KP2027 for Teachers: What Changes in Your Classroom from 4 January 2027

On Monday, 4 January 2027, schools in every state open on the same day, and Year 1 and Form 1 start a new curriculum. By June, more than 476,000 children had been registered for Year 1. About 73,000 of them were born in 2021, a year younger than the usual Year 1 age.^[1]

Their teachers will teach a subject that did not exist in 2026, often with a second teacher in the room. They will also record what each child can do on a scale that stops at three. Form 1 teachers start the same morning with a new subject of their own, and with four mastery levels where there used to be six.

Most of what has been written about Kurikulum Persekolahan 2027 (KP2027) is aimed at parents, or repeats the ministry's slides. This guide is for the teachers who will run those classrooms, and for the colleagues who will share a staffroom with them.

Afterkelas is an online tuition school, not part of the Ministry of Education, so nothing here replaces your school's instructions or the KP2027 orientation course. Each fact links to its source, and we will update this page as the ministry publishes more.

What is KP2027?

KP2027 is Malaysia's new national school curriculum. It replaces KSSR and KSSM one cohort at a time, starting with preschool in 2026 and with Year 1 and Form 1 in 2027. It is the first new curriculum for primary schools since KSSR in 2011, and for secondary schools since KSSM in 2017.

Primary school is reorganised into three stages of two years each, and secondary school into two. Each stage has its own focus.^[2]

The curriculum sits inside the Rancangan Pendidikan Malaysia 2026-2035, the school part of the national education plan that the Prime Minister launched on 20 January 2026. That plan also opened Year 1 to six-year-olds.^[3]

Who teaches KP2027 in 2027, and who waits

KP2027 moves up the school one year group at a time. Children who start it in Year 1 or Form 1 keep it as they move up, and older classes finish on the curriculum they started with. The ministry has confirmed the first steps (preschool in 2026, Year 1 and Form 1 in 2027, Year 2 and Form 2 in 2028), and the years after that follow from the same children moving up.^[4]

Two dates fall out of the table. The first KP2027 cohort sits SPM at the end of 2031, the year the last KSSR class finishes Year 6. Until then a school runs two curricula and two assessment scales side by side, and a teacher with a Form 1 class and a Form 3 class will use both in the same week .

Year 1 in 2027: subjects and hours

Tahap 1 has fewer subjects than KSSR Year 1, so that the first two years can go to reading, writing, counting and character.^[5] Year 1 pupils take Bahasa Melayu, English, Matematik, Pendidikan Islam or Pendidikan Moral, Pendidikan Jasmani and the new integrated subject. Pupils in SJK(C) and SJK(T) also take Bahasa Cina or Bahasa Tamil. Three items on the timetable are new.

Alam dan Manusia replaces four subjects

Alam dan Manusia: Pembelajaran Bersepadu combines science, health education, visual arts and music, and adds elements of TVET and digital skills.^[6] Lessons are organised around themes and projects. Ministry briefings use the human body as an example: children learn the parts of the body by singing about them and drawing them.^[7]

Science comes back into a subject's name in Years 3 and 4. Eksplorasi Sains dan Teknologi is one of two integrated subjects at Tahap 2, and the other is Eksplorasi Seni dan Dunia.

Colleagues who went to primary school in the 1980s will know the name. Alam dan Manusia was a KBSR subject from 1982 until 1994, when Science and Kajian Tempatan replaced it.

More time for maths

Maths rises from 3 to 3.5 hours a week in Years 1 and 2, and stays at 3 hours from Year 3 to Year 6. Over primary school that comes to 608 hours instead of 576. The ministry gave its reason in a written parliamentary answer in February 2026. At 576 hours, Malaysian primary pupils had less maths time than pupils in the Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, according to the SEA-PLM Definition Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics, a regional assessment of Year 5 pupils' reading, writing and maths, run by SEAMEO and UNICEF. 2024 report.^[8]

In a Year 1 timetable the extra half hour is one more 30-minute period a week. Use it for the number work Year 1 pupils need most: counting with real objects, and number bonds to 10 and 20.

