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Dear Parents and Caregivers
Your child has received quite a bit of information recently about the NCEA and Scholarship examinations and, in this newsletter, a link will take you to the newsletter that was given to students this week as part of their very important NCEA information pack.
You are strongly encouraged to check out the NCEA Examination FAQs section as there is a lot of really important information provided.
So, that’s about it, I think! After reading the newsletter you should have a clear idea of what the issues are for students during examination time. Encourage your child to give of their best, to not be complacent, to be organised and to know just what they have to do – and then go out there and do it!
If your child is doing at least one digital examination, please tell them they need to be well-prepared for their examination/s as per those guidelines provided earlier in this newsletter.
At all times, please feel free to contact me via email with any questions that you may have about NCEA at DBV@stac.school.nz.
Kind regards
David Bevin
Head of Teaching and Learning
Students’ health and safety in an examination setting is of great importance. As such, all students have been informed in their NCEA briefings with me that, if they are unwell, they should not come to their examination which is where the derived grade provisions will come into play as a way of managing a situation of student illness.
Students, and parents, are informed that the Examination Centre Manager and I will refuse a student entry to an examination if they show obvious signs of illness. Where this happens, the derived grade provisions will be implemented.
So, a request. Given the very heightened sensitivity to students coming to school obviously unwell, we ask parents to act with caution in such a situation and to keep their child home from the examination and to remember that students, and examination supervisors, could very quickly become anxious if they are sharing the same space as an obviously unwell student. The effect of such stress on another student’s examination performance cannot be underestimated which is why I make this request.
Derived grades are evidence-based grades that NZQA may award to students when they can’t attend an examination or external assessment, or their performance is impaired (e.g. sickness, trauma) in the week/s leading up to, or during, an individual NCEA examination or the entire examination period. A student may apply for a derived grade and still sit their examination/s. As you will know, in such a situation, the school will provide ‘replacement’ grades derived from in-school assessment (usually the school Prelim examinations) for the Standard/s affected. If a derived grade application is accepted by NZQA (the school does not approve these applications), the student will receive the better of their examination grades or school-based derived grades. Note, that if a student considers that they were impaired in an examination, suitable documentation must be provided promptly after that examination.
NZQA is the sole judge of such applications which are made by the school in November/December on a student’s behalf. They may choose to inform students by letter of their decision at the same time as results are received in mid-January.
Please Note – in a situation of a possible derived grade application, students must deal directly with me only.
These are available for a student whose examination preparation and/or performance has been ‘impaired’ by an ‘event’ of a particular nature (e.g. sudden sickness – excluding colds – before or during an examination, or an accident etc.) in the few weeks or week leading up to the examinations.
In this situation, you are advised by NZQA to sit the examination/s if possible and also apply to them, through the school, for a derived grade for each Standard involved. If you sit the examination/s and make a successful application you will receive the better of the two grades – the one supplied by the school or that gained in the NCEA exam (if you sat it). See Mr Bevin for further information if this affects you. Remember that:
Contact Mr Bevin (DBV@stac.school.nz) if you have any questions about this situation and the process.
Year 11 students who study Level 2 subjects this year count their credits towards the Level 1 certificate, the Level 2 certificate and for Level 2 certificate endorsement. To gain a course endorsement in a Level 2 subject, credits must be gained this year, however.
Students who study Level 3 subjects this year count their Level 3 credits towards both the Level 2 certificate and the Level 3 certificate. To gain a course endorsement in a Level 3 subject, credits must be gained this year, they cannot be added to next year when in Year 13.
New Zealand Scholarship assessments enable candidates to be assessed against challenging standards and are demanding for the most able candidates in each subject. Assessment is by either a written/spoken examination (not like an NCEA examination although the subject matter is based on Level 3 NCEA content) or by the submission of a portfolio or report of work produced throughout the year.
Scholarship candidates are expected to demonstrate high-level critical thinking, abstraction, and generalisation, and to integrate, synthesise and apply knowledge, skills, understanding, and ideas to complex situations.
Approximately three per cent of all students studying each subject at Level 3 nationally, who achieve 14 or more credits in the subject, are awarded Scholarship if they reach the standard that has been set.
As we get older, we can forget some of those more stressful events, such as examinations, that we endured all those years ago. If you found those examinations not so difficult, you could be forgiven for thinking that it will be pretty straightforward for your children as well, but will it? Have you possibly forgotten something? Did those examinations really go as easily as you thought? Or, actually, did you find them to be a really big ordeal with memories that you’d rather forget?
