and we talked about what his father had to do in order to get the materials that were the right size because his father did the whole thing.
Louise Graham, Assistant Principal — Tirimoana Primary
We've implemented a new assessment schedule, it matches up with the localised curriculum. So what we're saying is important for teaching the knowledge and the skills. It is then transferred into an assessment. We regularly share data within our teams. We make a purposeful effort to identify anyone that may need extra support.
Special thanks to:
Tirimoana Primary School
Te Mātaiaho
Mathematics and Statistics in action
Years 0-3, Video 2:
Understand, Know, Do, and the progress outcomes
These schools share their first thoughts as they look at their current planning using the refreshed mathematics and statistics learning area curriculum content.
Use these videos as you build awareness and grow understanding of Te Mātaiaho, the refreshed NZ curriculum.
Rhiannon Wilcox, Year 1 Teacher — Tirimoana Primary
Last term as a Kāhui Ako, we looked at measurement and we looked at the Understand, Know, Do, unpacked that a bit further, looked at the big ideas, how we would would break that up into specific learning intentions and looking at specific activities that teachers could use to implement those learning intentions.
Understand, Know and Do
Notice how kaiako:
- Weave Understand, Know, and Do together
- Select aspects of the progress outcomes to inform the design of rich learning opportunities
Rhiannon Wilcox, Year 1 Teacher — Tirimoana Primary
As a Kāhui Ako, we've looked at the big ideas such as in phase one, why do we measure? What is measurement? And then we've broken that down into Understand and "I can" statements, so "I can measure an object using non-standard units." And from there we've been able to think of specific activities to do to strengthen the learning. We've thought really carefully about specific foundation learning that in year one we would need to teach and what learners need to learn so that in year two there's a progression, there's a step up and that in year two they can trust that they've learnt the foundations from year one and so forth.
Engaging in the practices of mathematics and statistics
Notice how kaiako:
- Plan opportunities for ākonga to learn new concepts and practices
- Use mathematics and statistics to investigate relevant tasks
Rhiannon Wilcox, Year 1 Teacher — Tirimoana Primary
We've looked at length to start with, the most important thing in year one is really teaching them the specific vocab that they need. So our first lesson was looking at is it long or is it short? And getting the children to use those words explicitly to discuss little wriggly worms. Is it longer or is it shorter? As we were looking at wriggly worms there's a wonderful ready to read poem called Noke, which we also read along with our lesson. We need to make sure when we're planning that we can extend those that need extending and then also making it achievable for those that are just beginning their journey. So by using materials it gives all children the opportunity to feel successful and then for those that need extension, using interlocking cubes to measure exactly how long is it, how short is it?
Assessing using the progress outcomes
Notice how kaiako:
- Notice, recognise and respond to ākonga learning
- Modify what they are doing in response to learner needs
- Create inclusive assessment opportunities that provide multiple ways to show learning
Rhiannon Wilcox, Year 1 Teacher — Tirimoana Primary
In mathematics we want to allow children to explore and think critically about the learning that they're doing. Which means that as teachers we need to take a step back and really observe the language that they're using, the strategies that they're using, having a think how are they working these things out and making notes to then respond accordingly to the learning that is happening. So as a year one team we have our term overview and our term plan planning and we've got our Understand, our Know, and Do. So we're constantly reflecting and making sure that the learners have learnt those things to then move on and checking off the things that we've already taught.
Special thanks to:
Tirimoana Primary School
Te Mātaiaho
Mathematics and Statistics in action
Years 4-6, Video 1:
Decision making and planning, and connections with whānau, hapū, and iwi
These schools share their first thoughts as they look at their current planning using the refreshed mathematics and statistics learning area curriculum content.
Use these videos as you build awareness and grow understanding of Te Mātaiaho, the refreshed NZ curriculum.
