THE CURRICULUM
How Kiwi123 follows the refreshed NZ Mathematics & Statistics curriculum — three phases, nine year levels, and exactly what each one covers in Number.
🧭Everything on Kiwi123 follows the refreshed New Zealand Mathematics & Statistics curriculum — the knowledge-rich, year-by-year teaching sequence used in New Zealand schools. Schools began teaching it in 2025 under the Government's Make It Count maths plan, and it became the official statement of policy from 1 January 2026. This page explains how the curriculum is organised, and exactly what each year level covers in Number — the strand our mysteries practise first.
The curriculum groups Years 0–8 into three phases. Each phase describes what children should know and be able to do by its end, and the teaching sequence inside it sets out what to teach in each year:
Counting, place value to 1000, add & subtract, first times tables, unit fractions, money.
🌿Written × and ÷, fractions, decimals, percentages, factors, negatives, order of operations.
🌳Integers, powers & roots, primes, ratio & proportion, percentage change, first algebra.
🔎 Year levels are a guide, not a test
The curriculum is progression-based — children move up when they're ready, and skills deliberately overlap between years (a Year 3 child still practises Year 2 facts). On Kiwi123, just pick the year that fits your child today; they can move up or down anytime.
Number is the spine of the curriculum — it gets the most teaching time in every year, and it's where Kiwi123's mysteries start. Here's the year-by-year picture:
| Year | Phase | Number focus |
|---|---|---|
| Year 0 parents’ guide | Phase 1 | Subitising, counting collections, reading and writing numbers to 20, and the first adding and taking away (facts to 5). |
| Year 1 parents’ guide | Phase 1 | Place value to 100 (tens and ones), counting in 2s and 10s, facts to 10, doubles and halves, first equal-sharing fractions, NZ coins and notes. |
| Year 2 parents’ guide | Phase 1 | Numbers to 120, three-digit place value, facts to 20, the first times tables (2s, 5s, 10s), thirds and quarters, rounding to 10. |
| Year 3 parents’ guide | Phase 1 | Numbers to 1000, column adding and subtracting with renaming, ×÷ facts for 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10, unit fractions, money and change. |
| Year 4 parents’ guide | Phase 2 | Numbers to 10,000, column methods, all ×÷ facts to 10, tenths as fractions and decimals, rounding, scaling recipes. |
| Year 5 parents’ guide | Phase 2 | Numbers to 1,000,000, factors, written ×÷ algorithms, hundredths, percentages introduced, first negative numbers, decimal money. |
| Year 6 parents’ guide | Phase 2 | Square and cube numbers, order of operations, thousandths, converting fractions ↔ decimals ↔ percentages, percentage of an amount. |
| Year 7 parents’ guide | Phase 3 | Integers, exponents and square roots, primes, HCF and LCM, fraction operations, proportional reasoning, first linear equations. |
| Year 8 parents’ guide | Phase 3 | Negative exponents and cube roots, prime factorisation, multiplying fractions and decimals, percentage increase/decrease, ratio, budgets. |
There's a plain-English parents' guide to every year — what's taught, readiness signs, and five ways to help at home: Year 0 · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4 · Year 5 · Year 6 · Year 7 · Year 8.
The full curriculum — including the Measurement, Geometry, Statistics and Probability strands — is published on the Ministry of Education's Tāhūrangi site, phase by phase. Search for "NZC Mathematics and Statistics" at newzealandcurriculum.tahurangi.education.govt.nz. For a parent-friendly version of what changed and why, read our guide: The refreshed NZ maths curriculum, explained for parents.
Every Kiwi123 mystery is a whodunit maths activity — read the clues, crack the numbers, catch the culprit. The first ones in every year are free.
Try a free mystery →