Media Release

Northern Territory Government

Department of Education and Training Meaningful Maths Enrichment Day

7 May 2025

Today, hundreds of students and their teachers from across Darwin and the Top End are coming together for a fun competition aimed at helping young Territorians boost their confidence and skills in mathematics.

Now in its 7th year, the annual Meaningful Maths Enrichment Day, will bring together more than 140 Year 3-6 students from 16 schools to attend Dripstone Middle School where they will work in teams completing hands-on and collaborative activities to solve challenges.

Out of the classroom, students are kept busy using virtual reality (VR) headsets to find locations using maths, launching projectiles using catapults, measuring data collection and calculating averages, solving pentomino geometric puzzles, and taking on staked die challenges.

A focus of the day is ensuring the tasks are open ended and fun, allowing students to work together and think creatively to solve problems and challenges.

The Governing Principal of the NT Meaningful Maths network and Principal of Alawa Primary School, Sandy Cartwright, said the network supports the department’s key priorities of boosting numeracy and student wellbeing.

“By incorporating numeracy into playful daily routines and challenges at an early age, we’re helping students begin to understand patterns, measurements, and basic calculations, setting the stage for more complex mathematical thinking,” she said.

“This leads to long-term academic and cognitive benefits, boosting critical thinking, problem-solving, and reasoning abilities, all essential for success in school and life”.

With the NT network including all principals and teachers from the 16 participating schools, teachers also benefit from learning opportunities.

Maths teacher Sarah Hodgson from Bakewell Primary School said she was excited about the day.

“We get the opportunity to create and deliver an activity for the event, share ideas with other teachers and schools in the network and build our capacity by working together behind the scenes to make this engaging day possible for all the students involved,” she said.

For further information, visit [https://meaningfulmaths.nt.edu.au/].

ENDS.

Media contact: 0401 119 215

Unsubscribe https://ntgovernmentagencies.createsend1.com/t/t-u-gxkjkl-l-y/