With the school year rapidly coming to an end (!), now is a great time to take part in CensusAtSchool with your classes.
It’s not too late to register.
If you have any questions, please email us.
Thanks to Joanna Wheway, Principal of Waikino School, for sending in these lovely photos of tamariki taking part earlier this year.
Today is World Statistics Day!
The UN is running a 24-hour webinar marathon that you can tune into for free – it’s starting at 1PM today (Monday). The theme this year is “Driving change with quality statistics and data for everyone”.
There has been a lot of voting going on! Did you know that the Kārearea (New Zealand falcon) has recently been named New Zealand Bird of the Year?
Earlier, the “Chook Tree” was named New Zealand Tree of the Year, and the Velvet Worm was named New Zealand Bug of the Year.
Statistics Teachers’ Day is happening on Friday 5 December at the University of Auckland. This year’s theme is “Probably, Possibly, Potentially: Technology for Teaching”. Registrations for the day will open in November.
We’re looking for speakers to share practical ideas and classroom experiences on using technology to teach statistics. If you’ve got something to contribute, we’d love to hear from you!
Develop your leadership in Mathematics and Statistics teaching! Five prestigious Kalman Teacher Fellowships, each valued at $6000, are available for Auckland-region primary, intermediate, and secondary teachers. Study postgraduate mathematics or statistics education courses at the University of Auckland and receive up to $2000 for personal use, plus up to $4000 towards your course fees. Apply before 5 pm October 31.
Welcome back to Term 4! We’d love for you to take part in CensusAtSchool this term with your classes. It’s not too late to register.
Are you ready to hear 6-7 over and over again this term in your classroom? The viral numbers recently appeared in an NZ Herald article to explain it to those who are unfamiliar with the term.
As you know, we’ve been asking students which word they think is trending the most right now. Our tech developer, Stephen Merriman, has visualised the data and it’s a fun, quick watch showing the rise and fall of popular words this year. Watch how 6-7 takes over sigma! Show this one to your students.
Statistics Teachers’ Day is happening on Friday, 5 December at the University of Auckland. This year’s theme is “Probably, Possibly, Potentially: Technology for Teaching”. Registrations for the day will open in November.
We’re looking for speakers to share practical ideas and classroom experiences on using technology to teach statistics. If you’ve got something to contribute, we’d love to hear from you! Submit your idea!
Develop your leadership in Mathematics and Statistics teaching! Five prestigious Kalman Teacher Fellowships, each valued at $6000, are available for Auckland-region primary, intermediate, and secondary teachers. Study postgraduate mathematics or statistics education courses at the University of Auckland and receive up to $2000 for personal use, plus up to $4000 towards your course fees. Apply before 5 pm, October 31. Learn more
New probability resources for Year 4 teachers and students
Developed by Jules Coup and Jody Hayes, these resources are now available on our website:
AMAonline CensusAtSchool sessions – links to resources:
The Auckland Mathematical Association is running AMAonline on September 13 and two sessions will be using CensusAtSchool resources:
Teaching Probability in Years 1-3
Jody Hayes and Jules Coup
11:00–11:45am
Jules and Jody will share what effective planning, teaching, and learning for probability in Years 1-3 looks like. The workshop features lessons designed to create fun, engaging, and memorable mathematical moments in your classrooms, with a clear emphasis on building the language of probability.
Tūturu – Gaming and Gambling resources incorporating CensusAtSchool data
Pip Arnold and Kim Goitleb
12:00–12:45pm
This webinar explores new CensusAtSchool resources on gaming, developed with Tūturu, for use in statistics, health, and social studies. Participants will try out activities and consider how to apply them in their own classrooms.
Register for AMAonline – it’s free!
(Register even if you plan to watch later, and get the links to the recordings early.)
Kia ora koutou,
Year 9 summary investigations teaching sequence
Pip has worked with several Auckland high schools to develop a teaching sequence for summary investigations in Year 9. The sequence focuses on students collecting data about themselves. Links are made to the draft curriculum statement (March 2025) and will be updated when the new curriculum is released. A couple of the lessons (indicated by DRAFT) are not fully complete with vocabulary etc, but have sufficient information for teachers to use.
The lessons are based on students undertaking a statistical enquiry to find out about the class or year level. Lessons 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11 broadly follow a statistical enquiry using the PPDAC cycle, which is noted in each lesson. Lessons 3, 4, 7, and 8 are concept development lessons, timed to allow for data collection and data entry across a year-level cohort.
This sequence might be a nice end-of-year unit, or, when planning for 2026, as a good start-of-the-year unit as we get to know our students.
Take part in CensusAtSchool this term!
The survey is open all year, and students love discovering what their classmates think. We’d love to have your students take part this term.
Teacher resources
Any questions? Just email us at hello@censusatschool.org.nz.
Upcoming dates
September 15: Last day to submit a response regarding the proposed changes to NCEA. See education.govt.nz/consultation-ncea for more information.
December 5: Statistics Teachers’ Day at the University of Auckland
Ngā mihi,
Rachel, Anne & Pip
CensusAtSchool New Zealand
New resource: Data cards for CensusAtSchool 2025–2026
Fresh sets of data cards are now available for this year’s CensusAtSchool. These are designed with younger learners in mind (Years 1–3) and are ready for you to download and use from our website.
In case you missed it:
The first two chapters of Probability | Tūponotanga – A guide for teaching probability (ages 5–18) are now available.
