The announcement comes amid warnings that too many Australian students are condemned to maths failure because of the system’s ‘wait to fail approach’, which some say does not identify children’s learning struggles early enough.

Meeting for the first time since the federal election at The Heights Technical College in South Australia, Education Minister Jason Clare reported that most states and territories have agreed to bring forward the trial – or full implementation – of Year 1 numeracy checks to next year.  

“That’s not a test; that’s a 10-minute check to identify kids that might need additional help and then it’s our job, as Ministers with the funding we’re providing, to make sure kids get that additional help to help them to catch up and keep up and ultimately meaning more kids finish high school,” he said in an interview prior to the meeting.  

Clare said the signing of a “historic agreement to fully fund all public schools” wasn’t a blank cheque, and was a deal instead “tied to real reform” that also includes Year 1 Phonics Checks rolling out across all jurisdictions this year and in 2026.

Researcher Kelly Norris from the Centre for Independent Studies has been leading the development of a universal Year 1 numeracy screener which she told EducationHQ was on track to be available for all schools next year.

The initiative is being run as a research project, she said, ensuring the end product is rigorously aligned to the evidence.

“We want to make sure that the items that we're using in this screener are as accurate as they possibly can be in identifying the children that we want to target.

“So, those children who are actually going to go on to struggle, rather than just making a judgment about what we think might be important,” Norris explained in February.

Interest on the ground has been strong, she added, with many schools signed up to trial the work-in-progress tool this year.

“We’ve been really excited to get approval from a lot of school sectors.

“We’ve had departments of education, but also quite a number of Catholic dioceses, approve the research, and we have independent schools on board as well – and from most states,” Norris said.

The National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC), for example, has welcomed the decision by Education Ministers to progress the implementation of a Year 1 national numeracy check.

NCEC executive director Jacinta Collins said this was positive step towards early identification of students’ learning needs to target evidence-based intervention to ensure students develop the foundational numeracy skills they’ll carry with them throughout their schooling.  

“Catholic schools across Australia currently adopt a range of systems for early tracking of mathematical proficiency and many Catholic schools and school systems are currently piloting a numeracy check for Stage One,” Collins said.

“In particular, there is progress already being made in South Australia and New South Wales to advance the implementation of a numeracy check through collaboration and the sharing of tools and resources with the SA and NSW Governments, and our Catholic educational authorities, to support consistency across sectors.”

Norris has previously warned that while great strides had been made in literacy with the introduction of a national Phonics Screening Check to identify those students at risk of falling behind in reading, there was no equivalent screening for early numeracy skills that was widely or effectively used in Australian schools.

“I think numeracy always lags behind literacy to some degree,” she told EducationHQ.

“We’ve seen that in the research, as well as in the rollout of good tools and good intervention programs.

“But we are very lucky, in that I feel that literacy has blazed a trail for us in showing us what sorts of tools we need, what sorts of interventions can work – so it’s now time to apply what we’ve learned in literacy to numeracy, which is equally important in predicting children’s success both at school and also in life.”

The numeracy screener will hone in on three key components of ‘number sense’, which Norris says are known to predict children’s future success in maths. These involve:

  • Number - which covers understanding about number symbols and non-symbolic representations (such as dots), the ability to count items accurately, and read, write and say numbers. It also includes early understandings about the properties of numbers, such as place value.
  • Number relations - which refers to understanding the magnitude of numbers. It includes knowledge of sequence and the use of a ‘mental number line’ which enables students to compare numbers in terms of their magnitude and to have an accurate sense of where they sit on a number line in relation to other numbers (more than/less than/half way/closer to etc).
  •  Number operations - which involves understanding and knowledge about addition and subtraction, as well as the operations in terms of combining, separating and adding to sets, understanding that numbers are comprised of other numbers, and knowledge about the composition of small numbers (eg. 9 as 4 and 5 or 14 as 10 and 4).

As Norris flagged in her 2024 paper Screening that counts: why Australia needs universal early numeracy screening, international data has repeatedly shown many Australian school students struggle with mathematics, with NAPLAN showing around 10 per cent of students are in need of additional support or are below the international benchmark Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS) – equivalent to around 400,000 students per year.

Meanwhile, more than a quarter of Australian 15-year-olds are low performers in the subject.

Norris has warned that early difficulties in maths are often the catalyst for a cycle of mathematics anxiety, poor motivation and underachievement.

The importance of early intervention here “cannot be over-emphasised” she argued.

“…the weight of evidence suggests that achievement creates motivation and engagement and reduces maths anxiety, rather than the other way around.

“Fortunately, by intervening early, the impact of this destructive ‘feedback loop’ can be lessened…

“Students must receive mathematics support early and experience success…” she noted.

Outlining other topics set to be addressed at the ministers’ meeting, Clare indicated further supports for the teaching workforce would be front and centre.

“We’re going to talk about the most important people who work in places like this today as well – our school teachers. The most important job in the world,” he said.

“The work we’ve done over the last few years means that there are now more teachers than ever, there’s fewer vacancies, there are more young people enrolling in teaching courses this year than there has been in a very, very long time, up something like 11 per cent.

“That’s a good sign, but there’s more work to do to support our teachers, and we’ll talk about that today.”

The bullying “scourge” in our schools was another issue on the agenda.

“It’s not just the push and shove in the playground or stealing someone else’s lunch money; it’s much more insidious than that,” Clare said.

“And sometimes it involves what happens online in the dark after school, where in the most horrific of examples somebody might clip a photograph of someone else’s face and put it on a naked body and use that to bully and harass other kids in the school or even teachers in the school as well.

“We’ll talk about what we can do to help to tackle that,” Clare said.

Ministers were indeed briefed by co-chairs of the Anti-Bullying Rapid Review, Dr Charlotte Keating and Dr Jo Robinson AM, and noted the issues being raised via their face-to-face consultations with young people, parents, teachers, unions, and school leaders, and through the over 1300 submissions to the review.

"Ministers agreed that the Review will respond to the use of devices (including in the creation of sexually-explicit deepfakes) in facilitating bullying in schools," the official communique noted. 

Education Ministers are due to meet again in October.