School leavers gaining NCEA level 2 this year

Avonside Girls High School is using the new qualifications system surrounding the NCEA to ensure that all school leavers leave with the highest possible qualification.

Deputy Principal, Penny Prestidge, says staff have met with each of the year 13 students who are studying lower level bursary and non-bursary subjects, who are not intending to sit for University Bursaries. For each one, they are creating an achievement grid combining their results for the past two years. The grid combines their School Certificate/sixth form marks and any unit standards they have achieved, as well as the credits they are working towards this year.

Students' attitudes about what they can achieve is changing

"Some of our senior students have discovered that they are just four or five credits away from achieving NCEA level 2.

"It is very exciting to be able to have a meeting with these kids and watch them walk away with a completely different attitude to what they can achieve before they leave school.

"They are saying - I can do this - I'm going to try and get this qualification this term. It has been one of the most worthwhile projects I have been involved in lately," Ms Prestidge says.

"These students, many of whom have a track record of limited achievement, are realising that this new system recognises the 'add-on' effect of learning that the traditional qualifications did not. A little learning each year can now (eventually) amount to something other than a long string of 'not good enough to pass.'"

Ms Prestidge is an advocate of the new NCEA and says it is working well in her school.

"I think there has been some misunderstanding surrounding assessment and how much time we need to be spending on practice assessments, but overall I think the NCEA is supported by a majority of teachers in this school."