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Dear Parents and Caregivers
We’re at the end of a big term – but what lies ahead is likely to be even bigger! As we head towards Term 3, the ‘moving term’, there are a few issues that I would like to cover. We’re already into Week 19 of the academic year, with (amazingly so!) just 14 weeks left, so this newsletter encourages busy parents to take a few minutes to check in on your child’s progress in their NCEA journey and to look ahead at what is to come in Term 3 (and, even, Term 4). How is it looking for your child?
At all times, please feel free to contact me via email with any questions that you may have about NCEA, or matters raised in this newsletter at DBV@stac.school.nz.
Kind regards
David Bevin
Head of Teaching and Learning – Secondary
By now you’ll have read your child’s mid-year Academic Report which provides important mid-term feedback on students’ progress and achievement up to that time. What did you take from the teachers’ feedback? Each subject report provides details on students’ attendance in that subject, a summarised form of the scores in teachers’ weekly feedback reports which provide information about a student’s attitude and effort with their learning, NCEA results in both formative and summative (final) assessments in the course and a comment on how the student is going, their strengths and suggestions for improvement as they continue to progress through the course. What might have been the ‘takeaways’ for them? If strategies for improvement were one of those ‘takeaways’, are they still being followed?
Please note that we do not provide a written end of year report other than a tutor end of year summary in late November.
All students will have received a mid-year report by the end of this term, which provided valuable feedback on how they have been tracking academically. Term 3’s focus will be on students developing an academic and well-being goal in response to the report and in readiness for the remainder of the year. Below here are the important dates at which time further feedback opportunities will be provided in the terms to come.
| Term 3 Weeks 9, 10 Tutor-Student-Whānau conferences | A holistic overview of the well-being and academic progress and goal setting for student in Tutor group. An opportunity to connect with whānau and Tutor. | Whānau + student + Tutor teacher |
| Weeks 9, 10 Subject Teacher-Student-Whānau interviews | Specific, face to face and individualised feedback to parents on their child’s engagement, progress and achievement in each subject. | Whānau + student + Subject teachers |
| Term 4 Week 3 Tutor-Student-Whānau Academic Conferences (response to feedback from subject teachers on Preliminary Examination) | Specific, face to face and individualised coaching that supports students to actively respond to feedback on Preliminary examinations. | Tutor + Year 11, 12 and 13 students + whānau |
In May, a number of Year 11 students sat at least one assessment, probably the final one of three such assessments, for the co-requisite. The 20-credit co-requisite is required for a student to gain any NCEA level award and, while we have yet to see any results, many Year 11 students will successfully gain this requirement this year.
The Reading results will be available on 23 June (the last week of term) and the Numeracy and Writing results will be available on 20 July, day one of term 3.
On Monday of this week more information was emailed to parents of Year 11 students who sat one of the assessments.
Throughout the year and, increasingly, through Terms 3 and 4, this page becomes an important go-to resource for students and their parents. While the Prelim examinations are not until the very beginning of Term 4 (a change to when they have previously run, in late Term 3), we have already begun the preparation for that very big academic event and much relevant information will be accessed later this term through the page showing above. Along with that information, other information can be accessed as needed. In particular, the Term/Assessment Calendar provides live information on students’ assessment programmes.
This calendar provides overview information about what assessments are on when, according to each year level. Please note that assessment programmes are of necessity a little ‘fluid’ and therefore dates sometimes change; teachers are expected to keep students and parents informed of such changes so please understand that what is on the Calendar, while it’s accurate, is not ‘set in stone’. The Calendar provides an important way of helping your student to programme their commitments term-by-term.
Looking out for Term 3 Assessment – there’s a lot coming up, including externals being worked on in preparation for the October Prelims and November NCEA and Scholarship examinations.
You’ll see that the next term is 10 weeks long and that there’s likely to be a lot going on in your child’s academic life for one thing! There’ll be more on that in my next newsletter early next term.
