Getting Started with EP Online PLD (Initial Live Training Session)

Maths Curriculum Reset

New Zealand schools opened 2026 under a binding new Mathematics and Statistics curriculum that took effect on 1 January, replacing decades-old content with phased knowledge progressions and explicit teaching sequences across Years 0-10.

The refresh responds directly to sustained underperformance in international testing, where New Zealand's mathematics results have slipped markedly over the past two decades, leaving too many students—especially from lower-decile, Māori and Pasifika backgrounds—without the foundational fluency needed for later success.

To accelerate adoption the Ministry of Education is funding full access to Education Perfect's curriculum-mapped resources for every Year 9 and 10 student in participating schools, complete with automarked tasks, growth reporting against new outcomes, and ready-to-use materials that mirror the refreshed language and calculation methods.

The concrete deadline is immediate: full implementation is expected from the first day of Term 1, with existing EP subscribers required to confirm class rollovers or request refunds and reallocations by late January to avoid disruption or financial loss.

Non-obvious tensions abound. Teachers already logging 46-plus hours weekly now face mandatory upskilling on a rapidly evolving platform whose latest 2025-26 features were released too recently for most to have internalised, even while the same digital tools promise to slash planning time and surface precise intervention points.

The funding model itself creates trade-offs: central provision of high-quality resources reduces school-level reinvention yet shifts the burden onto professional learning capacity at the precise moment regional PLD allocations have tightened and Kāhui Ako structures wind down.

For schools that move quickly the payoff is measurable—individualised pathways that close gaps without adding teacher hours—yet inaction carries clear risks: non-aligned teaching, missed Ministry support, and another cohort entering senior secondary already behind the curve the new curriculum was designed to fix.