Liza McFarlane, Year 4-6 Teacher — Opaheke School
We really have just started with looking at the refresh curriculum and diving into it a little bit. We have done a lot of work looking at the progressions and making sure that our planning reflects the progressions so that teachers, new and old can understand where they're coming from and where they need to go to.
Mātaioho | School curriculum design and review
Notice how kaiako:
- Plan collaboratively
- Learn together and make use of the expertise within the school
- Build on what is already going on in the local curriculum
Liza McFarlane, Year 4-6 Teacher — Opaheke School
On the teacher only day, we looked at the progressions and we looked at the strategies that we thought we could build upon. So we looked on NZ maths at the curriculum elaborations. We used it to see where the children had come from and where we needed them to be at each level. So we set up a planning document that included the different vocabulary that we wanted our children to learn, the materials that helped support their learning. Also that teachers had a bank of resources that could support them with their teaching. We're looking at the Understand, Know, Do framework and how our planning now relates to that framework and the changes we need to make to ensure that it fits in and supports the big ideas.
Anja Hennig, Year 6 Teacher — Green Bay School
At Green Bay School, we are at the beginning of looking at the new refreshed curriculum and the maths curriculum as well. I've started matching existing unit plans and things I'm already teaching in class. Trying to match where would that fall under, what aligns well, what makes sense, and basically kind of trying to overlay what I'm already doing and how that's matching with the new curriculum.
Mātaiahikā | Relationships with tangata whenua
Notice how kaiako:
- Build on existing relationships within the local community
- Invite whānau to share their knowledge and aspirations for ākonga
- Plan purposeful tasks that relate to wider contexts relevant to communities, cultures, interests and aspirations of ākonga
Liza McFarlane, Year 4-6 Teacher — Opaheke School
We would like our whānau to see within our maths sessions where and how we can work together to improve their tamariki's learning. One of our parents came into the classroom and he talked about things like how he'd like to see te reo spoken and he made the example that numbers in Māori are so simple and tekau mā tahi, tekau mā rua, makes far more sense when we are using base tens and he thought it would be a nice way to support our children to actually learn the numbers and the meaning behind the numbers. So we made a connection with our local iwi through our history curriculum and once we've got a bit more knowledge of our maths refresh curriculum, then we would like to connect back with them and see how we can work together.
Mātaitipu | Vision for young people
Notice how kaiako:
- Identify ākonga interests, prior knowledge, and needs
- Make relevant connections between learning and ākonga experiences
- Provide additional support as needed
Liza McFarlane, Year 4-6 Teacher — Opaheke School
As we get to know our students, we are bringing their interests and beliefs and everything that they bring to school and we're integrating it within the classroom, the maths programme, by using word problems with our knowledge of them, using their belief system, sports, anything that we know about them to engage them in the learning process. We use the tuakana-teina approach. Within the classroom, I have a huge range of cultures and abilities and so we have to think of that when we present problems. And so sometimes I'll use things like numbers instead of words and then later on use numbers and words together to reduce their cognitive load.
Special thanks to:
Opaheke School
Green Bay School
Te Mātaiaho
Mathematics and Statistics in action
Years 4-6, Video 2:
Understand, Know, Do, and the progress outcomes
These schools share their first thoughts as they look at their current planning using the refreshed mathematics and statistics learning area curriculum content.
Use these videos as you build awareness and grow understanding of Te Mātaiaho, the refreshed NZ curriculum.
Liza McFarlane, Year 4-6 Teacher — Opaheke School
We're at the beginning of our journey with the Understand, Know, Do, and mapping it to our planning. We're trying to make the connections between our planning that we're using currently and the refresh curriculum and the Understand, Know, Do.
