Credit where it's due for young songwriters & performers

21 May, 2009

The 2009 National Secondary School Songwriting Competition and the 2009 Peace Song Competition are open to all secondary school students, with entries closing on Friday, 5 June 2009.

The competitions are organised by the Play It Strange Charitable Trust.

This year, as well as the Trust's judging panel, student performances and compositions will be assessed by experienced music teachers against National Qualifications Framework music achievement standards (listed below).

The teacher judgements will be monitored by NZQA as part its normal external moderation process.

Judgements by teachers will be completely separate to panel judgements for the competition. Success in the Play It Strange competitions will not guarantee achievement of a standard.

NZQA Deputy Chief Executive, Qualifications, Bali Haque said a memorandum of understanding had been developed over the last three months with the Play it Strange Charitable Trust, and would enable secondary school students to have performances recognised and contribute towards gaining credits while participating in the competitions.

"We hope that both Play it Strange and students will benefit from the new collaboration, with more pathways created into future music programmes or careers," he said.

"We believe this is a New Zealand first, as students will have the opportunity to have their performance assessed outside of the traditional school assessment setting and have this recognised as evidence contributing towards achieving qualifications on the National Qualifications Framework."

Play it Strange Chief Executive Mike Chunn says the competition now has a new added appeal for secondary school students. "Students can now both enter the competition and gain recognition towards achieving NCEA standards - all in one - while being assessed by experienced music teachers."

The arrangement will enable all participants to be assessed for evidence contributing towards the following music achievement standards:

Level 1

• 90012 - Perform contrasting music as a featured soloist
• 90013 - Perform music as a member of a group
• 90014 - Compose music to meet specified requirements

Level 2

• 90264 - Present contrasting performances as a featured soloist
• 90265 - Present a music performance as a member of a group
• 90266 - Compose effective pieces of music

Level 3

• 90526 - Present a performance of a programme of music as a member of a group
• 90775 - Present a portfolio of musical composition
• 90776 - Prepare and present performances of music as a featured soloist

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