Created by the NZ Statistical Association Education Committee with support from NZSA and NZAMT, this free guide brings together classroom practice and research to support teaching probability across all year levels.
We’d love to hear your feedback.
Take part in CensusAtSchool this term!
Teacher resources:
Upcoming dates
18 August 2025 | Press Release
Early insights from CensusAtSchool 2025 show what students across Aotearoa are eating, watching, saying, and dreaming of, and how these habits change as they grow.
Almost 16,000 students from 310 schools have already taken part in this year’s CensusAtSchool – TataurangaKiTeKura Aotearoa, an educational project that gives students the opportunity to be both participants and data explorers. The results so far reveal fascinating patterns in everything from musical ability and device use to trending internet words and dream holiday destinations.
Fifty percent of students said they could play at least one musical instrument, and many play more than one. Seventeen and a half percent said they could play at least two, and 7.3 percent said they could play three or more.
The most commonly played instruments were piano or keyboard and guitar, followed by drums and ukulele. The top 10 also included recorder, violin, flute, trumpet, saxophone, and clarinet.
Seventy-two percent of students reported having at least one pet in their household. Sixty-six percent had at least one dog, while sixty-two percent had at least one cat. Multiple pets were common. 23.9% of students said they had two or more dogs, and 8.4% had three or more. For cats, 28.6% had at least two, and 10.5% had three or more. The five most common pets were dogs, cats, fish, birds, and rabbits.
Screen time after school increases steadily as students progress through school. Year 3 students reported an average of around 1 hour and 25 minutes. By Year 7, that had roughly doubled. Girls averaged 2 hours and 35 minutes, and boys 2 hours and 50 minutes.
The trend continues through the secondary years. By Year 13, girls reported an average of 4 hours and 6 minutes of screen time after school, while boys averaged 3 hours and 36 minutes.
Overall, 61.5 percent of students said they used a device in bed the night before. Usage rises with age. Among Year 13 girls, 89.5 percent said they used a device in bed, as did 81.3 percent of Year 12 boys. From Year 7 onward, girls consistently reported higher usage than boys.
Students in Years 3 to 8 were more likely to feel they got enough sleep, with 65.1 percent of girls and 71.7 percent of boys saying they felt rested. In contrast, this dropped to 54.0 percent for girls and 65.8 percent for boys in Years 9 to 13.
Sleep satisfaction generally declines with each school year. By Year 13, only 42 percent of students said they felt they got enough sleep the night before.
When asked “What is your favourite food?”, sushi came out on top, chosen by 15.2 percent of students. Pizza (9.7 percent) and chicken (8.6 percent) followed.
Top 10 favourite foods:
Students were asked what job they want after finishing their studies. The most popular choices were lawyer (3.8 percent), doctor (3.0 percent), vet (2.1 percent), and teacher (2.1 percent).
Top 10 jobs students want:
Students in Years 9 to 13 were asked which platforms they had used four or more times the previous day. TikTok (60.5 percent) narrowly beat out Snapchat (59.8 percent) and Instagram (55.9 percent). YouTube was used by 46.9 percent of students.
When asked which platforms they had used in the past week, YouTube led with 79.5 percent, followed by Snapchat (70.5 percent), Instagram (68.6 percent), and TikTok (68.5 percent). ChatGPT was used by 38.5% of high school students taking part. This is the first year CensusAtSchool has included questions about large language models and AI platforms like ChatGPT.
Students were asked which word they thought was currently trending. The top response was “Sigma,” chosen by 14.4 percent of students. It was followed by Skibidi, Slay, and Huzz. Rizz peaked in February and March. In April and May, Skibidi took over, and by July, newer words like NPC, Jit, and Corecore were beginning to trend.
Top 10 trending words:
Japan was the most popular destination students said they’d like to visit, chosen by 12.7 percent of students. Greece, Hawaii, and Fiji followed closely behind, with Australia, Italy, America, Paris, Europe, and Rarotonga also in the top 10.
Top 10 dream holiday destinations:
Rachel Cunliffe, co-director of CensusAtSchool, says the most powerful learning happens when students see themselves in the data – what’s popular, what’s different, and what’s changing. “It’s a snapshot of Kiwi life, straight from the source,” she says.
Anne Patel, co-director and professional teaching fellow at the University of Auckland, adds that students are discovering how data can be collected, analysed, and used to explore the world around them. “These are real skills with real impact,” she says.
CensusAtSchool TataurangaKiTeKura Aotearoa is a free, non-profit educational project that brings statistics to life in English and Māori-medium classrooms. Supervised by teachers, students from Years 3 to 13 take part anonymously online, answering a mix of fun and thought-provoking questions in English or te reo Māori.
The survey is developed and run by the Department of Statistics at the University of Auckland in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Stats NZ.
Explore the live dashboard, view the full questionnaire, or take part today:
www.censusatschool.org.nz
We’ve partnered with Tūturu to create a new cross-curricular resource exploring gaming and gambling.
Visit: tuturu.org.nz/gambling
(It’s free to use, just sign up for a free account.)
Section C is designed for maths and stats teachers (aimed at Year 10, but easily adapted for other secondary school levels). It includes activities on:
Video: A short intro to the resource is available, led by Dr Pip Arnold
The full resource is designed for use across maths, social studies, and health, and there are practical tools for school leaders too. Resources include:
Getting started
All resources are free to use and available at tuturu.org.nz/gambling
