NSW Education Minister counts on national numeracy check for Year 1 students

A national numeracy check for Year 1 students is being championed by NSW Education Minister Prue Car, who has demanded that universities ‘lift their game’ in training new teachers.

NSW Education Minister Prue Car.

A national numeracy check for Year 1 students is being championed by NSW Education Minister Prue Car, who has demanded that universities “lift their game’’ in training new teachers.

Ms Car called for children to be tested on their mathematical knowledge at the start of primary school, along with the “phonics check’’ that was opposed nationally by teacher unions.

“Why don’t we talk about nat­ionally doing a numeracy check for our kids in Year 1, once they can properly read, to be able to ­assess where they are at with basic numeracy,’’ she told The Australian. “Taxpayer funding in education should be tied to making sure that we are doing the very best for our kids.’’

Ms Car, the Deputy Premier of NSW, said she would share with other states and territories the “nation-leading’’ syllabus reforms that won backing on Wednesday from federal Education Minister Jason Clare, the Catholic education system and the NSW Teachers Federation.

Mr Clare praised the NSW reforms, which give primary school teachers plain-English guidance on classroom lessons for each subject across every year level, in a back-to-basics teaching method known as “explicit instruction’’.

“We know evidence-based teaching methods work and I am glad to see NSW rolling this out,’’ he said.

The changes to the syllabus in the nation’s biggest schooling system will pile pressure on other states and territories to do the same. Victoria mandated the use of explicit instruction, along with phonics to teach children to read, only last month.

Queensland does not have its own primary school syllabus, leaving individual teachers in each school to interpret the nat­ional curriculum.

Queensland schools are still using a defunct version of the nat­ional curriculum, as the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority has given schools until the end of 2027 to adopt Version 9 – even though it was updated two years ago.

“The schooling sectors and/or individual schools decide on approaches to teaching for their contents,’’ QCAA chief executive Jacqueline Wilton said on Wednesday. “Queensland schools are working towards implementing (version 9) of the curriculum by the end of 2027, starting with Eng­lish and mathematics by the end of next year.’’

Ms Car blasted universities’ failure to train teachers to deliver the syllabus and manage classroom behaviour.

The nation’s education ministers have mandated that all universities introduce “core content’’ – such as teaching children to read and master mathematics – by the end of next year.

Ms Car said education ministers across Australia “have struggled with ensuring that what is taught at university is relevant and helpful for the graduates coming out into classrooms’’.

“I just want to urge universities to pay attention to how important it is that university graduates are coming out prepared for the classrooms in NSW to teach explicitly – not just in terms of the curriculum but also to explicitly teach behaviour in the classroom and the expectation of how our kids behave at school,’’ she said.

“Universities do have to come back to the core principle of producing quality teachers to be in our classrooms. We will do everything we possibly can to address the teacher shortage, we will change the curriculum, we’ll build schools, but we still need teachers coming out as graduates well prepared to be in the classroom.’’

Ms Car said the new teaching syllabus for primary schools in NSW would focus on facts, phonics and step-by-step explicit teaching of knowledge. “It is ­nation-leading, it is going to really go a long way to helping teachers be able to lift kids and lift the outcomes,’’ she said.

Catholic Schools NSW welcomed the curriculum for including “more detail and greater clarity on essential content, helping teachers navigate syllabuses with greater ease and supporting students to meet learning outcomes’’.

NSW Teachers Federation senior vice-president Natasha Watt said: “Curriculum with high levels of subject knowledge and rigour can be positive.’’