Senior College Curriculum

Marau Kāreti Tuākana

The Senior College curriculum is designed to provide a wide range of options which allow students to follow their chosen path of study and work towards achieving their potential. The expectation is that all students will strive for academic excellence. Excellence is recognised as ‘doing one’s best’. A high level of academic achievement should give students greater access to the tertiary institution of their choice and/or a position in the workforce.

Most subjects in the Senior College, and many tertiary courses, have entry requirements. For this reason, we advise students to plan ahead to ensure that possible avenues of study are not closed. Year 12 English is the only compulsory academic subject in the Senior College curriculum.

When choosing subjects, students need to be mindful of their own abilities and be realistic in their choices.

If it suits a student’s particular needs, they are able to take subjects at more than one Level in the same year. This is called multi-Level study and is a regular feature of senior secondary schooling. We also advise students to keep their course as broad as possible within the framework of subjects offered in the Senior College.

In summary, Senior College students should:

• choose wisely and broadly from the many courses offered;
• have a sense of direction for their academic studies;
• seek course counselling from relevant staff as and when required;
• have a meaningful and personalised academic pathway for themselves;
• seek to develop analytical thinking skills and to become independent learners.

Ways to help you learn – be sure to:

1. Set yourself some goals – both short-term and long-term. A Year 12 student might set NCEA Level 2 as a long-term goal and taking part in the College Production as a short-term goal.
2. Plan the time you have available after school so that homework, co-curricular involvement like sport or music, and your social life can all be fitted in. Make sure you prioritise so that the important things get done.
3. Take good notes in class.
4. Participate in each lesson.
5. Keep up with your homework. If there are any concerns, seek help from your teacher or other support people like fellow students or your Dean. Use your homework time to review what you have been studying – this is a particularly good thing to do in those times when you don’t have any specific homework from teachers.
6. Have a wall planner at home and enter all assessments (tests and projects) for each term.
7. Take internal assessment seriously; it provides results that stay on your Record of Achievement.
8. Make sure you know precisely what is required for an assessment and, if possible, practise using sample papers from the NCEA and Te Kete Ipurangi (TKI) websites.
9. Make sure you spend time preparing for every assessment.
10. Know what is required to gain each NCEA Level qualification and University Entrance.