Education ministers will soon receive advice on the findings of a national review of the maths curriculum for the first three years of school. It may be one of the most important curriculum decisions of the decade.

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Education Minister Jason Clare has put it simply: "If you don't get the basics right at the start, you can't build on it." He is absolutely right. "The first three years of school are crucial for reading and maths," he has said. "Every moment counts."

But the evidence suggests Australia hasn't been making every moment count.

Our maths problems start early. In the latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) test results, 9 per cent of Australian year 4 students didn't reach the lowest TIMSS benchmark, struggling to show even basic mathematical knowledge. In Singapore, Japan and Korea, it was 1 or 2 per cent.

Part of the reason may be what we ask of young children. When TIMSS checked its test against each country's curriculum, Australia's year 4 curriculum at the time covered only two-thirds of the maths questions, the lowest share of any participating system. By year 8, our curriculum covers almost all of it.

In other words, we start slowly and then try to catch up. The content we defer doesn't disappear. It piles into the middle years, just as multiplicative thinking arrives, and with it fractions, decimals and percentages.

These are the building blocks of high school maths, and they rest on secure number knowledge built in the early years.

Children who reach year 5 without that foundation face a steep climb. Many never manage it. Australian 15-year-olds' maths results have fallen steadily for more than two decades, and our lowest performers have fallen furthest.

It's tempting to think the answer is to lower the bar for children who struggle. The opposite is true.

High expectations are only unfair when there is........

© Canberra Times