Towards Excellence
For more than two decades, AAMT has provided the profession with a framework for understanding what excellent mathematics teaching looks like. That work began in 2002 with the development of the Standards for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics in Australian Schools, updated in 2006, and has helped shape professional learning and reflection for teachers across the country.
In 2026, AAMT has released a new document: Towards Excellence in Teaching Mathematics.
Why ‘Towards Excellence’?
The shift in language is deliberate.
Standards implies a fixed destination — a threshold to be reached, a box to be ticked. Once met, the process of growth can appear to be complete. That framing sits uncomfortably with what we know about great teaching: it is never finished.
Towards Excellence reflects a different and more honest view of professional practice. Excellence in mathematics teaching is not a state that a teacher achieves and then maintains. It is something that is continuously pursued — shaped by new research, new learners, new contexts and deepening professional understanding and judgement. A teacher is always moving towards excellence, never simply arrived.
The title also deliberately steps away from the compliance associations that standards can carry. This document is not an appraisal tool or an accountability instrument. It is a professional resource, developed by the profession, for the profession — to support reflection, dialogue, and career-long growth.
The framework