Two ages in one class

Year 1 in 2027 takes in two birth years. About 403,000 children born between 2 January 2020 and 1 January 2021 are joined by about 73,000 born in 2021, whose parents chose early entry. There was no screening test. In January 2026 the government dropped the planned test, and the Prime Minister said testing children at that age could cause psychological harm and would be discriminatory.^[9]

Across the country, about 15 per cent of Year 1 pupils will be a year younger than the rest, and the share will vary from school to school. At six and seven, a year shows up most in pencil grip and in how long a child can sit and listen. Group children by what they can do this week, whatever their birth date, and give the first fortnight to routines and short readiness checks before the syllabus proper. Co-teaching helps here, because two teachers can run two groups at once.

Teaching materials

KP2027 briefing materials say pupils in Tahap 1 and Tahap 2 will not use textbooks. Teachers get modular support materials instead, arranged by small topics, in digital form and printed on demand.^[10] Before you build the first weeks around a module, ask your school which ones have arrived and how pupils will get paper copies.

Co-teaching in KP2027: two teachers, one class

The ministry's description is short. In Alam dan Manusia, two teachers are in the classroom at the same time, and they plan, teach and assess together. The Education Minister has described the pair as two equal teachers, with neither acting as the other's assistant.^[11] Orientation courses for teachers began in 2025, online first and then face to face. The practical detail, such as who pairs with whom and when they plan, will be settled school by school.

What the research says

Having two adults in the room helps, though less than many people expect. A 2024 review that pooled 76 studies found that classes taught by two adults did better than classes taught by one, by a small margin: an average effect of 0.11 standard deviations.^[12] In plain terms, a pupil in the middle of the class would move from 50th to about 54th place out of 100. An earlier review, with only six studies to work from, had reported 0.40.^[13]

Studies of what happens inside co-taught classrooms suggest one reason. When researchers observed co-taught classes, the arrangement they saw most often was "one teach, one assist": one teacher at the front while the other walks around or waits. The co-teaching literature does not recommend that arrangement for regular use. Co-teachers in those studies named planning time as one of the things they needed most.^[14]

Six ways to share a lesson

Marilyn Friend and her colleagues describe six ways for two teachers to share a class. The names give a pair a common vocabulary when they plan their week.^[15] The examples below use a Year 1 Alam dan Manusia lesson on the human body.

Two habits make the table work. Change who is in the small group each time, so it never becomes the weak group in the children's eyes. And swap who leads from week to week, so the class learns that both adults are its teachers.

A 20-minute weekly planning routine

Co-teachers often say they lack planning time, so protect a short slot that happens every week instead of waiting for a long one. Twenty minutes is enough if the meeting follows the same order each time.

1. 1 Agree what pupils should know or be able to do by the end of the week
2. 2 Choose an approach for each lesson
3. 3 Split the observing: who records which pupils
4. Pick this week's small group

Keep the plan on one shared page, such as a Google Doc on your DELIMa accounts, so either of you can run the lesson alone.

When one of you is called away

Relief classes and courses will take one teacher out of the room in some weeks. Decide in advance which version of each lesson works with one adult. Stations can become a whole-class carousel, and a parallel lesson can run as one group. With a shared plan, the handover takes a minute.

Settle the small things first

When co-teaching pairs fall out, it is often over small things: how loud the room can get, which signal means stop, who replies to parents, and whose rules apply at each station. Settle them in your first meeting, before they come up in front of the class.

Assessment: what replaces TP1 to TP6

Under KSSR and KSSM, classroom assessment (PBD) reports each pupil on six mastery levels, TP1 to TP6. KP2027 uses fewer: three for preschool and Tahap 1, and four from Tahap 2 to Form 5.^[16]

These are our summaries of the descriptors in the ministry's briefing slides. Your subject documents will carry the exact wording for each topic.

Two scales in one staffroom

In 2027 a school reports Year 1 and Form 1 on the new levels and every other class on TP1 to TP6. We could not find any published guidance on how KP2027 classes will be recorded in the PBD system, so check with your school before the first reporting window.

Write down what pupils did

Until the reporting procedure is out, keep evidence in a form that fits either scale. A short note of what a pupil did ("counted 23 straws into tens and ones without help") can be matched to a level later, but a level on its own cannot be unpacked. In a co-taught lesson, the observing teacher can collect most of these notes.

