The NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) and the Department of Education have launched a new numeracy course to support Year 11 and 12 students to build functional and practical mathematics skills.
Minister for Education, Sarah Mitchell launched the new course, Numeracy Stage Six, along with the Department’s #MathsTrainsBrains campaign which aims to drive interest and engagement with mathematics.
Ms Mitchell said the course was an element of the NSW Mathematics Strategy to ensure all students had the necessary support to develop core numeracy and mathematics skills.
“Students who have been a part of the pilot course are more engaged in maths by up to 11 percentage points, which is a huge success and will help set them up for the future,” Ms Mitchell said.
“We’ve seen increased engagement particularly from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, students in rural and remote areas and students studying vocational education and training courses,” she said.
NESA said that over the past three years 198 schools had piloted the new course and an evaluation from the Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation (CESE) found an increased participation and engagement with numeracy and mathematics.
It said the course focused on the development and consolidation of core numeracy skills and was aligned to the Australian Core Skills Framework (ACSF) Level Three, a nationally agreed level of functional numeracy.
“These skills are developed through authentic and relevant learning scenarios such as budgeting, shopping, record and account keeping, and a range of real-life activities requiring numeracy,” NESA said.
The Authority said the Numeracy Stage Six Syllabus would be published in Term Three of this year, to be taught to Year 11 in 2022 and Year 12 in 2023.
Further information on the new Year 11 and 12 numeracy course can be accessed on NESA’s website at this PS News link.
