The New Zealand Government recently launched “Make it Count” – its mathematics action plan aimed at significantly improving the numeracy of New Zealand’s children.
The government will be putting $20 million of additional investment into professional development for state school teachers who teach maths to Year 0-8 students in support of this action plan, with primary and intermediate teachers expected to be up to speed with the new teaching model for the start of the 2025 academic year – an ambitious and challenging timeframe by any measure, especially when coupled with the national adoption of structured literacy.
St Margaret’s College is well ahead in this respect.
Three years of professional development and investment in resources has structured literacy well embedded across our Junior School and our girls are reaping the rewards of this intentional, forward-thinking by SMC with the programme producing extraordinary results.
Four years ago, we undertook a comprehensive review of our Junior School numeracy programme, and put in place a programme of ongoing professional development for our teachers based on scientific data around how the brain learns best, which also extends into our teaching and learning of structured literacy.
This knowledge is put into practice every day in our classrooms, with our teachers taking an intentional approach to teach our girls numeracy and literacy. In every classroom in our Junior School you will see:
- Daily basic facts practice to develop automaticity
- Minimum 60 minutes of maths per day
- Spiralled review (concepts already taught being reviewed frequently to ensure they remain in long term memory)
- Sequential teaching – mastery of one skill before moving on
- Small group teaching of concepts
- Frequent assessment checks to ensure progress.
In our Middle School, Year 7 girls benefit from one period per day of maths, taught by subject-specific maths teachers, who teach for the girls’ mastery and understanding. Going into Year 8, our classes are grouped to ensure we are meeting the needs of all our students, who might also be supported by the team of 11 teachers who form our Leck Centre for Learning Enhancement Faculty.
Our approach works. Earlier this year, when our Year 10 girls undertook the new national numeracy co-requisites assessment, 83% of our students passed first time, compared to a 2023 national pass rate of 56%.
Ensuring all New Zealand students are numerate and literate is crucial, and uplifting teachers to be able to deliver the support children need to develop a love of learning is at the centre of achieving this goal.
At SMC we are fortunate that our independence allows us the freedom to develop our own curriculum, and to move quickly to refine our approach to teaching and learning. Our girls benefit from small class sizes, single cell classrooms that help foster a positive learning environment, and significant investment in our teachers and their professional development. We are proud of our students’ achievements, and our teachers’ commitment to building the foundational skills of numeracy and literacy to enable them to thrive.
