Nelson College reaping rewards of preparation

Nelson College principal Salvi Gargiulo says preparation and seeing kids benefit from a new system have been the two major factors in getting NCEA working well for his school.

"We prepared for this. We knew it was coming and did the hard yards in terms of preparation. We got Project ABeL in and we hammered assessment and formative assessment practices. We got staff buy-in, looked at best practice, talked to experts and went to all the courses.

"We kept staff fully informed and it has basically taken three years to get to this point.

"The second factor has been seeing pupils benefit from the new system.

"I think staff will always work at something if they see the kids are getting something out of it.

"NCEA has replaced a qualification that was basically a drafting gate. School Certificate provided New Zealand with unskilled labour because we needed up to 60 percent of people to do unskilled work," Gargiulo says.

"Now everybody needs to have skills to be employable."

Gargiulo says boys, particularly, seem to benefit from the immediacy of assessment, because they know they are getting credits right there and then.

"They can see what they have to do and where they have to go. They can set short-term goals.

"They're very keen on their assessments. I had a boy in my office recently who was facing the prospect of getting thrown out of school altogether, but he wanted to make sure that whatever happened he could be here for an assessment he was due to do."

Gargiulo says there is no denying it is hard work for students. He has had a few talks with the students since the year began, encouraging them to keep up their work levels.

"A few of them had had a bad run of assessments and that can be hard if you start feeling like a failure before the year is even half over."

	Salvi Gargiulo: "Staff will always work at something if they see the kids are getting something out of it"

Students have generally been motivated by the new system and have cottoned on to how it works quickly, he says.

Talking to students at the school it is clear they approve of the system. A group of year 11 commerce students said they liked knowing exactly what they were doing; they liked the organised approach of learning and then assessment. They also liked the fact that they could approach the people who were doing the marking and find out why they got a particular mark, or even question it if they thought it was unfair.

Their biggest complaint with the system was that while they approved of reassessment opportunities, they didn't like the fact that someone could achieve excellence second time around. Reassessment, they said, should be to get an "achieved" mark only.

The school's principal's NZQA nominee, Fred Kramer says he knows the students have views about reassessment, but it's a minor issue within a system they are finding beneficial. That students can be reassessed if they do very badly was one of the best things about NCEA, he feels.

"If they fall over at the first hurdle now they can have another go. Under School Certificate. there was no second chance," he says.

"Students are very motivated by the immediacy of assessment. Once they do the formative assessment, they are keen to do summative assessment straight away and they are very savvy about reassessment opportunities."

The ability to "bank" credits for the following year is also a motivating factor for students.

"We've got year 10 students who are keen to get some credits behind them for next year," says Kramer.

The system has caused a few teething problems for staff. However, Kramer, who attends department meetings specifically to gauge attitudes to NCEA and talk through problems, says most things have a solution and he is confident a majority of staff and students at Nelson College support the new qualification.

Gargiulo agrees and says staff are keen to implement NCEA level 2 next year provided there is no PPTA ban and there is training to support the introduction.

Unit standards revived under NCEA

Like many other schools, Nelson College is no stranger to either internal assessment or unit standards and has used unit standards for technology/ computer studies for some years.

Principal's nominee Fred Kramer says NCEA has given unit standards a new lease of life as the boys realise that it is all the same currency and that they can work towards other National Certificates at the same time as earning credits for their NCEA.

Vocational subjects are now more mainstream, giving pupils a lot more flexibility in what they choose to study.

For example, students are now able to earn credits for their work in kapa haka.

As principal Salvi Gargiulo says, schools have long benefited from the hours of preparation that pupils put into things like kapa haka, but the students themselves have not been able to put the learning towards a qualification. Now they can.

Boys at Nelson College are working towards National Certificates in subjects as diverse as first aid, performance sport, tourism, hospitality and trade building. They are involved in learning programmes ranging from megatronics to bridge building.

The school has a good relationship with the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology where some students are working towards unit standards through STAR-funded taster courses.

"NCEA has definitely given unit standards a big revival," says Kramer.