Catholic Education Tasmania’s teaching style turns maths struggles to success

On 13 April 2025, the Grattan Institute published their findings from their investigation into what they term Australia’s ‘maths problem’. “The Maths Guarantee: How to boost students’ learning in primary schools” identifies a worrying statistic, that one in three school students are failing to achieve proficiency standards (NAPLAN, 2024).

At Catholic Education Tasmania, we strongly believe that maths is a vital skill required to perform essential everyday tasks in adulthood. According to the Grattan Institute, weak skills have been linked to poor physical and mental health, and low performance and remuneration in the workplace.

The report also identifies the need to establish a strong foundation in primary school. This requires ‘careful instruction, effortful learning, and lots of practice’ and is achieved by fundamentally understanding how students learn and designing a teaching approach that aligns to this knowledge.

At CET, we embarked on our own journey to revolutionise teaching practice back in 2022. Grounded in the Science of Learning, our Insight into Learning program was designed to equip teachers with the knowledge about how students learn, store and recall information, supported by a robust curriculum.

In mathematics, our subject matter experts in consultation with Shaping Minds Australia developed a week-by-week maths curriculum from Prep to Year 6, with student achievement measures aligned to Australian standards. Teachers were coached in explicit instruction techniques, embedding best practice in the classroom and empowering them to deliver the best outcomes for our students.

Now, in our third year, the numbers substantiate the theory. Our 2024 NAPLAN results for numeracy outperformed the Tasmanian average across all year groups. We also had 13% more students in the Strong, or Exceeding categories in comparison to the state. This was particularly prevalent in the Year 3 cohort, with 80% of students achieving Strong, or Exceeding, highlighting the impact of our approach on the early years.

The Grattan report also stressed the importance of maths-specific professional development. CET has invested heavily in subject specific learning, designed by our subject matter experts and supported by education specialists, such as Shaping Minds.

In addition, our Teaching Matters Summit, 14-16 September 2025, in Hobart, Tasmania will include keynote presentations from key national and international mathematics experts, including the CEO & Founder of Maths Circle, Bruno Reddy.

Dr Gerard Gaskin, Executive Director, said, “It gives me great pleasure to welcome Bruno to this year’s Summit. His exemplary tools and techniques designed to ‘raise maths confidence’ are aligned to our aspirations for best practice pedagogy across our system. We look forward to extending our knowledge as we collaborate with teachers and leaders across Australia to elevate educational outcomes for all.”

Hunter, J., Haywood, A., Parkinson, N and Petrie, D. (2024). The Maths Guarantee: How to boost students’ learning in primary schools. Grattan Institute. ISBN: 978-1-7635970-5-1