MATHEMATICS - PANGARAU

Our school’s Mathematics and Statistics programme from 2026 aligns with the updated New Zealand Curriculum, Mathematics and Statistics, ensuring a structured approach to learning.  We will be focussed on developing strong foundational skills and mathematical fluency, enabling students to understand, reason, and apply mathematical concepts with increasing confidence.   *Reporting against the New Zealand Curriculum will be undertaken twice yearly.

The New Zealand Curriculum guides your child's teacher in planning the mathematics that your child learns in the classroom.  “The mathematical and statistical processes of investigating, representing and connecting situations, and generalising, explaining, and justifying findings are fundamental to all mathematical and statistical teaching and underpin the way students gain understanding of the knowledge and practices being taught.” (Page 5 The New Zealand Curriculum, Mathematics and Statistics.)

The year-by-year teaching sequences (Phase 1 - Years 0-3) and (Phase 2 - Years 4-6) for Mathematics and Statistics lay out the knowledge and practices to be taught each year. The teaching sequences for Years 0–6 are organised into six strands: Number, Algebra, Measurement, Geometry, Statistics, and Probability. 

Phase 1 (Years 0–3)

In Years 0–3, teaching focuses on building students’ ability to investigate, classify, and describe quantities, shapes, and data. Teachers draw attention to properties of numbers and attributes of shapes. Materials and pictures support visualisation of these numerical and geometric concepts. Explicit teaching enables students to make connections between representations and to develop their reasoning.

Phase 2 (Years 4–6)

In Years 4–6, teaching focuses on students’ use of a variety of representations to model number operations and to solve word problems. They extend their understanding of whole numbers to fractions and decimals, and they visualise, classify, and draw angles using benchmarks to support and justify their classifications. Students apply their knowledge of number operations to reasoning about measurements and to investigating variations in patterns, shapes, probabilities, and data. They begin to work with exponents, can tell the time, and convert between units of time.

What do we want for our learners?

• Through purposeful exploration and practice, we want our learners to build the knowledge and fluency they need to solve problems and reason logically.

• To equip our learners with conceptual and procedural knowledge that empowers them to explore and make sense of the world.

• To develop logical reasoning and critical thinking skills that help them to evaluate information, question assumptions, and express ideas clearly.

Mathematics in the classroom:

• A range of data and assessments can be used to inform classroom planning;  Teacher judgements, Number Snapshots (Dr Jo Knox and Marie Hirst) IKan and PAT Maths (Years 3-6) are some examples.

• Teachers provide a balanced mathematics programme which could include; Numicon Resources, PR1ME Resources, SMA (Jordan Priestley) Resources, a Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities (DMIC) approach are some tools and approaches that may be used.

• Differentiated programmes that cater for individual/group needs. 

• Recommended practices include daily hour-long blocks, which may consist of a whole-group introduction (10–15 mins) followed by smaller, differentiated group rotations (15–30 mins).  We may also integrate our maths learning into other curriculum areas e.g Physical Education with a maths focus or a Science experiment that includes a maths component(s).

Ānō me he whare pūngāwerewere

Behold, it is like the web of a spider.

This whakataukī celebrates intricacy, complexity, interconnectedness, and strength. The Learning Area of Mathematics and Statistics weaves together the effort and creativity of many cultures that over time have used mathematical and statistical ideas to understand their world.