Matriks Pembelajaran is a separate test

The Matriks Pembelajaran Malaysia is a central diagnostic test set by Lembaga Peperiksaan, separate from classroom assessment. Year 4 pupils sit papers in Bahasa Melayu, English, Mathematics and Science from October 2026, and Form 3 pupils sit the same four plus Sejarah from 2027. The minister has said the results are for early intervention and will not be used to rank schools.^[17] The pupils sitting it in 2026 and 2027 are on KSSR and KSSM. The first KP2027 children reach it in Form 3 in 2029, and in Year 4 in 2030.

Form 1 in 2027

Form 1 pupils arrive from KSSR Year 6 and start KP2027 in your class. Lower secondary is meant for trying different fields and finding out what pupils are good at, and these are the changes you will notice first.^[18]

Sixty minutes of character formation

Every class from preschool to Form 5 now has a 60-minute character formation slot each week, built around social and emotional learning. Guidance and counselling teachers coordinate it. The briefing slides also make every teacher responsible for character building, so you may be timetabled for the slot even if you have never taught Pendidikan Moral or civics.

What has already come off your plate

KP2027 arrives after three years of workload measures. They were announced one at a time and are easy to lose track of, so here they are in one place.^[19]

If your school still asks for a long-form RPH, the 1999 circular and the minister's 2023 statement are the two documents to bring to that conversation.

Before 4 January: a checklist

What we do not know yet

We could not find four details in any published source in early October 2026: how KP2027 classes will be recorded in the PBD system, how many minutes each Form 1 subject gets, the weekly hours for Alam dan Manusia, and which support modules each school will receive. We will add them here as the ministry publishes them, and the updated date on this page will show when.

Frequently asked questions

When does KP2027 start?

Preschool started in 2026. Year 1 and Form 1 start KP2027 on 4 January 2027, when the 2027 school session opens in every state. Each year after that, the next class up joins.

Do Years 2 to 6 and Forms 2 to 5 change to KP2027 in 2027?

No. Those classes continue with KSSR or KSSM until their cohort finishes. The last KSSR class completes Year 6 in 2031, the same year the first KP2027 cohort sits SPM.

What replaces TP1 to TP6 in KP2027?

Three mastery levels for preschool and Years 1 and 2 (Tahu, Faham, Buat), and four from Year 3 to Form 5, which add Amal. Classes still on KSSR or KSSM keep TP1 to TP6.

Is Science still taught in Year 1?

Not as a separate subject. Science content is part of Alam dan Manusia: Pembelajaran Bersepadu in Years 1 and 2, then of Eksplorasi Sains dan Teknologi in Years 3 and 4.

Does every KP2027 class have two teachers?

No. Co-teaching is set for the integrated subjects, starting with Alam dan Manusia in Year 1. The other Year 1 subjects are taught by one teacher, as before.

Are there textbooks for Year 1 in 2027?

KP2027 briefing materials say pupils in Tahap 1 and 2 will use modular support materials arranged by small topics, in digital form and printed on demand, in place of textbooks. Check with your school which modules have arrived.

Is the Matriks Pembelajaran a return of UPSR or PT3?

No. It is a central diagnostic test by Lembaga Peperiksaan for Year 4 (from October 2026) and Form 3 (from 2027). The ministry says the results are for early intervention and will not be used to rank schools.

How many elements does an RPH need?

Three: the objective, the teaching activities and a reflection, under Surat Pekeliling Ikhtisas Bil. 3/1999. Since May 2025 the e-RPH no longer has to be printed every week; it only needs to be ready to show when asked.

Can six-year-olds start Year 1 in 2027?

Yes, if their parents choose it. Children born in 2021 could register for Year 1 in 2027 without a screening test. About 73,000 did, alongside about 403,000 children of the usual age.

A final word

Every curriculum change looks tidier on a slide than in a Year 1 classroom on the first Monday of January. It helps to settle a few things early: who you plan with and when, how you will record what children can do, and what the first fortnight is for. None of those has to wait for the last document to arrive.

All the best for the 2027 school year.