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Dear Parents and Caregivers
There can be a real issue with students as they move out of the newness and intensity of Level 1 NCEA; students develop misunderstandings about the various aspects of Levels 2 or 3 NCEA and some risk becoming a bit ‘blasé’ about the qualification. As the academic year goes by students, and it really helps if parents can do this too, need to maintain awareness of the various aspects of the qualification as it applies to them at Yr 12 or 13 and understand what that means for them in this year’s NCEA ‘effort’.
In this newsletter, I begin by reminding my parent readers about a couple of our key policies regarding internal assessment – extensions and the provision of medical certificates and authenticity with particular emphasis on how Chat GPT should be used with students’ learning and assessment. I’ll also round off the details of the additional awards that are available in NCEA Levels 2 and 3, specifically, course endorsement and University Entrance, and I reiterate for parents of Year 12 students the perhaps (to them!) surprising importance of Level 2 achievement – it really does matter and it’s really important that the students ‘keep their eye on the ball’!
Our important mid-year academic reports process is under way, during which time all students will have a report written about them by each of their teachers and a summary comment from their tutor. In this newsletter you can read about what we report on and what you can expect in your student’s report feedback – the timelines are tight, but we stick to them so that we can report to all parents by the beginning of the holidays.
Finally, some words of encouragement viewed through the eyes of my children, all three of whom have now completed their NCEA journey, it’s very true that life doesn’t get any easier! I can’t emphasise enough just how important parents’ help is to their child’s successful navigation through the ‘NCEA waters’ even as their student moves up the NCEA levels. Taking an interest in what they are doing, even when they possibly don’t want you to, being aware of when they have assessments due and tests to sit, helping them to manage their commitments, both in-school and out-of-school, checking on their results and progress towards their gain of NCEA and maybe keeping them honest with setting of some academic targets is so helpful for students. True, there are students who seem to have it all sorted and probably don’t need a lot of your help but that’s not always the case and a small bit of checking up on them is a good thing!
So, you can see just how busy teachers and students are with their learning and their assessment work in NCEA at this time. At all times, please feel free to contact me via email with any questions that you may have about NCEA at DBV@stac.school.nz.
Kind regards
David Bevin
Head of Teaching and Learning
We have clear rules and procedures for students to follow covering many matters including student absence from an internal, late submission and breaches of authenticity and these are all detailed in the student copy of the ‘Rules and Procedures’. All students received their own copy of the ‘R & P’ in March in their tutor times; they must read them as the rules must be, and are, applied in all assessments.
Requests for extensions and absence from assessments are happening quite a lot currently. Students are getting sick; field trips are happening, and sports events are taking place. Students must follow our procedures in this area.
This is what they have been told – it is very important that you meet deadlines for NCEA internal assessments. If you are not able to meet a deadline, you must have a very good reason and are required to go through a formal process of applying to your teacher – and you are required to do this in a timely manner, i.e., before the deadline. This is the process that you MUST follow for any internal assessment; if you don’t, you will not be entitled to an extension. Staff know about this process and know that they must enforce it on each occasion.
There are several steps for you to follow with each internal assessment.
|
Request Type |
Process that must be followed by the teacher |
|
If you have COVID and are therefore isolating |
The extension request is automatically approved. Negotiation of a revised final date will be done by the teacher and you when you are well enough to resume schoolwork. |
|
If you make a request on medical (non-COVID) grounds |
The extension request will be approved subject to the provision of a medical certificate (this must be provided to the teacher and in a very timely manner). The final date is negotiated by the teacher and you. |
|
All other requests |
Subject to there being valid grounds for a consideration (e.g., a school field trip/sports event), negotiation over the submission date may be possible. |
I received this email from a student last week….
Reason for Extension: Away sick on Tuesday and Wednesday and wasn’t able to hand it in on the deadline.
In the extensions on medical grounds information, you will see clear reference to medical certificates in Step 3 above. If a student is sick (as is the case in this example), they must get a medical certificate and provide it to their teacher as part of their application for an extension. If they do not, they will not have an extension. This is non-negotiable on the College’s part. My response to this above example was NO EXTENSION because, quite simply, the student did not provide a medical certificate. Of course, given the nature of COVID-related illness and the required isolation period, in that circumstance, a medical certificate is not required.
