The NNS was a major government initative that aimed to reform primary mathematics (Earl, Watson, Levin, Leithwood, Fullan, Torrance, 2003). It was introduced in 1998 by the labour government just one year after taking office. (Eason, 2009). The programme wasn't rolled out in schools until 1999 (Askew, Millett, Brown, Rhodes and Bibby, 2001).