Right now, the Assessment Calendar shows assessment dates for internals in each subject, and it will be a good exercise to sit with your child and check out what they have coming up. The College Prelim examinations, while timed for the first two weeks of Term 4, are very important events in a range of ways and do need to be prepared for and taken seriously. I have previously informed parents about the requirement for students to be present at each of their examinations and this will be reiterated in subsequent newsletters in Term 3.
It’s very relevant at this point to remind you of the ‘one-stop shop’ nature of our Community Portal that is accessed through the college intranet. When clicking on the ‘Reports and Documents’ tile in the Portal, parents are able to access a lot of information provided by the College with regard to attendance, assessment and reporting.
When you click on the Results tab, as you know already, you will be able to access both the Weekly Feedback and the ‘powerful’ and dynamic NCEA Current Results Summary. This document enables you to see the grades that your child gains over the course of the year in their various internal assessments and practice/indicative assessments and their progress towards Level 1 NCEA awards such as certificate and course/ subject endorsement and towards gaining the Literacy/ Numeracy co-requisite (as you can see here).
You will be able to see the subject, standards, credit values and, when results are recorded by teachers, grades gained for those standards.
The summary bar graphs of NCEA credits to date give a snapshot of the split of Not Achieved/ Achieved/ Merit/ Excellence credits.
The ‘Qualifications Summary’ tables provide an excellent summary as you see here with this fictitious Year 13 student (hence nearly three years of results being summarised):
As the year progresses and internals are completed, it will become very interesting reading that you will not need to ask your teenager to show you – there’ll be no ‘hiding’ from results!
Students are able to access the same records as you through their own access to the Community Portal. They are therefore able to see their results as they are updated on the Current Results Summary.
In addition to that document, as parents know, all students have their NZQA Learner Login which is the definitive location for all confirmed results (and the login details for which are used for students to login to their online assessments and examinations). This is where students will access their final 2026 NCEA results in mid-January 2027, and it is accessed through a username and password that are set by the student themselves. My advice to parents is to get your child to show you this so that you are able to see what things students can access in the Login, such as the way to order confirmed Results Notices and a formal copy of the NZQA Record of Achievement.
Looking ahead at the next year of study (image currently shows only 2026 courses material). The course selection process is a very big event in our academic life next term. By the end of Week 8 of next term, all students who are returning to the College next year must have made their course and co-curriculum selection.
You might wonder why we require our students to select their courses for the next year so seemingly early on. We do this because it takes us a lot of time to put together our staffing and timetables for the following academic year. It’s not something that we can leave until Christmas time and is what all schools do. To assist students and their parents in this task, we undertake an ongoing comprehensive information plan and process that runs through the first half of next term. That plan and process generate a new ‘hive of activity’ in students’ minds and in their conversations, particularly as they move higher up the year groups. I will provide more information to you about this early next term but do be aware that it’s coming. Students need to think about what they will study next year and will be required to make decisions about that, so it must be good decision-making! The Curriculum Book is not a physical book. It is an online version that contains a wealth of links to information including to the course selections tools that are opened at a predetermined time for students to then make their selections.
As you already know, some NCEA external assessment (including the Literacy/Numeracy Co-Requisite assessments) is completed digitally, for example, most Year 11/Level 1 exams are done online (22 out of 25 Level 1 end-of-year examinations are available digitally). This is part of a process whereby NZQA runs a dual digital and paper assessment system that has been running since 2016. For those of you who may be interested in reading about this, I have included a link that takes you to a digital assessment insights paper that explores uptake in schools and kura, the benefits to students and a study on the impact on student achievement outcomes in digital compared to paper assessments. The paper can be accessed at www.nzqa.govt.nz/insights. NZQA reports that “our surveys of students undertaking digital assessment show that they value the features of digital assessment. There is overwhelming student support for being able to ‘word process’ their exam responses.”
Note: if a student is sitting their NCEA examination/s as an online examination, they are likely to be sitting the Prelim examination in the subject/s as an online examination. If that is so, they are likely to be sitting it on exam.net. This is done so that students have an opportunity to practise completing end of year examinations before sitting the ‘real thing’ in November/December. Students will know by now from their teacher if their examination/s is/are online.
And to finish, for your convenience, these are some helpful links to click on for more information.