Understand, Know and Do
Notice how kaiako:
- Weave Understand, Know, and Do together
- Select aspects of the progress outcomes to inform the design of rich learning opportunities
Liza McFarlane, Year 4-6 Teacher — Opaheke School
Currently we're doing a multiplication and division unit and we're using place value strategy to achieve children's learning. Māori and Pacific languages explain the base ten units through their language explicitly. So we've been using te reo to help us with the children's understanding of the base ten unit and that comes under the Know part of the refresh curriculum. This supports the big idea under the Understand that Māori and Pacific languages have integrity within their knowledge system. Part of our inquiry unit into Matariki was to make soup and we put the call out to our community that we perhaps needed a bit more fry bread and we used the fact that Te Arakanui's Nan and Chosen's dad had made all this fry bread to make connections with them and their whānau and use it as a division equation so that we could divide the fry bread into the five classrooms and make it into a context that they could relate to.
Anja Hennig, Year 6 Teacher — Green Bay School
The new curriculum fits very well with my kind of style of teaching and how I plan and prepare. It's a more holistic way of thinking. It's like you start somewhere, you have the idea, the big idea, and then you fizzle down into little details and you bring it back to the big idea, which is really exciting as well for maths, because you can start with a story and where does it fit in, in life. This term we are looking at measurement. It's a resource from the New Zealand maths website, which is called Giant Mystery. The story is that we found a big handprint, like an old fossil at school. So if that's the hand, I wonder how big the giant must have been and how could we find out? And then the kids pose questions and so on and that links beautifully all back to the new curriculum under the Do's and you actually investigate and then it goes to the nitty gritty actually how do we measure and how do we measure accurately and what units are we using? And then it's a real doing thing. They have to collect the data and then they have to put it in a kind of a plot graph. You can then link it back as well. What do we find in the real world on fossils? And in New Zealand, you can discuss Moa's and how people may have found a fossil and then calculated the height from there.
Assessing using the progress outcomes
Notice how kaiako:
- Notice, recognise and respond to ākonga learning
- Modify what they are doing in response to learner needs
- Create inclusive assessment opportunities that provide multiple ways to show learning
Liza McFarlane, Year 4-6 Teacher — Opaheke School
For the progress outcomes, clarity is really important to know where the children have come from and where they are currently and where they need to go to next. Our school's really big on visible learning so we use observations, what we see within the book work, what we see happening within independent work follow-up tasks to inform what we need to teach the children. Do they need to consolidate their learning more or can they move off?
Special thanks to:
Opaheke School
Green Bay School
Te Mātaiaho
Mathematics and Statistics in action
Years 7-8, Video 1:
Decision making and planning, and connections with whānau, hapū, and iwi
These schools share their first thoughts as they look at their current planning using the refreshed mathematics and statistics learning area curriculum content.
Use these videos as you build awareness and grow understanding of Te Mātaiaho, the refreshed NZ curriculum.
Matt Brown, Year 8 Team Lead — Tarawera High School
My team and I and our wider junior team have been familiarising ourselves with Te Mātaiaho to look into the pedagogies, to look into the practices and how that we can use it best moving forward with a major focus on Te Tiriti and how we can implement that and give it life within our classroom and our space.
Mātaioho | School curriculum design and review
Notice how kaiako:
- Plan collaboratively and draw on teacher strengths
- Learn together and make use of the expertise within the school and wider community
- Build understanding of Te Mātaiaho and integrate matauranga Māori
Matt Brown, Year 8 Team Lead — Tarawera High School
We work in an ILE or innovative learning environment, planning, teaching, everything we do is together so that we can be all on the same page for our tamariki. We've been exploring and doing our research around Te Mātaiaho looking at the whakapapa. We've been trying to give life to Te Tiriti o Waitangi through mātainuku, which is one of the Pou. We're going to be using the common practice model or the pedagogies at least, to just make sure that what we're doing aligns with the mathematics side of those pedagogies and that the mahi that we're providing for our tamariki is not only relevant and as mātauranga Māori going through the centre, through the core, but also that it's along the lines of what's going to be expected of us and everyone in Aotearoa moving forward. Part of our next steps is to look more deeply at the Understand, Know, and Do framework to ensure that the units and the mahi that we are doing is aligning with everything that we've been working on so far.
