News

We hope you are having a good first term! Here’s your latest updates…

Upcoming Seminar

What happens when mathematics and craft teachers work collaboratively?

Friday, 20 March 2026, 8 am (NZDT)

Discover how educators in Denmark paired craft and mathematics to create innovative, integrated lesson plans. Participants will receive English-language teaching materials and classroom resources.

Teaching Resources

Data Towers

This is a lovely adaptation of our Year 4-6 data cards.

Natural History Data Sets

A series of three large data sets with teaching notes:

• Blackbirds involves: averages, spread, graphical summaries, dealing with missing data, and general linear modelling.
• Magpies involves: averages, spread, graphical summaries, dealing with missing data, time series, and categorical data.
• Slugs involves: grouping data, contingency tables, and dealing with missing data.

Data Analysis Videos

The University of Otago hosts a series of in-depth data analysis videos, best suited for high school students. Examples include:

• Property sales in North Shore City involves: data cleaning, exploration, confidence intervals, and tests for differences between means.
• Rare threatened bird, the Rock Wren, involves: matched data samples, confidence intervals using the t-distribution, and bootstrapping.
• Adjusting to high altitude in the Himalayas involves: a designed study with repeated measures, confidence intervals, and tests on matched data.

CensusAtSchool Questionnaire

The questionnaire is open throughout the school year until the end of November. Get started

It was wonderful seeing so many teachers at last year’s Statistics Teachers’ Day in Auckland. Planning is already underway for this year’s event!

Later this year, we’ll let you know the overarching theme and put out a call for workshops and talks.

In the meantime, save the date:

Statistics Teachers’ Day 2026
Friday November 27

The 2025-2026 CensusAtSchool questionnaire is open! Participation is available throughout the year, giving you lots of time to get involved. We’d love for you to take part with your students.

Register, take part, and get the data

Other Upcoming Events

PMA Seminar Day, Auckland, March 7, 2026

Mark your calendars! The Primary Mathematics Association’s Seminar Day is back on Saturday, 7 March 2026, at the Waipuna Conference Centre. This year’s theme, “Enhancing & Enriching,” focuses on marrying proven classroom “gold” with the refreshed curriculum.

Dr Vince Wright’s keynote session, Implementing a ‘knowledge-rich’ mathematics curriculum, will dive into the new Mathematics and Statistics Curriculum, exploring how to help students not just “know” maths, but “know why” it works and “know when” to apply it.

It is a fantastic local opportunity to get practical guidance on the revised curriculum and connect with fellow Auckland educators.

View the programme and register now

ICOTS 12, Brisbane, July 12–17, 2026

A world-class professional development opportunity is coming to our doorstep. Brisbane is hosting the 12th International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS), the first time this huge event has been held in the Southern Hemisphere.

Centered on the theme “What? Who? When? How?”, the conference features global experts from Duke, Oxford, and UCLA. Sessions are designed specifically for school-level educators to explore new strategies in assessment and data science. It is a rare chance to bring the latest global trends in data literacy directly back to your New Zealand classroom.

Learn more and register here

Teaching Resource

Pachinkogram

A great visualisation of conditional probabilities. Recommended by Michael Walden. Learn more by checking out his 2025 Statistics Teachers’ Day keynote: Integrating Technology in the Classroom.

Have you seen or created a resource we should share? Let us know!

Have a wonderful week,
Rachel, Anne & Pip

The 2025-2026 Census is open! Participation is available throughout the year, giving you lots of time to get involved.

Register, prepare, take part, and explore the data

Upcoming Events

PMA Seminar Day, Auckland, March 7, 2026

Mark your calendars! The Primary Mathematics Association’s Seminar Day is back on Saturday, 7 March 2026, at the Waipuna Conference Centre. This year’s theme, “Enhancing & Enriching,” focuses on marrying proven classroom “gold” with the refreshed curriculum.

Dr Vince Wright’s keynote session, Implementing a ‘knowledge-rich’ mathematics curriculum, will dive into the new Mathematics and Statistics Curriculum, exploring how to help students not just “know” maths, but “know why” it works and “know when” to apply it.

It is a fantastic local opportunity to get practical guidance on the revised curriculum and connect with fellow educators.

View the programme and register now

ICOTS 12, Brisbane, July 12–17, 2026

A world-class professional development opportunity is coming to our doorstep. Brisbane is hosting the 12th International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS), the first time this huge event has been held in the Southern Hemisphere.