Greetings! We are delighted to present our school parent newsletter, dedicated to discussing our decision not to incorporate ChatGPT into NCEA internal assessments. Join us as we delve into the reasons behind this choice, highlighting the importance of human interaction, authentic learning experiences, and fostering critical thinking skills in our students. (Ref: ChatGPT)
Last Friday, I spoke to Year 12 and 13 students about these two things at their Senior College Assembly. Parents will likely be aware of ChatGPT and of the discussions around its use in assessments in schools and at tertiary level. My task, hopefully achieved, was to clarify our rules about the use of ChatGPT (as an example of AI [artificial intelligence]) in internal assessment.
You are encouraged to view the presentation that was used by clicking on this link.
In the NCEA ‘Rules and Procedures’ booklet, the rules regarding ‘Authenticity’ have been very clearly explained, along with the ‘penalty’ for a breach in this area. In addition, late last term, students received a link to an online statement that they were asked to digitally sign to confirm their understanding of, and agreement with, our rules and processes in this area.
This is what we expect of students in this important area and is how the College reaffirms the rules relating to academic integrity.
What is to come in this area?
Of course, we have our rules as outlined above but we also consider that we need to help students to know just how they can legitimately use AI in their learning. Over the rest of this term and into the next, Mrs Hutterd will be working in this area with Year 12 students in their study times, in particular, teaching them how to reference sources.
Course Endorsement is usually harder to gain and requires a mixture of internal and external assessment success.
Course endorsement is also called Subject endorsement. It is an award that is applied to individual subjects that are run by an individual school. Again, Merit and Excellence grades and their associated credits are accumulated.
To gain Excellence endorsement in, say, Mathematics (as an example), a student must gain at least 14 credits at Excellence level BUT part of this must come from at least 3 Excellence credits in an internal and at least 3 Excellence credits in an external.
To gain Merit endorsement in, say, English, a student must gain at least 14 credits at Merit or Excellence level BUT part of this must come from at least 3 Merit or Excellence credits in an internal and at least 3 Merit or Excellence credits in an external.
To gain Achieved endorsement in a subject, as part of the 14 credits gained, a student must have gained at least the level of Achievement in standards while not meeting the requirements for Merit or Excellence.
The ‘external’ requirement means that the exam (or, for example, an externally assessed portfolio such as in Visual Arts) has extra importance in course endorsement.
A note about 12 and 13 PHED/PHLED – Physical Education for NCEA: Because there are no external standards for this subject, so that a course endorsement can still be gained, the external credits requirement is not used.
Course endorsement is only awarded in the academic year (that is, it can’t be accumulated over more than one year).
Any Excellence or Merit credits gained last year will be added to their totals this year and so contribute to their overall endorsement total for Level 2. As above, however, those credits cannot be counted for Course Endorsement awards in 2023.
The situation is similar for Year 13 students who completed Level 3 subject/s in Year 12 in 2022.
A small number of students will have a course with sufficient assessment opportunities for them to gain both Level 2 and Level 3 in the same year – this will usually only be students who are doing three subjects at each level this year. It is possible for them to gain not only the NCEA level qualification but also both certificate endorsement awards. If a student would like to know more about this, they should contact me directly so that I can provide more details about this… it’s a bit complicated for busy parents to absorb.
University Entrance (UE) looms large in many students’ minds particularly because the requirements are challenging and because students start working towards them in Year 12.
A student needs four things to gain UE:
The above requirement for the gain of 5 Reading and 5 Writing credits as part of UE is quite challenging. A number of students will take up to the end of their Year 13 year to complete this requirement and, at the start of Year 13, we identify those who will require additional support in their final year for their gain of UE literacy. The UE reading and writing standards are very specific and are identified in a very limited number of subjects – English is not the only subject in this instance. Each subject’s course outline (that can be accessed on StACNet) indicates if any of the standards assessed in the course count towards UE Reading or Writing. This example from the Year 13 Geography programme course outline shows which standard/s provide/s credits for both actual subject-related content and for literacy. Because our course outlines are standardised in format, you are able to check this out in all subjects.
