Theme: Making connections

Date: Friday 27^th November

Venue: Tamaki Campus, University of Auckland,

Plenary speaker: Lillian Grace, CEO and founder Figure.NZ

Registrations opened: Tuesday 27 October

Online registrations will close Monday 9 November 5pm.

Workshops will cover levels 4 to 8 of the NZ curriculum incorporating material suitable for years 7 to 13 (and including Scholarship at year 13)

Detailed information on workshops and registration can be found via links at

https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/en/for/schools/statistics-teachers-day.html

Today is World Statistics Day!

Watch students at Kapiti College show how they use the inquiry cycle to make conclusions from data.

Today organisations, teachers and students from all over the world will be celebrating the role that data plays in our lives now and in the future.

Statistics New Zealand have launched a Level 3 time series resource to showcase how they analyze data, this presentation was well received at NZAMT 2015.

Other World Statistics Day classroom activities include a movie showing students how they can contribute to a data-driven future, and a poster explaining how statistics around the world are use to make decisions. These could be a great way to generate discussion about how we use statistics in the world outside school.

Also Anna Martin has produced a very addictive game to celebrate World Statistics day, what does your data look like?

From January 2016, Statistics New Zealand’s Schools Corner will no longer be available.

From February 2016, relevant resources will be relocated to here CensusAtSchool and the nzmaths website.

Are your students ready for an on-line statistical modeling challenge for maths week!? Expose your students to future careers that will be found at the intersection of data, visual arts and modelling.

Anna Fergusson has created a word difficulty ranking generator, students can gather data to try and model and predict a ‘readability score’. Statistics teachers if you would like to find out more background about the challenge visit Anna’s website.

How will the challenge run?

Monday to Tuesday

Students test their own words through the on-line text analyser, record data from these tests, and try to develop a way to predict the readability score. They should make some notes/diagrams for their model and use these to predict readability scores for the first set of reserved words.

Wednesday to Thursday

Students have access to check the first set of reserved words. They enter the readability score they would predict for each reserved word, and see how this compares to the actual readability score. This should help them refine their prediction model.

Friday

Students have access to check the second set of reserved words. They enter the readability score they would predict for each reserved word, and see how this compares to the actual readability score. They should only do this once (i.e. this should be their final evaluation of the model).

Keen to give it a go?

Here’s the place to send students: http://mathstatic.co.nz/predictive-text-challenge

Maths (and Stats!) week is on again from Monday August 10th until Friday August 14th 2015.

NZAMT have lots of great resources to help you make the most of a special week. If you have any Statistics resources you use for Maths Week and would like to share with others, CAS can help you do that: please email censusatschoolnz@gmail.com

Registration

Dear Educator,

The census is the official count of people and dwellings in New Zealand. At Statistics NZ we are committed to working with community groups and service providers like you, to make sure everyone can take part in the census and benefit from the information we produce. Students’ families will be involved in completing the next Census, your role in educating students about what, how and why statistics are collected, and the integral part they play in decision making cannot be overlooked.

The enclosed infographic poster about education and training in New Zealand is one of our latest census releases. The infographic shows some of the key facts about education and training from the 2013 Census – including information about people with qualifications; highest qualification; post-school qualification field of study; and study participation.

You can find more information on this topic in the summary report 2013 Census QuickStats about education and training, available on our website.

The education and training infographic is just one way we are displaying the data we collect, to inform and broaden our audience base and tell New Zealand’s statistical stories.

Other products on our website that may be of interest include:

• Infographics on a range of topics – which tell New Zealand’s statistical stories visually
• QuickStats – summary reports about topics including Māori; income; work and unpaid activities; transport and communication; and education and training
• Stat – a tool that lets you create tables of the data you want from large datasets
• Schools corner – resources to help you learn and teach about statistics, the census, and other topics.

Census information helps determine how billions of dollars are spent in the community. It is needed for planning vital public services such as education, health, housing, and transport. Census data also provides information for community service funding. Businesses, councils, community groups, and iwi also use census information to plan for the future.

We are making big changes to the 2018 Census, to modernise how and what we collect. For example, in 2018, we are expecting most people in New Zealand to provide their information online. We will be asking for your help in the lead-up to the 2018 Census, as you play an important part in helping us reach a range of audiences.

We hope you take the time to have a look at our products and look forward to working with you in the future to promote the importance of the census.

For further information on the census, including resources in different languages, visit http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census

Ngā mihi

Denise McGregor

Census Manager

One contributor to the CensusAtSchool/TataurangaKiTe Kura project is Dr Ian Christensen, who has been helping us to formulate the questionnaire in te reo Māori and also adapt CAS resources for the Māori-language pāngarau (maths) classroom. (You can search for those resources here).

Over the years, Ian has contributed to the development of the maths vocabulary and resources used in kura kaupapa (Māori-language schools). He works at a Māori language education and research organisation called He Kupenga Hao i te Reo, based in Palmerston North. He Kupenga Hao i te Reo has just published for the Ministry of Education a level 3 statistics textbook and accompanying teacher handbook called Te Tauanga (tauanga is the Māori word for statistics), which focuses on the statistics and probability strand of the pāngarau curriculum. Further books focusing on statistics at levels 4 and 5 of the curriculum will follow later in 2015 and early 2016.

We’re delighted to see that Ian has made good use of CensusAtSchool questions and data, and we are hoping that this will encourage more reo-Māori classrooms to take part in the Māori-language version of the census and accompanying resources. Thanks Ian!

Copies of the textbook can be ordered free of charge.

Radio New Zealand interview with Anne Patel: First national data on school bullying confirms its prevalence (June 12, 2015)

Maori Television: Students believe verbal abuse is biggest bullying problem in schools (June 12, 2015)

NZ Herald: Biggest bullying problem in NZ schools revealed (June 12, 2015)

Stuff: Verbal abuse a problem in New Zealand schools, children’s census finds (June 12, 2015)

Stuff: CensusAtSchool: Less texting, more social media (June 13, 2015)

But wait, there’s more …

The CensusAtSchool bullying data came out, coincidentally, on the “Day of Silence”, an event to raise awareness of the damaging effect of  homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying, name calling and harassment in schools. Here’s a story from Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report:

Bullying of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students (June 12, 2015)