Centered on the theme “What? Who? When? How?”, the conference features global experts from Duke, Oxford, and UCLA. Sessions are designed specifically for school-level educators to explore new strategies in assessment and data science. It is a rare chance to bring the latest global trends in data literacy directly back to your New Zealand classroom.

Learn more and register here

Teaching Resource

Pin Number Analysis

A deep dive into what people choose as their pin numbers. Recommended by Michael Walden. Learn more by checking out his 2025 Statistics Teachers’ Day keynote: Integrating Technology in the Classroom.

Have you seen or created a resource we should share? Let us know!

Have a wonderful week,
Rachel, Anne & Pip

The 2025-2026 Census has officially reopened! Participation is available throughout the year, giving you lots of time to get involved.

Visit our website to register, prepare, take part, and explore the data

Teaching Resources

NEW: Year 4–6 Data Cards

We’ve created CensusAtSchool data cards for Year 4–6 students to go with the sets for Year 1–3 students.

Top NZ Baby Names: Noah & Isla

Explore the new rankings alongside historic datasets to see how Kiwi names have evolved. Perfect for a classroom discussion as everyone is learning new names. (See also: Interactive baby name graph for the US.)

The Evolution of Trust Game 

Recommended by Michael Walden. Learn more by checking out his 2025 Statistics Teachers’ Day keynote: Integrating Technology in the Classroom.

Have you seen or created a resource we should share? Let us know!

Have a wonderful week,
Rachel, Anne & Pip

Welcome back! We hope you return refreshed and energised for the new school year.

For those who missed last year’s Statistics Teachers’ Day, Michael Walden’s keynote, Integrating Technology in the Statistics Classroom, is now available on YouTube. In it, Michael shares ten fantastic web-based resources to transform your teaching.

Spoiler alert: His top-rated resource is The Pudding, which features incredible visualisations like Human Terrain, a 3D look at the world’s population. Here is a snippet of New Zealand in 3D:

Want more ideas?

• Explore more workshop resources from the Statistics Teachers’ Day here.
• Get your students involved in real-world data by voting now for New Zealand’s Bug of the Year 2026. It’s a fantastic context for data collection and discussion. But hurry, voting closes on February 16.

Have a wonderful week,
Rachel, Anne & Pip

“We had great discussions. It is making statistics seem relevant and exciting for them. I feel really lucky I came across your site and will definitely be using it again in future years, and recommending it to other teachers.” – Paula McLeod (Rototuna Primary)

“I loved the relative ease of implementation and that it condenses so much statistics learning into one fun event. [The teacher guide is] excellent! Spells out everything, providing all the guidance and resources needed for smooth implementation. Bravo! (Must have been designed by a teacher).” – Maria Higgison (Our Lady of Kapiti School)

“We had a fabulous time completing the measurement tasks for Census at School! Extremely professional resources and thought that went into the questions.” – Jess Jackman (St Bernadette’s Hornby)

“It was a great task for the students to do, as it is something that applies to real life. It was a great way of including statistics in our learning and recapping what they mean. The whole process was simple and easy for the teacher as well as easily accessible for the students.” – Becky Holmes (Carterton School)

“[We enjoyed] the connection we were making to the database and the links with the associated explorations we will be undertaking for assessment purposes. The method and clear instructions are particularly helpful in discussing minimising sources of variation, and we have made strong connections to their experiment work in Science.” – Louise Lane (Waitaki Girls High)

“They enjoyed the funny questions towards the end. So great to have some new questions that aren’t the same run-of-the-mill ones we as teachers always use.” – Lee Mann (Scots College)

“I loved the fact they were asking how to measure the weight of their bag… what is a circumference. There were some lovely discussions.” – Farhanah Jeewa (AGGS)

We are looking forward to providing you with more resources and support for teaching Statistics next year. The survey will close over the summer break from December 20 and reopen on January 26. It will remain open throughout the 2026 school year.

***

Thanks to Paula McLeod from Rototuna Primary School for sending in these photos of tamariki taking part earlier this year. 

