Rosemary Golds
The New Zealand Curriculum advocates a reflective strategy termed “teaching as inquiry”, which encourages teachers to plan for their learners, then continually reflect and respond to their learners’ needs (Ministry of Education, 2007). The February 2013 ERO report, Mathematics in Years 4 to 8: Developing a Responsive Curriculum (Education Review Office, 2013), has questioned the ability of some schools to be able to provide a responsive mathematics curriculum, particularly for students who are under-achieving. One of the factors which may be having a negative impact on teacher ability to foster “teaching as inquiry” is the practice of streaming which has become quite common in recent years in New Zealand primary school mathematics (Years 1-8). This paper looks at the background of streaming in classrooms, and explores the connections that can be made with current research in regards to effective classroom practice for all learners of mathematics.