Do you know about your child’s ability to manage their organisation and their learning generally? If you and your child attended it, what was discussed in last term’s Tutor Conference about their next steps in preparation for the NCEA externals? How well will they prepare for an intense period of academic pressure such as these examinations will be? Please help them to not leave anything to chance during this time. Here are two bits of advice for helping students to manage for success during their NCEA examinations.
Having the right environment for study at home is essential….a suitable study space, a structured study programme operating through the days of Study Leave, organised and detailed study notes, plenty of sleep, not too many late nights, a good and healthy diet and, importantly, plenty of exercise and down time as part of it all, parts of the ‘magic formula’ for success!
This website is very important for students to check out over the next month in particular. On the front page of the website, students have their own dedicated space, or ‘one-stop shop’, called the Student Assessment Hub, to access and will find a lot of material to look into. Students are provided with quite a number of tips for managing examination pressure and we parents shouldn’t underestimate the pressure that our students may well feel under at this time of the year so you might find it useful to click here to read information on the NZQA website.
Internal assessment programmes are now complete, meaning that students have now finished their internals! The last requirement is that they formally sign off all their internal grades on official College documentation.
All students are required to sign for all their grades before they go on Study Leave this week.
There is emphasis on ‘competitive entry’ and on NCEA students gaining the best grades that they can get; it is also fair to say that there is a particular interest in the community in students’ achievements in external examinations. As such, students at all year levels should be aiming for the best grades that they can get in the upcoming externals as there can be a lot riding on the examinations. Students should also be very careful about deciding not to attempt standards or, even, not attend an examination. As part of that decision, they must be talking to their teachers and their Dean so that the possible consequences of such a decision are carefully considered.
Year 12 students and their parents have previously been informed that their Level 2 results have a significance beyond just this year. As with every year, next year, Year 13 students will be applying for Halls of Residence and a range of tertiary scholarships. For all such applications, they will be required to include documentation that shows their last full set of results, those being their Year 12/Level 2 results. As such, their applications will be judged against those results they gain this year, including their external results…perhaps it’s needless to say but they really do have to keep their eye on what they are hoping to apply for in June/July/August next year.
For Year 13 students, there is the need to both gain University Entrance and to reach those ‘thresholds’ that the various universities set as additional requirements. Students must understand the difficulty of gaining entry to university courses if they do not gain UE.
While there is no set date yet for the publication of interim final NCEA results those are always available in mid-January. The best way to access their results is for students to go online at that time via their Learner Login MyNZQA learner's portal. The Results Notice only lists those results gained in 2025 while the Record of Achievement lists all results gained over a student’s NCEA ‘life’ – it does not show any results of ‘Not Achieved’ or ‘SNA’ (Standard Not Attempted).
Of course, your child wants to know their results straight away in mid-January rather than waiting while they spend several hours on the phone to NZQA to find out their NSN and to get the process started! I encourage you to access the following web page to find out more details NCEA results :: NZQA
Read further on for more information on the Learner Login’s great usefulness, particularly at this time of the year.
When you check in to the Portal, you will be able to access the NCEA Current Results Summary that provides up-to-the-minute summarized information on your child’s NCEA achievement. This very good academic transcript is the same that is available to students when they log in to the Portal – please check it out even if you have done so before. Our student feedback indicates that the Portal is the students’ preferred location for checking their results. Click on the Results tab and you’ll see a transcript of the results that we hold on our database. The Portal can, of course, be accessed in the StAC App.
For Visual Arts, DVC and Technology-based subjects, while there is no exam, there are externally-assessed standards that have been completed at school but that are either still to be marked internally (Levels 1 and 2) or externally by NZQA markers.
There have been some big and good changes to the way in which students can see their results online on NZQA. Much more good summative information is now available by students clicking on this link and looking through the changes Guide to online results - NZQA.
In the Learner Portal, you can see updated internal assessment results and various graphical tools show your progress towards endorsements in particular. Log in to the Portal to see all of your results, both final internals and indicative externals (from the Prelim exams – these are usually your derived grades). You will see the NCEA Current Results Summary that shows all of your results and provides a sub-total of your various E, M, A grades, endorsements and University Entrance.
I encourage you to first access the following web address to find out more details first then sit down with your child to see the ‘treasure trove’!
ncea rESULTS > LEARNER LOGIN >
Record of Achievement – every student should have a copy of this every year.
Accessing the Learner Login enables the student to print a valid copy of their official ROA – but only once the external results are showing (it isn’t complete otherwise). Ideally, this would be printed in about April of each year following the year of qualification, i.e. for Year 11 students this year, this means April of next year
For Year 13 2025 students, it’s very important that they have an updated copy of their ROA by now that shows their 2024 Level 2 achievement record.
