NZ Curriculum · Phase 2 (Years 4–6)

What your child learns in Year 5 Maths

Year 5 sits in the consolidation phase — multiplicative thinking, fractions and decimals, and increasingly formal geometry, measurement, and statistics. Below is every skill the refreshed New Zealand Curriculum (2025) expects a Year 5 student to practise — 60 objectives across 6 strands — exactly as our tutors track them.

Number

Number structures
  • Reading, writing, comparing, and ordering whole numbers up to 1,000,000 and representing them using base 10 structure
  • Finding factor pairs for numbers that result from multiplying any two whole numbers between 1 and 10
  • Rounding whole numbers to the nearest hundred thousand, ten thousand, thousand, hundred, or ten
  • Rounding tenths or hundredths to the nearest whole number
  • Counting forwards and backwards in 11s and 12s from multiples of the counting unit
  • Counting in 1,000s, 10,000s, and 100,000s from any whole number up to 100,000
  • Counting backwards through 0 to include negative whole numbers
Operations
  • Adding and subtracting increasingly large whole numbers
  • Memorising multiplication and corresponding division facts for 2s to 12s
  • Applying mental strategies, number facts, derived facts, factor pairs, and multiples to multiply and divide increasingly large numbers
  • Multiplying three-digit and four-digit numbers by a one-digit number and multiplying two two-digit numbers
  • Dividing up to four-digit whole numbers by a one-digit divisor, with a remainder (e.g. 278 ÷ 4 = 69 remainder 2)
Rational numbers
  • Reading, writing, and representing tenths and hundredths as fractions and decimals
  • Comparing tenths or hundredths as fractions and decimals
  • Comparing and ordering numbers with up to two decimal places (e.g. 0.12 < 0.2, 3.55 < 3.84)
  • Memorising and using decimal equivalents of 1 — 2 , 1 — 4 , and 3 — 4 and fractions with denominators or 10 or 100
  • Converting common percentages (10%, 25%, 50%) to fractions and decimals
  • Dividing one-, and two-digit whole numbers by 10 or 100 to make decimals and identify tenths and hundredths places
  • Multiplying numbers with up to two decimal places by 10 and 100
  • Comparing fractions where one denominator is a multiple of the other
  • Recognising families of equivalent fractions
  • Recognising equivalent mixed numbers and improper fractions
  • Adding and subtracting fractions with the same denominator or when one denominator is a multiple of the other, including improper fractions (e.g. 2 — 3 + 1 — 9 = 7 — 9 )
  • Adding and subtracting decimals to two decimal places (e.g. 1.31 + 0.22 = 1.53)
  • Finding a non-unit fraction of a whole number, using multiplication and division facts and where the answer is a whole number (e.g. 2 — 3 of 24)
  • Finding a whole set from a fractional part of the set (e.g. if 8 is 2 — 5 of a set, what is the whole set?)
  • Finding common percentages (10%, 25%, 50%) of whole numbers
  • Finding the whole (100%) when given 25% or 50%
Financial mathematics
  • Calculating the total cost of items costing dollars and cents and the change from the nearest ten dollars
  • Representing currency values of mixed dollars and cents using decimal notation
  • Rounding money amounts to the nearest dollar

Algebra

Equations and relationships
  • Completing number sentences that involve addition and subtraction by using equality (=) and inequality (<, >) symbols (e.g. 2,456 + 203,938 ⬚ 3,456 + 231,930; 2,456 × 2 ⬚ 1,228 × 4)
  • Checking the truth of number sentences and completing open number sentences (e.g. 999,999 − __ = 899,999)
  • Recognising, continuing, creating, and describing growing patterns that change by a constant amount (e.g. 3, 4.5, 6, 7.5 ...)

Measurement

Measuring
  • Accurately measuring length with a ruler, mass (weight) with scales, capacity with measuring jugs, temperature with a thermometer, and duration with a timer, using appropriate metric or time-based units or a combination of units (e.g. 2 hours and 30 minutes)
  • Converting metric units of length (m and cm)
  • Approximating the areas of irregular shapes covered with squares, half squares, and partial squares
  • Calculating the areas of rectangles (including squares) using multiplication of side lengths
  • Measuring the volumes of rectangular prisms (cuboids) filled with centicubes by determining the number of cubes in each layer and then multiplying by the number of total layers
  • Calculating the perimeters of regular polygons and other 2D shapes with straight sides
  • Recognising that shapes with the same area can have different perimeters, and vice versa
  • Describing and classifying angles and turns using the terms acute, right, obtuse, straight, and reflex
  • Classifying and constructing angles up to 180°, using a protractor
  • Telling the time on analogue and digital clocks
  • Finding the duration of periods of time involving a.m. and p.m. notation and 24-hour time

Is your child on track? Our free 20-question online placement test checks these exact objectives and recommends a starting level — instant result, no login needed.

Take the free placement test

Geometry

Shapes
  • Identifying, classifying, and describing the attributes of prisms, using cross sections, faces, edges, and vertices
  • Identifying parallel and perpendicular lines, including those forming the sides of polygons
Spatial reasoning
  • Connecting 3D shapes with nets
  • Describing the transformations performed (reflections, translations, rotations) on 2D shapes
Pathways
  • Interpreting and creating grid maps to plot positions and pathways, using grid references and directional language, including the four main compass points

Statistics

Developing knowledge from data
  • Collecting continuous numerical data by taking measurements, and then applying specified rounding rules
  • Collecting bivariate data with two categorical variables (e.g. what students in our class do at lunch time, and their gender)
Visualisation of data
  • Creating tables for continuous numerical data, using groupings (e.g. 0–0.99, 1–1.99, 2–2.99)
  • Creating clustered bar graphs for paired categorical data
Interpretation of data
  • Answering questions about the frequency of particular values or groups of values from a table for continuous numerical data
  • Answering questions about bivariate data in which a specific category in one variable appears more frequently than a specific category in another variable
  • Interpreting data visualisations

Probability

Experimental probability
  • Conducting repeated chance experiments or games, identifying the outcomes, and describing differences between them using likelihood vocabulary
  • Identifying the likelihood of an everyday event as being impossible, unlikely, even-chance, likely, or certain (e.g. the event ‘the sun will rise tomorrow’ is certain)
  • Placing everyday events on a number line according to their likelihood (e.g. placing the event ‘you will eat something later today’ between 1 — 2 and 1 as ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’)

Want help getting there? Vertex Academy runs small-group Study Hubs in Avondale — one $59/week membership, aligned to these curriculum objectives, first session free.

Book a free assessment

Learning objectives sourced from the New Zealand Curriculum (Mathematics and Statistics, 2025) © Ministry of Education, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Vertex Academy is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Ministry of Education.