Students are able to ‘credit’ credits gained from tests for the NZ Driver’s Licence as shown in this screen shot. While the credits aren’t large in number, every bit might help…. gaining one’s driver’s licence is one of those ‘rites of passage’ for young people…and they can gain credits for their NCEA as part of that ‘rite’… To ‘redeem’ their credits, students need to see Mrs Faulls. Students can also collect the relevant forms from the Senior College offices.
It can be tempting for students to think that Level 2 is not such a ‘big deal’ when it comes to their NCEA achievement and that it’s sort of a Year 12 equivalent of the Year 10 year. These days, this really couldn’t be further from the truth - students’ Level 2 results hold a great significance. In about 14 months from now, those students (by then, Year 13 students) will be applying for various University Scholarships, Halls of Residence, and other tertiary awards. The key information required by Awards Panels, etc., will be students’ Level 2 NCEA results, not Level 3. At the time of applying, Level 2 provides the most recent set of confirmed and final NCEA results so, clearly, the results that the students take through from Level 2 are more important than they might first seem.
Through much of Term 2, teachers will be writing mid-year academic reports for all year levels. In those reports, teachers will provide feedback on students’ progress to date and on their achievement levels.
For NCEA subjects, achievement will be described particularly with NCEA grades which will be either final, summative internal assessment results and/or formative external assessment results which have the status of being only ‘indicative’ (obviously not final as those results are gained in the NCEA externals). While being ‘only formative’, such results still provide useful feedback on a student’s progress in meeting the requirements of the external Standard.
It will be common to see in this Report a number of ‘NYA’ indicators (= Not Yet Assessed) for NCEA grades because course work to date has not yet allowed a teacher to properly assess a particular Standard, internal or external.
The College academic reports are made available to you by the following dates through the Community Portal. There, they are found under the ‘Documents’ tab, then ‘Student Reports’:
The Report is accessed through the ‘Reports and Documents’ tab in the Portal. At this stage of the year, these reports provide a good view of how your child is progressing to date in terms of their attitude, effort, attendance and NCEA achievement as follows:
The subject report provides an average score which provides an indication of your student’s attitude and effort in the subject to date. At St Andrew’s College, we consider that NCEA academic achievement is not only about academic capability. It is also greatly helped by a student’s attitude towards their learning in the subject and the effort that they put in in, and outside, the class.
There is a clear correlation between a student’s attendance in class and the opportunity for high(er) academic achievement. The subject report provides an overall attendance percentage figure to date.
The subject report provides results for assessments in standards that make up the course. At this time of the year, it is not at all unusual to see at least a few ‘NYA’ (Not Yet Assessed) ‘grades’ in the report as there is still a significant amount of course time to go and, therefore, assessment. Teachers are allowed, and are encouraged, to provide an indicative/estimated grade in a standard that indicates how a student is progressing in a standard even if it is not fully assessed at the point of writing. These grades act as feedback on how (well) a student is progressing in the standard and are always subject to change; because there is room for change in a student’s understanding of, and performance in, a standard by the time it is fully completed in an assessment, the estimated grades are merely indicative. On the report, such grades are indicated by an ‘*’. Final summative results for internals do not have the ‘*’. Note that all external standards are only formally assessed in an end-of-year examination or in an externally assessed portfolio.
It is our belief that students must develop the skills, dispositions, and characteristics to lead their own learning both at and beyond school. Increasingly, in learning at the College, the key competencies of managing self, thinking, using language, symbols and texts, relating to others, and participating and contributing are taught alongside curriculum content and skills because they provide the students with the means to develop into an effective learner beyond being ‘only’ a student of, for example, French. Therefore, in the Report, teachers are asked to comment on the student as a learner, that is, on how well they engage with their learning, how well they understand what they are learning, what strategies they successfully bring into their learning and what a student could do next to further improve as a learner in the subject. It is primarily about teachers providing meaningful feedback on students’ learning.
