Primary maths recovers, word reading hits 15-year high
More than three million maths and reading tests sat over 15 years show primary maths is picking up again and word reading is at its highest point in the data.
The analysis was done by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, using its Progressive Achievement Tests, or PATs. These are standard tests schools use to track progress in reading and maths. The findings were reported on 13 October and cover more than half the children who attended primary school since 2012, according to RNZ. Children in Years 4 to 8 can now read words better than at any point in the 15-year period.
Maths scores fell from 2019 and hit a low in 2022, then started to lift. Direct comparison ends in 2024, because the PAT maths test was changed that year and old and new scores cannot be lined up directly. On the new scale, Term 1 results this year were one-third of a year's learning ahead of the start of 2024.
Reading results go in two directions. Vocabulary scores held near the baseline set in 2012, then began to rise in 2021. At the start of this year they were one-fifth of a year's learning above the 2012 baseline. Comprehension went the other way. Scores started falling in 2015 and reached a low in 2024, about a quarter of a year's learning below the 2012 baseline. The PAT reading comprehension test was changed in 2025, and this year's result was better than last year's.
Researcher David Coblentz found the lifts in maths and reading vocabulary started before the Government's changes began. The PAT series is separate from the ministry's Curriculum Insights and Progress Study. On the same day, the Government published a Beehive release titled "It's all adding up: More maths gains for Kiwi kids". It said new independent assessment results showed primary and intermediate students made the equivalent of four months' additional progress, according to the Beehive.
Those policies are already operating in schools. Primary and intermediate students get an hour each of maths, reading and writing every day. The Government is rewriting the national curriculum. It has set a target of 80 percent of Year 8 students at or above the expected curriculum level for their age in reading, writing and maths. Budget 2026 investment centres on raising achievement and lifting student performance in reading, writing and maths.
The formal study name is the Curriculum Insights and Progress Study. It publishes the Summary of the 2025 Foundation Assessments on annual progress in mathematics, reading and writing. Its latest results showed achievement across reading, writing and mathematics had stabilised. The study found no statistically significant changes (shifts too small to rule out chance) in average reading scores at Years 3, 6 and 8. Separate assessment results showed an improvement in Year 6 maths ability, while phonics checks rose from 36 percent of students at or above curriculum level in Term 1 2025 to 58 percent in Term 3.
The broader context here is attribution and what can be claimed. Ministers will want to link any lift to the daily hour, the curriculum rewrite and Budget 2026 funding. The NZCER timeline complicates that claim, because two of the upturns predate implementation. The test breaks in 2024 for maths and 2025 for comprehension also limit what can be said about long-run trends, a point select committees — small groups of MPs who examine policy — and the Press Gallery will press. The size of the PAT data set means officials and advisers take it seriously.
Looking at what this means for the next political test, the figures leave the argument open. Stabilised Curriculum Insights results and flat average reading scores at Years 3, 6 and 8 sit alongside PAT gains in vocabulary and a post-2022 maths recovery. The question is not whether Term 1 moved, but whether that movement holds across different tests, survives the scale changes, and reaches comprehension and writing as well as word reading and maths.