Julie Mercer, Year 7-8 Teacher — Green Bay School
We specifically looked at the maths and statistics curriculum as part of our teacher only day. We unpacked the Understand, Know, Do's by sort of laying them all out and just really helped us see and unpack each little bit and how it aligned with the progressions we were already using. I'm a member of the West Auckland Maths Learning Community and we meet once a term and it's just a great opportunity to network with others, discuss, share resources, and ideas, see what's happening out there in other schools in our Kāhui Ako. From the readiness tool, we realise that incorporating mātauranga Māori is something that as a staff, we need to work on a little more and so we've had a facilitator working with us.
Connecting to place and community
Notice how kaiako:
- Identify cultural contexts that resonate with ākonga
- Build on existing relationships within the local community and invite them to share their expertise
Matt Brown, Year 8 Team Lead — Tarawera High School
For us, with our students, we see mātauranga Māori as something that should be a part of everything they do. We want to ensure moving forward that it's not just a unit or a one off thing, but it's actually ingrained in what we do as teachers, as kaiako, and as a school.
Te Okeroa Ngaheu, Year 8 Teacher — Tarawera High School
Now, as a junior cohort we are looking at moving towards the Matariki unit, which is on NZ maths. Because Matariki is such a broad thing to cover, we did look at maybe pulling in algebra just to get those repeated patterns and geometry because of the shapes and also the history of the stars. We are getting those local people in as well to try to share their knowledge. The Matariki stars are different in different areas within New Zealand, so getting someone that is quite familiarised with Matariki stars around our area and sharing their knowledge back to our students is great.
Mātaitipu | Vision for young people
Notice how kaiako:
- Support ākonga to bring their own knowledge and experiences into the learning
- Select purposeful contexts for ākonga to develop mathematical skills and make relevant connections with their lives
Julie Mercer, Year 7-8 Teacher — Green Bay School
We use a range of formal and informal assessments to look at strengths and interests of our students and cater to those. We can use tivaevae patterns, tāniko patterns, tukutuku weaving, so that we can incorporate the growing patterns as part of our algebra unit. Another thing we do is we incorporate activities and events in the local community and nationwide. So in March, we all participated with the census in schools as a maths unit, and that directly related to what everyone was doing in their households. Students could investigate their own question from the data that they'd collected through the census.
Special thanks to:
Green Bay School
Tarawera High School
Te Mātaiaho
Mathematics and Statistics in action
Years 7-8, Video 2:
Understand, Know, Do, and the progress outcomes
These schools share their first thoughts as they look at their current planning using the refreshed mathematics and statistics learning area curriculum content.
Use these videos as you build awareness and grow understanding of Te Mātaiaho, the refreshed NZ curriculum.
Julie Mercer, Year 7-8 Teacher — Green Bay School
We are beginning to plan from the new curriculum now, looking at the Understand, Know, Do progressions.
Understand, Know and Do
Notice how kaiako:
- Weave Understand, Know, and Do together
- Use the progress outcomes to design rich learning experiences
- Weave mātauranga Māori into the learning
Julie Mercer, Year 7-8 Teacher — Green Bay School
So what I've done this term is I've pulled out the Know's and Do's that relate to fractions. I've displayed those on the wall in my classroom and we're talking about how they might use those in everyday life and talking about why it's important to know those things. Something that is really important is those connections, like seeing the connections between all the different contexts for learning in mathematics. For example, fractions just link to our percentages and our decimals. They're all parts of numbers and so that kids can see how everything connects up.
Matt Brown, Year 8 Team Lead — Tarawera High School
We're doing some team planning and we were looking through New Zealand maths and we found a really cool unit around non-standard and standard units of measurement. Inenga, which is Māori measurement. We found that very interesting considering the high number of Māori students we have at our school and within our community. But also they get to do a little bit of measuring that their tupuna or their ancestors may have done back in the day. So that was important to us.
