9. JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) Link to this
to the Minister of Education
What were the results of the Accelerating Learning in Mathematics Pilot Study?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) Link to this
I am pleased to say that the pilot programme to accelerate maths learning has seen significant improvements for struggling students in a short space of time. Overall, students achieved 80 percent of 1 year’s learning in maths after just 10 weeks of intensive teaching, with some children making over 1 year’s improvement in 10 weeks. National standards are helping to identify the students who need extra help, and programmes such as this will then be used to support and improve their learning as part of this Government’s ongoing commitment to literacy and numeracy.
We will use the findings from this study as we roll the programme out to a larger number of schools to see whether it will be as successful on a larger scale. That is why we will be extending the programme into 180 schools this year. It will be continually improved, of course, as the project continues. In this next phase there will be a particular focus on supporting Māori students, because the previous pilot showed that they had not learnt at the same rate as some of the other students.