Erica Stanford: Education Minister on new data showing maths skills are up

A-pluses all round for a nationwide maths trial.

The $40 million Government programme targeted 1500 Year 7 and 8 students needing extra support, through small-group tutoring up to four times a week. 

Education Minister Erica Stanford says early indicators show students averaged one to two years progress. 

"It tells me that there's no substitute for excellent, explicit teaching in a structured way. And what that shows is that when we have a curriculum that supports that and professional learning and development that supports that, then you get these results." 

All schools who requested to be part of the programme have been accepted. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's get to some more excellent news for the country,
because it doesn't stop. We have yet more amazing results
from the government's education changes, this time the new Maths curriculum.
Remember the pilot you might remember this. It was run
to help the kids in year seven and eight who
was struggling with maths to get just a little bit
of extra help. It turns out that in the space
of twelve weeks three months, these kids have caught up

(00:20):
on two years worth of maths. Erica Stanford is the
Education Minister. High Erica hi Gez's results just getting better
and better, aren't they.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
It's really encouraging. And what was the most interesting thing
about this was that control group we expected to see
really good gains were students who were receiving tuition extra tuition.
But what was so groundbreaking was those students who were
in the control group, who were more than a year
behind the curriculum, just receiving an hour a day of

(00:50):
maths with teachers who had received professional learning and development
and structured maths. The new maths books that we flooded
into classrooms, the workbooks and guidebooks, and the new year
by year internationally benchmarked curriculum those kids made a year's
worth a progress in twelve weeks, and that's a bit
that has absolutely blown us away, and it shows our
reforms are working.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Okay, what does it tell you about what has been
going on in maths?

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Then, well, it tells me that there's no substitute for
excellent explicit teaching in a structured way. And what that
shows is that when we have a curriculum that supports that,
and professional learning and development that supports that, then you
get these results. I think when we have a system
that has let teachers down an initial teacher education and

(01:34):
it's been pretty woeful in mathematics. When you have a
curriculum that is waftly and over multiple years and doesn't
tell you what to teach and when, and is not
internationally benchmarked, and we don't have any resource to support
it or assess our kids to see how they're going,
then what do you expect decades of decline, which is
what we have had, and we're turning that around.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
I mean, because it gives the impression that what's been
happening in maths glasses up to now is a whole
bunch of kind of just unguided or directionless facthing around
is that what's been going on well the curriculum.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
To give you an example, between years one and three,
the old curriculum, we've just turfed fit on an a
four page that tells you everything you need to know.
We were not being clear about what must be taught
in when and in mathematics it's so important because you
have to do things in a certain sequential order, and
you have to master it before you can move on,

(02:25):
because if you miss an essential building block in maths,
it's very hard to catch up.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Erica, do you think I mean, you are facing a
huge amount of opposition from teachers at the moment in
principles for what you're trying to do. Do you think
that as these results come out by bit showing that
you are making progress in your ideas of working, do
you think you're going to get them on board.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
I couldn't have done any of this without the incredible
work of teachers and principles have been implementing our reforms
over the last year or so. They've done a huge
amount of heavy lifting, and they should be extraordinarily proud
of these results. They did this and I didn't teach
any kids to do maths it was there, and I
think you're right that the more of these results that
we see, the more confidence we will build. But I'm

(03:05):
really clear, I am in this job fighting for our kids,
and I will continue to keep going because parents. That's
what parents expect, that their kids are confident, capable across
all subjects and can then go on to live the
life that they want.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Now, listen, the other thing that is remarkable is, of
course the kids who are really really far behind, who
managed to do this extra math situition over twelve weeks
and accelerate their learning by two years. Is that going
to be available now that this is just a pilot,
is that going to be available to a wider group now?

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Well, the results that we saw with the children who
were doing thirty minute sessions four times a week showed
that they made two years worth of catch up in
twelve weeks. So we are looking to roll that out
next year to for fifteen thousand children, So thirteen thousand
in the beginning of the year and another two thousand
a bit later on, so fifteen thousand children will receive that.

(03:58):
There'll be a little bit of on line, but we're
trying to do as much as we can that is
that teacher in front of a small group, because we
could see that that was the most effective and the
most beneficial to catch those kids up.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, brilliant. Listen, where are you at with a pay deal?

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Well, we're always hopeful. Of course, we're working hard. The
Public Service Commissioner is working very hard. He is at
the table and negotiations are a proceeding. So we really
don't want to start next year in a situation where
we're back into rolling strikes. We want to come to
an agreement. We've put everything on the table and good faith.

(04:35):
We've been very open and honest about what we can do,
and negotiations are ongoing.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Brilliant. Hey, thank you very much, Erica, really appreciate your time.
That Serica is Standford Education Minister who obviously just keeps
on smashing it out of the park. For more from
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