Surè Herbst, Year 8 Teacher — Tarawera High School
We have preloaded our learning with our ākonga by introducing key kupu and mathematical vocabulary. We also spoke about the Māori culture by using body parts to measure. Ākonga engaged in low floor, high ceiling activities and that was also into their mixed ability groups with the main focus being on inenga and our standard measurement. We put them in different groups and they rotate doing different activities within those where they had to estimate distances, then use their body parts to do the actual measurement of it and from there they worked out what the difference is and how far they were away from the estimate to the actual distance. It was a very fun, engaging, hands-on activity.
Te Okeroa Ngaheu, Year 8 Teacher — Tarawera High School
There was that comfortability there with our students, especially having that familiarity with well, this is something that my people used to do, so it made it more so important for our students. Being culturally responsive is really important to us because it shows that we actually want to put in my terms like care about our Māori students being a Māori dominated school.
Planning to support progress
Notice how kaiako:
- Modify what they are doing in response to learner needs
- Create inclusive assessment opportunities that provide multiple ways to show learning
- Provide ākonga with multiple opportunities to progress
Te Okeroa Ngaheu, Year 8 Teacher — Tarawera High School
One of the things that I felt with the engagement with student learning was that because it was hands-on, most of it was done in groups. So you got conversations going on with the students. A lot of our students said that having that prior knowledge of the non-standard Māori measurement helped them a lot when doing the standard measurements.
Julie Mercer Year 7-8 Teacher — Green Bay School
Once we're really clear about the Know's and the Do's and how we're using them in our planning, the next step would be to come up with assessment tasks that are assessing those. We'll need to make sure that those assessment tasks are inclusive for all students and accessible, making them low floor, high ceiling tasks and also incorporating some visual representations of their learning so they can show it in multiple ways.
Special thanks to:
Green Bay School
Tarawera High School
Te Mātaiaho
Mathematics and Statistics in action
Years 9-10, Video 1:
Decision making and planning, and connections with whānau, hapū, and iwi
These schools share their first thoughts as they look at their current planning using the refreshed mathematics and statistics learning area curriculum content.
Use these videos as you build awareness and grow understanding of Te Mātaiaho, the refreshed NZ curriculum.
Jared Hockly, HOD Maths — Western Springs College
As a department, we've had a look at the Understand, Know, Do framework and looking at the year nine and ten phase, up to year thirteen phase, and the seven and eight phase, of the curriculum as well.
Chris Niles, HOD Maths — Rotorua Girls High School
I think the first step really has been me just engaging with the documentation, in particular Te Mātaiaho. We know what the overarching vision is, and then we can connect to that when we start designing our programme.
Mātaioho | School curriculum design and review
Notice how kaiako:
- Plan collaboratively
- Identify practical and relevant contexts for their ākonga
- Weave the Understand, Know, and Do together
- Plan to build on previous learning
Chris Niles, HOD Maths — Rotorua Girls High School
One of the things we're toying with right now is trying to avoid thinking about delivering a curriculum around the strands and thinking, what kind of ways can we engage them in learning about mathematical skills? We'll sit down as a team and we will brainstorm different ideas that we can use for students to explore using maths and stats to solve different types of problems. So when we're looking at connecting those ideas to the refreshed curriculum and looking at progressions, we'll figure out, well, what sort of things they need in terms of understanding, knowing, and from there, we'll try and decide, okay, what kind of feedback do they need in order to improve along this progress outcome. And what we're looking at is a kind of scale of moving from beginner all the way to expert.
Jared Hockly, HOD Maths — Western Springs College
We're always looking to update our practice and one of those in our junior school has been to use projects a lot more and when I look at the refreshed curriculum, I start to see that Understand part of what it is to be mathematical is coming through in our projects. We were using the solo taxonomy quite well in our department and a lot of what we were telling the students about levels and what they were trying to learn at certain years was built into these I can do sheets, so there's still a lot of good stuff in those. But looking at the new curriculum and particularly the Understand parts does make us think that we're going to have a think and a talk about how we would change those for our students coming through.
