Experts warn of lower maths achievement under new curriculum

Maths experts say the number of children achieving at levels set by the new maths curriculum will likely be even lower than stated by a recently published national study.

The Curriculum Insights study, commissioned by the Education Ministry, recently reported a quarter of Year 3s and Year 8s, and a third of Year 6s last year met curriculum expectations in maths.

That measurement was not based on the curriculum schools used last year - it was based on benchmarks created against a 2023 draft curriculum.

Charles Darr from the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, which runs the study with Otago University, told RNZ it was about to create new benchmarks last year, but abandoned that plan, when it learned there would be further changes to the maths curriculum.

Maths experts and teachers have told RNZ the changes, announced last year and introduced this year, made the curriculum considerably more difficult.

They said the increased difficulty, combined with lack of improvement in most children's scores in Curriculum Insights tests, meant the proportion meeting curriculum expectations would almost certainly fall, when the new benchmarks were used.

Massey University professor Jodie Hunter said it was a reasonable assumption, given the study found no big improvements in children's maths proficiency - only Year 3 students' scores improved by a statistically significant amount, if compared to 2023.

"Given that they haven't really had any change, no statistically significant changes, it's probably fair enough to say the results would be poorer, if you put them against the new curriculum," Hunter said.

She said improved maths achievement was unlikely.

"Unless we're going to really substantially invest in teachers and professional development, and develop our own resources that actually map with the curriculum, I don't think we're going to get any changes."

Lisa Darragh from the University of Auckland said it was reasonable to expect fewer children would meet its expectations.

"It is my guess that is what we'll see, because the curriculum is more difficult in that it contains more stuff to learn, so it would be hard to imagine it any other way," she said.

Darragh said teachers liked a lot of aspects of the 2025 maths curriculum, such as increased specificity about what to teach at each year level, but the new version had a different structure and more content.

"It became a curriculum that was filled with many, many more things for children to memorise and do," she said. "There's long, long lists of things to be known.

"It's been an enormous step up."

Darragh said, if the percentages meeting curriculum expectations were too low, it might be time to reconsider the curriculum.

"If we're delivering a curriculum that more than 80 percent of our students fail at, how are those students going to feel about the subject of mathematics," she said.

"Making a curriculum way more difficult does not automatically make our children smarter. It just potentially makes our students feel like failures, and whether or not they feel like a failure is going to have an enormous impact on how they do at secondary school and whether they choose to continue taking mathematics, once it becomes optional."

The government introduced more maths resources and a change in teaching style to help raise achievement, but Darragh said there was no solid evidence the government's favoured approach would be an improvement .

"The phrase that I've been hearing from schools is that teaching maths has become 'death by powerpoint', so our children are just sitting in front of slide after slide after slide, as they listen to their teacher lecturing at them, and we know that's not the best way to learn."

Darr said it was not certain achievement against the curriculum would drop, when the benchmarks were updated.

"In 2023, they actually had a curriculum statement that started with a sentence something like, 'Students will know and be able to do these things'.

"In the more recent curriculum, it changes the wording a little bit and it's subtle, but it's interesting - it says 'these are the things that teachers should teach'.

Darr said that could lead to different interpretations of what was meant by curriculum expectations.

In addition, the Education Ministry had provided more guidance for teachers about what to expect from children at each year level and Curriculum Insights would need to use that to set its benchmarks.

"What Curriculum Insights will have to do is not just look at the brand new curriculum, but look at all of that infrastructure and make sure it's able to make a comprehensive judgement," he said.

"That means we can't necessarily predict that, just because the curriculum is possible asking for more difficult stuff at times, therefore there'll be fewer people able to do that stuff compared to the old curriculum."