How do we fix the alarming decline in numeracy among young Australians? The answer is to catch them when they are very young. So it is reassuring that a targeted review of the national maths curriculum, announced at last Friday’s meeting of education ministers, will focus on the first three years of school.
For two decades, Australia’s maths results have fallen further and more consistently than those of almost any other country in international rankings. We’ve seen NAPLAN achievement flatlining despite huge funding increases following the Gonski review. Nearly half of 15-year-olds aren’t proficient in maths.
Getting in early: kindergarten students at The Entrance Public School, which is among schools tackling the numeracy challenge with explicit teaching strategies.Credit: Louise Kennerley
The consequences ripple across the economy and society. We graduate roughly half as many engineers per capita as our peer countries. Girls underperform boys by a wider margin than almost any other country. By early high school, about half of students say they dislike the subject. And about a third report they experience anxiety with maths.
These are the downstream outcomes from too many children not getting a strong start in maths at school. So the first years at school are the right place to focus, rather than reopen the entire curriculum. It is proportionate and pragmatic. With the previous 2021 update to the national curriculum still bedding down in many classrooms, there’s little appetite for another root-and-branch rewrite.
It’s in the early years that improved clarity really counts. But to make this curriculum review count, it must bring better alignment between what to teach, how to teach and how to assess early maths.
Loading
First, the curriculum must put foundational number ideas at the centre. In the first years of school, time is precious, so it must be spent on the building blocks children actually use. In too many classrooms, long stretches go to colouring patterns or naming and sorting shapes – in part because the curriculum hasn’t clearly signalled where the big learning gains can be best made.
A tighter emphasis must be made on the foundations on which everything else follows. That means ensuring children can count with confidence, can quickly recognise small quantities, be able to understand their 10s and ones, and can add and subtract small numbers quickly without relying on counting with their fingers. Underpinning the curriculum content and intent must be to make small numbers feel familiar and automatic, so later steps have something solid to stand on.
Young children learn maths best when ideas are explained plainly, shown in small steps and practised straight away.