Mātaiahikā | Relationships with tangata whenua
Notice how kaiako:
- Build on existing relationships within the local community and invite them to share their expertise
- Plan purposeful tasks that relate to wider contexts relevant to communities, cultures, interests, and aspirations of ākonga
Jared Hockly, HOD Maths — Western Springs College
Western Springs College, Ngā Puna o Waiōrea is a co-governance school. We've got our english medium school and our te reo medium school. We have expertise in the te reo area who have their connections with the iwi and the whānau about what they want for their young people. So that gives us a lot of connections to what the curriculum is now asking us to do. We start conversations with whānau, we get to meet them early on in the year, and then we have our parents evenings as well and this is probably the main place that we get to see what the whānau of our ākonga want from their children's learning.
Chris Niles, HOD Maths — Rotorua Girls High School
We're really lucky here at Rotorua Girls High School because we have a wealth of rich cultural capital available to us in this community. The Te Arawa iwis have been extremely helpful in bringing us into their world and to describe to us their histories. It really gives us a different frame and perspective on what students may experience and also how to better communicate with them, how to better understand them. As a school, we've done a whole heap of professional learning to look at what sort of cultural capital do our students already possess and how can we connect with those thinkings and prior knowledge so that we can help improve their learning in a much more efficient and effective way.
Mātaitipu | Vision for young people
Notice how kaiako:
- Select purposeful contexts for ākonga to develop mathematical skills
- Make relevant connections with their lives
Jared Hockly, HOD Maths — Western Springs College
The first topic that we do as year nines is a stats project. It does allow us to sort of get to know the kids really well. It taps into their interests, they get to do their stats about the things that they want to and it's quite a nice topic for us to start figuring out what their levels are.
Chris Niles, HOD Maths — Rotorua Girls High School
Now, student voice comes in an informal kind of way, teachers just interacting with them on a daily basis. But in the department we have a more formalised way of also collecting student voice so that we can reflect on it and improve our programmes. So twice a year we'll send out a survey to all students and we'll ask them how are things going in your class? What can we do better to help you with your learning needs?
Special thanks to:
Western Springs College
Rotorua Girls High School
Te Mātaiaho
Mathematics and Statistics in action
Years 9-10, Video 2:
Understand, Know, Do, and the progress outcomes
These schools share their first thoughts as they look at their current planning using the refreshed mathematics and statistics learning area curriculum content.
Use these videos as you build awareness and grow understanding of Te Mātaiaho, the refreshed NZ curriculum.
Chris Niles, HOD Maths — Rotorua Girls High School
Integrating Understand, Know, and Do into our programme, it's instigated a change in thinking. We have to enable students to connect to the bigger ideas and looking at those topics and themes of learning.
Understand, Know and Do
Notice how kaiako:
- Weave Understand, Know, and Do together
- Use the progress outcomes to design rich learning tasks
Chris Niles, HOD Maths — Rotorua Girls High School
We want to try and use real context that they can latch onto. I think starting off a topic as now we're going to learn about number, it'd be a whole lot better if we said let's explore the idea of planning your budget for the week. And then in that we'll talk about percentages and we'll talk about taxes and we'll talk about income and outgoings. Looking at something like a financial literacy topic in year nine or ten would be a really valuable way of not only giving them a good life skill, but to also cover the things like percentages and adding decimals and subtracting decimals. And then if you couple that with something like a construction topic, well again, we're doing measurements, but we're still dealing with decimals and adding and subtracting and multiplication. So what we're doing is we're trying to revisit those skills across different topics.