Wahanga | Chapter 2
Tracing the threads of chance: Historical insights for teaching probability
by Sibel Kazak and Robin Averill

Wahanga | Chapter 7 [Note: DRAFT]
Digital tools: Harnessing technology for probability explorations and analysis Y1-11
by Chris Wild

It’s almost time to go on holiday and escape from hearing certain words every day!! But before you go, in our last newsletter of 2025, we thought we’d share the word of the year… which is actually a number (well, said as two numbers)…

According to CensusAtSchool data, it’s well and truly 67!

Check out our updated visualisation

Dictionary.com has also named 67 as word of the year.

However, the Oxford English Dictionary gave rage bait the honours.

Join us for a day focused on leveraging technology to enhance statistics teaching.

Register now

Date
December 5, 2025

Location
University of Auckland City Campus.
Building 201, 10 Symonds Street. (Note: new venue)

Fee
$180 + GST (AMA members)
$200 + GST (Non-members)

Deadline
Registrations close December 3.

Brought to you by The University of Auckland Department of Statistics in collaboration with the Auckland Mathematics Association. 

Keynote Speakers

• Dave Phillips (NZAMT President, Lincoln High School, UC): Probably, Possibly, Potentially – Managing educational “noise” (curriculum changes, media hype) to achieve the best for our ākonga.
• Michael Walden (Mount Albert Grammar School, Kalman Prize Winner): Sharing his essential websites and apps that boost engagement and student understanding of key statistical concepts.

Workshops

• Kiri Dillon (Lincoln High School): Strategies to ensure technology is a positive amplifier for student success.
• Pip Arnold (University of Auckland): Tūturu | Youth Gaming and Gambling in Aotearoa New Zealand. Engage with materials on this relevant context, working with statistical reports and permutations.
• Clare Nelson & Marieke Brinkman (Edgewater College): Explore hands-on activities to teach authentic statistical report writing and foster statistical thinking.
• Tom Lin (Epsom Girls’ Grammar School): Use Google Gemini AI as a personal curriculum designer to save time and create impactful learning.
• Julia Crawford (Cognition Education): Dive into the 2025 curriculum (Phase 3 & 4) to design learning using the PPDAC cycle.
• Rachel Cunliffe (CensusAtSchool): The Real Messy World of Data: Behind the Scenes at CensusAtSchool, Inside Out.
• Anna Fergusson (University of Auckland): Explore tasks focused on constructing data from sources (text, images, sounds) while teaching ethical data processes.
• Richard Mariu & Marina MacFarland (Auckland Girls’ Grammar School): Developing assessments for the Level 1 Statistics internal.
• Jared Hockly (Western Springs College): CODAP for new or intermediate users.
• Pip Arnold (University of Auckland): Undertake probability experiments and discuss how this fits in the refreshed curriculum.
• Sophie Wright (Mount Roskill Grammar School): Strategies and tools to support statistical report writing.
• Ben Coop (Lynfield College): Using Gemini Gem for marking L3 Bivariate Data.
• Jessie Payne & Morgan Phillips (StatsNZ): How Aotearoa New Zealand’s census is changing and key tools StatsNZ offers for statistics teachers.
• Camilo Lopez (University of Auckland): Explore the famous Monty Hall problem and its variants using simulators for teaching probability notions.
• Rochelle Telfer (Whangārei Girls’ High School): Hands-on activities to access and improve students’ thinking in statistics and probability.
• Anne Patel (University of Auckland): Use tech to supercharge students’ writing and provide feedback for reasoning from plots and tables.

Many of you will be familiar with CODAP (Common Online Data Analysis Platform). You may have attended one of the many sessions around the country or as part of the AMAonline series.

• Watch this video about V3
• Access V3

In the book Statistical Investigations | Te Tūhuratanga Tauanga (Arnold, 2022, p. 221), there is some background about CODAP, some of which is shared here.

CODAP is free open source software for data analysis built for use in schools. With CODAP, you can explore, visualize, and learn from data in any content area. Our mission is to make data literacy accessible for all students. CODAP is easy to use and runs in your web browser. CODAP is (and always will be) free. Share your data with others and bring it to life!

CODAP is created and maintained by The Concord Consortium. In New Zealand, CODAP has been used successfully with students from Year 4 onwards. CODAP has been designed to be accessible to younger students, allowing novice users to visualise data quickly and fluidly.

CODAP supports developing statistical concepts as well as doing statistical analysis. In CODAP, graphs are dynamically linked; highlighting data points in one graph highlights the same cases in all other graphs, tables, and maps.