SecQual

Course endorsement
S2010/038 - 30 Nov 2010

Course Endorsement

From 2011, NZQA is introducing Course Endorsement to provide recognition for students who perform exceptionally well in individual courses.

This circular summarises responses to the queries and provides additional guidance following the circular S2010/014 Course Endorsement issued in April 2010.

Requirements for a Course Endorsement

Students will gain an endorsement for a course where they achieve both of the following criteria in a single school year:

• 14 or more credits at Merit or Excellence, and
• at least 3 credits at Merit or Excellence from externally assessed standards and 3 credits at Merit or Excellence from internally assessed standards.

The internal/external assessment requirement

• Each student’s achievement for course endorsement must include at least 3 credits at Merit or Excellence from internally assessed standards as well as 3 credits at Merit or Excellence from externally assessed standards. It is not sufficient that the school’s course contains standards with these grades; the individual student must achieve the grades to earn the course endorsement.
• Common Assessment Tasks (CATs), as for Level 1 Maths (91027), are externally assessed standards.
• Excluded from this rule are Physical Education, Religious Studies and Level 3 Visual Arts. Students will receive a course endorsement when they achieve:
  
  • 14 or more credits at Merit or Excellence in Physical Education standards or Religious Studies standards, where all achievement standards are internally assessed, or
  • for Visual Arts: 14 or more credits at Merit or Excellence from one of the externally assessed Level 3 Visual Arts standards OR 14 or more credits at Merit or Excellence from internally assessed Level 3 Visual Arts standards

Providing course information to NZQA

• Schools using student management systems will be advised by their vendors of system changes to enable course details to be provided to NZQA.
• Schools using the web entry system will be invited by NZQA to attend regional workshops focused on the updated web entry system for courses.
• The course assigned to learners’ entries cannot be changed after 1 October, which is also the key date for withdrawals from internally assessed standards.

Course names

The course name is that provided by the school.

NZQA reporting is being redesigned to reflect the way schools report to parents on student progress in courses. NZQA intends to report students’ course endorsements by showing the endorsement achieved against the course name.

Therefore, course titles will be much more public and will need to withstand the test of time. Proprietary brand names must be excluded because of copyright concerns. For example, “The Press, writing for the media” would be excluded because “The Press” is a business (proprietary) name.

Courses containing unit standards

Unit standards can be included within the makeup of a course but only standards with Merit or Excellence criteria can contribute to a course endorsement (e.g. Business Studies US22857).

Credits from previous years

Credits gained in previous years are not eligible to be used for course endorsement.

Multi level courses

Where a course has standards at two or more levels, the endorsement will be awarded at the lower level that can support the endorsement. For example, if the internal and external requirements have been met and the student achieves 12 credits at Excellence at Level 2 and 4 credits at Excellence at Level 1, the endorsement awarded will be Level 1 Excellence.

Questions and Answers

1. Is there any plan to increase the list of courses exempted from the internal/external rule?
   No. There was a detailed analysis of assessment opportunities available in the achievement standards and this led to the exemptions for Levels 1-3 Physical Education, Levels 1-3 Religious Studies and Level 3 Visual Arts.
2. Will schools be able to view details of the course information they have provided to NZQA?
   Yes. The course information provided to NZQA will be able to be viewed from the Reports on schools’ secure login.
3. Will NZQA reports include course endorsement information?
   Yes. From 2012, NZQA reports will be enhanced to provide course endorsement information.
4. Scenario: I have 14 Excellence credits from internal assessment and 3 Merit credits from external assessment in Level 1 English. What endorsement do I get?
   You would get a Level 1 Merit endorsement. Although you have 14 credits internally assessed at Excellence, the 3 externally assessed credits must also be considered for a course endorsement. As these 3 credits are at Merit your endorsement will be at Merit (see diagram below).

Enquiries

Please refer any enquiries relating to this circular to:

School Relationship Manager
School Quality Assurance and Liaison
Telephone: 04 463 3000
Fax: 04 463 3113
Email: firstname.lastname@nzqa.govt.nz