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Dear Parents and Caregivers
As we come to the close of this very busy term as a parent, do you know how your child is tracking towards their NCEA or their NCEA target/s? Did you realise that next term, along with most students completing their programmes of internal assessment, Prelim examinations take place with the emphasis beginning to move to performance in external assessment?
The next term is a time for lots of questions and decisions about ‘moving on’. What courses are your Year 12 students going to do in Year 13 next year? What courses do they want to do? What courses do they have to do? What courses might they not be allowed to take? What do they have to think about/consider?
Year 13 students, very soon to be leavers, while not thinking about school courses for next year are doing similar things when thinking about what they are moving on to next year – study, Gap year, work, gaining Scholarships, etc.
I am always amazed how fast the winter ‘darkness’ is replaced by the spring and summer light in Term 3 and the race towards the NCEA ‘finish line’ and the academic year is just as fast as the ‘return of the light’ in an action-packed 10-week period! Term 3 flies by and you need to know what the ‘flight’ looks like before the takeoff!
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
It can be tempting for students to think that Level 2 is not such a ‘big deal’ when it comes to their NCEA achievement and that it’s sort of a Year 12 equivalent of the Year 10 year. These days, this really couldn’t be further from the truth - students’ Level 2 results hold a great significance. In about 14 months from now, those students (by then, Year 13 students) will be applying for various University Scholarships, Halls of Residence and other tertiary awards. The key information required by Awards Panels etc. will be students’ Level 2 NCEA results, not Level 3. At the time of applying, Level 2 provides the most recent set of confirmed and final NCEA results so, clearly, the results that the students take through from Level 2 are more important than they might seem.
Let’s look at what’s coming over those 10 weeks and understand what it is likely to mean for students. This table pretty much speaks for itself as follows.
(note the links to information that can be accessed directly from here)
| Term | Length (weeks) | What's Happening | Be Aware Of | Check For |
| 1 | 10 |
Summer tournament week – Week 9 Parent-Teacher interviews – Weeks 9–10 |
set up for learning understanding NCEA amount of internal assessment likely manageable watch time management and develop good study habits device readiness for completing assessments and examinations |
Course Outlines (incl. assessment progress) on intranet Term Assessment Calendar for dates on intranet Talk/s from Mr Bevin and NCEA newsletters (x 2) on NCEA tab |
| 2 | 9 |
A ‘clear’ term for lots of assessments Mid-year reports Week 5 |
sports and cultural events happening increasing internal assessment and possibly challenging time management skills high-stakes NCEA assessment event |
Term Assessment Calendar for dates incl CAAs on NCEA tab Teachers’ feedback in reporting |
| 3 | 10 |
More internal assessment Internal assessment ends mid- September Winter tournament Week 7 Prelim examinations Weeks 8–9 |
internal programmes finish last week of term assessment pressure building challenging time management skills and prioritisation impact on momentum of work of Winter tournament week? pressure of Prelim examinations (for derived grades) |
Term Assessment Calendar for dates incl CAAs (during Prelims) on NCEA tab Prelim examinations timetable (late August) on NCEA tab Post-Prelims academic conference (end of term) |
| 4 | 3 (+1 day) |
External submissions uploaded or sent away (e.g. DVC, Art) School ends Wednesday 29 October NCEA examinations start 4 Nvember |
completion of programmes pressure of revising for, and sitting, NCEA examinations final day Monday 3 November |
NCEA examinations study leave NCEA examinations timetable (10 – 26 November for Level 1) |
· Most students will complete their internal assessment programmes by the end of Term 3, which is the deadline we set each year in our academic programme. That means that students will still be doing internals through much of the third term.
· Students will be challenged in their personal organisation and ability to manage their time, particularly if they are involved in Winter Tournament (sports) Week in week 7 of term. We have a policy of not requiring students to work on assessment while they are away and that will mean that much assessment is completed prior to that big event.
· The College Prelim examinations, when students are examined in their external standards, take place in Weeks 8 and 9 and are a very formal, ‘dry run’ for NCEA examinations. We use the data from those exams to form the basis of our Academic Conferences in Week 10 of term. The Conferences take the place of end of year reports and are designed to provide feedback about their exam performance that students can use as feed forward for the Term 4 externals.
· The College Prelim examinations also provide the data for the derived grades for the NCEA externals. Historically, quite a number of students will need those grades to support their final NCEA achievement, thereby underscoring the importance of the Prelims.
Please note: all Prelim examinations must be sat by students at the times set down in the exam timetable. This is not an optional event, and alternative sittings are not possible. Students and their parents are asked to check their commitments over the period of the exams so that the exams are given the top priority for the students.
The calendar provides overview information about what assessments are on when, according to each year level. 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’. It provides an important way of helping your student to programme their commitments term-by-term.
The Calendar already shows dates for internals in each subject in Term 3 and it’s a good exercise to sit with your student and check out what they have coming up.
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 Fortnightly 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 NCEA awards such as certificate and course/subject endorsement and towards gaining the Literacy/Numeracy co-requisite (as you can see here and of relevance to Year 12 students who should have completed it in 2024).
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!
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 through 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!
A reminder that 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 examinations 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 by clicking here. 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.”
· NZQA for extensive information about NCEA qualifications and assessment, and much more – NZQA resources and videos :: NZQA
· NCEA Examination Timetable - National secondary examinations timetable » NZQA
· Submission Dates for externally-assessed portfolios and reports - National secondary examinations timetable » NZQA. These assessments are worked on and completed in school in a way similar to internal assessment, however, work is sent to NZQA markers for verification (sample checking) or full assessment.
