Better reading, maths results but two new curriculums a massive job - principals

Photo: Supplied / Ministry of Education

A Dunedin primary school says the new English and maths curriculums have changed the way its teachers teach.

In South Auckland a school says it has noticed big improvements in children's maths.

And in Tauranga, a principal says the core of the new curriculums brings focus to things teachers already know and do.

The principals of all three schools told RNZ introducing two new curriculums in one year was a massive job and one that was far from complete.

They said they deliberately focused this year on one or other of the new documents, not both, and they had more work to do next year.

At Rowandale School in Auckland, principal Karl Vasau said teachers were still "unpacking" the new English curriculum and had focused on maths.

He said they had already seen significant improvements in children's results, but that was due at least in part to improvements in basic literacy thanks to the school's adoption four years ago of a structured literacy approach for teaching children to read.

"If you're strong in literacy you can understand the questions, you can understand the context and so when we have delivered some standardised tests to our kids, our children have made massive gains," he said.

Vasau said teachers were finding the maths curriculum helpful.

"Teachers are finding teaching mathematics a little bit easier because it's prescribed as to what you are to deliver," he said.

"If maths is not necessarily their strength, having a structured numeracy programme allows for teachers to not really st