Year 12 2025 students must have an updated copy of the ROA by April next year that they can then use when they make applications during the year for tertiary scholarships, Halls of Residence places, to name two important considerations.
My Admission Slip – if a student loses their candidate admission slip, they are able to print another one right here and, once it is signed by Mr Bevin or Mrs Faulls, it can be used to gain admission to an external examination. The rule is, no admission slip, no getting into an examination!
My School Entries and Results – this shows all results recorded so far this year and is the place to find the external exam results when they are released in January next year – called the Results Notice.
Clicking on the highlighted button at the right side of this screen provides access to a printable pdf document called a School Results Summary that provides an excellent visual summary of what the student has gained at the time of printing.
When should your child (or you!) print a copy of this summary?
This can be printed at any time and will show all results recorded on NZQA at the time of printing. Until the external results are available in January, it will not show any externals so that would be the ideal time to have a printed copy. Later on, in April, the official results transcript, the ROA, should be printed and kept in an official file, ready for various types of future applications e.g. tertiary scholarships.
While I am talking in this newsletter primarily about NCEA 2025, as students are coming to the end of their NCEA ‘journey’, it’s useful for parents and students to consider how NCEA can continue to positively influence what they do in their post-secondary school years. Clicking on this page on the NZQA website (Your options after leaving school :: NZQA) will provide some interesting food for thought for you and your student and possibly some extra motivation for performance in the upcoming NCEA examinations.
Independent research shows that performance in NCEA is a good indicator of success at first-year university.
Even though they leave school at the end of this year, Year 13 (and some Year 12) students and their parents are reminded of the various financial awards that are made to all those students who gain an Excellence endorsement in Level 3 NCEA overall and/or course endorsements and/or Scholarship passes. We always make the award to those students at our Academic Assembly in mid-February, and the gain of such endorsements is a real achievement and one worth celebrating! Details of the awards are shown in the Student Examinations booklet.
Academic Awards (these awards are only gained from assessment done in the 2025 academic year)
(these awards are made only to students who were in Year 11 or Year 12 in 2025)
Year 11 – Top Progress Award 2025
(awarded at the final Year 11 assembly of the year)
Identification and acknowledgement of the 30 ‘biggest movers’ in rank from Year 9 MidYis test (February) to Year 11 GCA-based rank based on all Prelim examination results (including 2025 internals and September Prelims).
Level 3 NCEA and NZ Scholarship Financial awards 2025
External examinations begin on Tuesday 4 November and conclude on Friday 28 November.
NCEA Timetable >
The NCEA timetable deserves a place of prominence in the house because if a student gets the date/day/time for an examination wrong, they won’t get to sit it and all the external results for that subject will be lost. Students, including our own, have in the past got the times wrong, usually, thinking an examination was on in the afternoon when it was the morning (students did that in our recent Prelim examinations!!) – to do this is disastrous! So, make sure that your child knows when and where they should turn up for their examination and whom they should contact if they are going to be absent. If our examination session roll calls indicate that a student is absent, we will ring but a student can’t enter an examination room more than 30 minutes late and they can’t sit the examination later on either.
Levels 1–3
Once again, students in quite a number of subjects will sit their exams digitally, meaning, using their laptop (school laptops are not available for them to use unless it’s an emergency). Digital examinations are sat using the NZQA online examinations platform (Assessment Master) and many students have already sat at least one Prelim examination this year on a digital platform (Education Perfect for languages exams and exam.net for other subjects) so that they were able to get a ‘feel’ for this method of assessment (note that the format of online examinations is no different to the format of the paper-based examinations).
In the Year Group NCEA examinations briefings, students are receiving very important reminders as the final preparation for their digital exam/s. It is important that students take responsibility for getting themselves organized for their digital exam/s, rather than rely on their teacher to do it all for them.
Last week, all students received from their Tutor the following very important ‘information pack’ that they must read and hold on to:
If your child did not receive theirs or did not collect it, they don’t have any of that final information and they don’t have their Candidate Admission slip… which they really need. They need to see their tutor to collect that pack!
It’s important that parents know what I am telling students in their NCEA newsletter about this pack and, in particular, the Candidate Admission Slip.
This is the information that students have received about this ‘tricky’ situation that I would like you to be clear about also, so please read this carefully.
PS – some information about our NCEA page on the College intranet, StACNet.
This page is updated regularly, and students and parents can access different information for the NCEA exams in this folder.
Remember, this link will take you to an FAQs document in which I have hopefully answered the questions that a parent may have about the examinations. These questions are also covered with students in the NCEA exams briefing and in their student newsletter, please click here to read.
Look out for my final newsletter of the year (in early December) in which I will cover these matters and outline a little about ‘tidying away’ NCEA examinations 2025.
