As it turns out, an important caveat to note is that the results cited are essentially based on estimates.
In a relatively small sample (46 schools), students answered a handful of questions online relating to number, algebra, space, statistics, and probability. These questions were based on a new (draft) maths curriculum, which has not yet been published for review (or taught in schools).
Compounding this, the benchmarks measured against are interim only (ie; not yet calibrated or standardised). Essentially, this means that the ‘goalposts’ against which the sample students were measured are quite opaque at this stage, and that the data is actually neither national nor normed.
Even though it would be fair to say that the recent CIPs data is questionable to say the least, it does reinforce wider concerns and trends (across the OECD) of declining achievement in maths, which is supported by a significant body of longtitudinal data (although - to be fair - other studies have indicated that the decline in maths has actually occured in later years of schooling).
For our school, as I have shared previously, the good news is that our standardised testing in maths continues to show MENPS students performing at consistently very high levels.
To be clear, not only have we seen no declining trend in maths achievement in Years 4-6 compared with our historic data, but we continue to out-perform when compared with the top 10% of NZ Schools nationally (by decile). If anything, in fact, our results this year are marginally higher, and consistently above the mean compared to other similar decile 10 schools.