Jared Hockly, HOD Maths — Western Springs College
I've been thinking about what my year nine number topic would be with a look at the refresh curriculum. In many ways there's not a lot of change to that topic. The one thing that I would definitely do is try to pay attention to one of the Understands and focus in on that. If we did that on topic by topic and tried to focus on each one of those, we'd actually make sure we got some traction on it. So the one I'd choose for this one would be that maths is a continuing, evolving human history. And I would set up a project where the students got to research how the number system and language perhaps was used in a particular culture, hopefully their own culture, but also whatever culture interested them. One thing I would probably put into that topic is under the algebra part of Know is some stuff around algorithm design and understanding. I think that would be quite a nice fit to get them to do some number algorithms and look at the efficiency of them.
Chris Niles, HOD Maths — Rotorua Girls High School
I think one of the first things you have to do is, you have to stimulate some interest and try and find a context that is relevant and something that they can kind of latch on to. At the beginning of 2023 there was a lot of discussion about rain in New Zealand. So I went on to the Bay of Plenty's Council environmental data portal. We pulled out rainfall data and river levels, but it really brought up a whole lot of discussions about when the rain falls, what happens, and through those experiences I really hope that they connect to this concept of kaitiakitanga where they're the guardians of this land.
Planning to support progress
Notice how kaiako:
- Notice, recognise and respond to ākonga learning
- Create inclusive assessment opportunities that provide multiple ways to show learning
Jared Hockly, HOD Maths — Western Springs College
As a school we've been looking at UDL, Universal Design for Learning, realising that it's really important that we break down any barriers, make sure that students have access to the task and that they get the chance to develop themselves and showcase their learning in a range of ways. One example is in year nine we do a pool design project and there's a bunch of measurement tasks that go along with that. And one of the things that we did there is we allowed them to design it in 3D software if they wanted to, but they could also make physical models, whether that's out of cardboard or Lego, so they could get quite hands-on with it. So it's awesome that UDL and this refresh curriculum are showing us that it was a good move. Our assessment won't change dramatically. There's a lot in the Know and Do part that is what we're doing mostly already. The five understanding big ideas are a little bit more interesting to think about in terms of assessments. They remain the same the whole way through all of the different phases. So obviously we're wanting them to develop the complexity of those understandings.
Chris Niles, HOD Maths — Rotorua Girls High School
Because that progress outcome or phase four is over two years, we're going to have to think pretty deeply about how we're going to give them a sense of progress as they move along to the end of year ten. Where am I right now? What do I need in order to get better?
Jared Hockly, HOD Maths — Western Springs College
So an interesting thing in the refresh curriculum is the critical focus. The one that we're talking about for year nine and year ten is being empathetic and resilient. A lot of maths teachers will understand that resiliency is something that does get taught in maths class. We have to be able to cope with hard stuff and keep on going and then eventually we get rewarded.
Special thanks to:
Western Springs College
Rotorua Girls High School
Updates to content
The draft refreshed mathematics and statistics learning area was updated in May 2023 with minor changes:
- We improved consistency of how te Tiriti o Waitangi is expressed throughout Te Mātaiaho
- “Important considerations” is now “Planning for teaching”
- Te Mātaiaho is being redesigned in A4 size instead of A3.
The draft refreshed mathematics and statistics learning area was updated in September 2023 with minor changes and corrections for consistency across phases and clarity of expectations. In particular:
- Phase 1 number: ‘like’ denominators to ‘the same’
- Phase 1 stats: ‘explore’ to ‘pose’
- Phase 3 number: add and subtract fractions – changed ‘with the same denominator’ to ‘with related denominators’ to make a clear step-up from phase 2
- Phase 3 algebra: included ‘cube numbers’ in ‘identify and describe the properties of prime, composite, and square numbers and the divisibility rules for 2, 3, 5, 9, and 10’
- Progress step Year 5: add or subtract ‘any’ whole numbers
- Phase 4 number: ‘unlike’ denominators to ‘different’
- Phase 4 measurement: ‘a new’ shape’s area to ‘the scaled’
- Phase 4 probability: ‘design’ to ‘plan’
(Updated 23 November 2023)