NUMERACY: �HOW ARE WE DOING?�

The following are slides from Marion’s presentation

THIS IS A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE ON NUMERACY

Wouldn’t it be great if every student was numerate when they left secondary school?

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This is a goal worth working towards.

AT MY SCHOOL, IN 2023 AND 2024:�

We have run ourselves ragged trying to teach both Numeracy and mathematics, when we don’t even have enough time to teach the maths curriculum. We assessed students for the CAA twice in year 10 in 2023.

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This year, 100 students who did not achieve Numeracy in year 10 (not including ESOL students) were in a course which included preparation for the Numeracy CAA and 2 internal standards.

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Those students who didn’t achieve in year 10 had a low pass rate for the Numeracy CAA in May, but many of them achieved the 1.2 maths internal.

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SO…

OUR PLAN FOR 2025:�

We will return to teaching and assessing Mathematics and Statistics. We will no longer be teaching nor assessing Numeracy.

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All students in year 11 will have the opportunity to achieve two maths standards, either 1.1& 1.2 or 1.1& 1.4.

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Students in year 12 or 13 without Numeracy will be strongly encouraged to either do a maths or stats course or a senior Numeracy course which will do 1.1 and 1.2.

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Students in years 11 to 13 can opt in to do the Numeracy CAA, and will be given access to practice materials but no teacher support.

WHAT I BELIEVE ABOUT NUMERACY

The intention of the MOE in putting in the Numeracy requirement is to get us to focus more on teaching our weakest students.

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For some students to achieve Numeracy, it will require sustained personal effort with considerable support over 3 or 4 years. We can identify those students at the beginning of year 9.

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Most non-maths teachers want to be able to teach a token amount of Numeracy in their courses. They do not want to consistently focus their attention on our weakest students.

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So far, I am not seeing any programme being developed to work effectively with our weakest students.

Wouldn’t it be great if every student was numerate when they left secondary school?

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This is a goal worth working towards.

31 SURVEY RESULTS �(NOT A RANDOM SAMPLE)

This year:

• Schools are doing everything, 90% offering CAA in year 10 and/or 11
• 50% are doing Numeracy through standards
• 40% are opting into CAA by teachers, 15% opting in by students, 20% are using an opt-out model.
• Students in year 12 & 13 without Numeracy are entered for the CAA.

2025: Looks fairly similar

Numeracy teaching Numeracy content Extra Numeracy Extra Numeracy Nothing

in maths class in other subjects time/maths teacher time/other teacher

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Numeracy teaching in schools 2024

Numeracy teaching in schools 2025

Numeracy teaching Numeracy content Extra Numeracy Extra Numeracy Nothing

in maths class in other subjects time/maths teacher time/other teacher

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WHAT NUMERACY IS BEING TAUGHT IN CLASS THIS YEAR?

IN MATHS CLASS:

• About 25% incorporated Numeracy into their teaching of the maths curriculum
• About 50% used Numeracy type questions as lesson starters
• A few used a practice book or did specific Numeracy practice as part of their maths curriculum.
• A few did not include Numeracy in their maths teaching.

IN OTHER SUBJECTS:

• Two responses mentioned social science and science as including Numeracy content
• Four responses mentioned other support within the school
• Most responses mentioned talk/PLD/expectations
• Many responses mentioned little or no effective action.

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WHAT STRATEGY IS YOUR SCHOOL USING TO IDENTIFY STUDENTS AT RISK OF NOT GAINING NUMERACY?

• 30% mentioned easttle
• 10% mentioned PAT
• 50% mentioned teacher judgement or tracking
• 20% said none

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Wouldn’t it be great if every student was numerate when they left secondary school?

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This is a goal worth working towards.

Kia whakairia te tapu

Kia wātea ai te ara

Kia turuki whakataha ai

Kia turuki whatataha ai

Haumi ē, hui ē, tāiki ē.

NUMERACY: �HOW ARE WE DOING?�

The following are slides from Halley’s presentation

NUMERACY: �HOW ARE WE DOING?�

The following are slides contains responses for each of the themed questions

QUESTION: WHAT ARE SOME STRATEGIES THAT SUPPORT NUMERACY ACROSS CURRICULUM

Responses:

• Teaching structured literacy and spending more time on reading, writing, and explaining jargon (note that there is a fair amount of literacy in the numeracy CAA)
• Additonal session work (outside of maths classes, other teachers chip in along with maths teachers?)
• Other subjects giving their best practice for numeracy via PLD
• Organising school wide PD about why it is important to teach numeracy across curriculum

Keep and eye on tahurangi.education.govt.nz Find curriculum leads for your region here and ask them about getting experts funded by the ministry to come into your school and talk about “lit/num across curriculum”.

• Process ideas were easier to interpret at some schools. Perhaps start with process ideas.
• There is definitely buy in at some schools.
• Discuss with willing members of the others deparments to come up with contextual questions involving numeracy, come with a plan to teach numeracy in those departments.

QUESTION: WHAT ARE SOME RESOURCES WHICH HELP STRUGGLING STUDENTS

Responses from the survey. Note that these are resources used to support all students:

• Walker books (Green and Blue books). Search for “Walker Numeracy”
• Sigma book, smart lab practice tests
• Education perfect (Digital resource)
• NZAMT practice tests (Desmos links and question bank)
• Videos made by Infinity +1, Mr. Ong’s Numeracy videos (available on youtube)

QUESTION: WHAT ARE SOME FEEBACK AND FEEDFORWARD STRATEGIES?

Responses:

• Use the feedback coming through Principal’s Nominees at your school OR teachers could sit with students as they opened their feedback through the NZQA portal and talk about next steps. (Ex: Identify the process ideas with not enough evidence and examine similar past exam questions/answers)

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• Signal teaching in other learning areas and students themselves that activities that are in their weak area needs to be a focus – “if you arent explaining reasoning well, you need to focus on it whenever it comes up, not avoid it”.

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• Acknowledged that it is not helpful that we dont actually know which questions the student got wrong, so feedback has to be pretty generic.

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QUESTION: ROLE OF NUMERACY COORDINATORS

Responses:

• Create fortnightly starters (perhaps in a variety of contexts) for the whole school to do
• Organise across school (Numearcy across curriculum) PD by contacting the curriculum leads in their area. (Check out the link here)
• Analyze past results and run targeted afterschool workshops for students
• Create numeracy preparation guides for students (include links to past exam papers, online videos, digital exams, “I know how to” checklist for process ideas e.t.c.)
• Reach out to the across school leaders in your Kahui and offer support to our primary and intermediate counterparts in understanding the numeracy requirements.

QUESTION: WEAVING NUMERACY INTO MATHEMATICS

Responses:

• Acknowledged in the chat room that within the time we have to teach maths, it is impossible to teach both maths and numeracy and to effectively support our weak learners.
• Some schools are brining other learning areas on board for positive attitudes towards numearcy
• Senoir leadership should consistently receive the message that maths departments can not teach mathematics curriculum AND solely prepare students for numeracy CAA.
• Numeracy coordinators in the school need to work effectively to make a difference in Numeracy achievement. (refer to the “role of numeracy coordinators” responses for ideas)