NCEA Pathway


Course Selection 2011

What is NCEA? 

NCEA is the National Certificate of Educational Achievement.
 
  • Year 11 / Form 5 students are able to achieve credits at Level 1 through both Unit Standards and Achievement Standards.
  • Year 12 / Form 6 students are able to achieve credits at Level 2 through both Unit Standards and Achievement Standards.
  • Year 13 / Form 7 students are able to achieve credits at Level 3 through both Unit Standards and Achievement Standards.

Achievement Standards

Achievement Standards - each subject is divided into several categories called Achievement Standards. Each Achievement Standard is assessed separately, so a student will gain several different grades for the one subject - one grade per Achievement Standard.
 
Achievement Standards identify the learning outcomes students must achieve, plus the expected national standards of work.
 
Some are assessed internally by subject teachers during the year and some are assessed by external examination at the end of the year.
 
There are four possible grades students can be awarded: Not Achieved, Achieved, Achieved with Merit or Achieved with Excellence. Each Achievement Standard is typically worth about 2 - 4 credits and there are approximately 24 credits per subject that can be awarded. 

Unit Standards

Unit Standards are offered in some courses. These courses have a focus on industry standards or offer an alternative to Achievement Standards which follow a more traditional course description. The two possible grades students can be awarded are Not Achieved or Achieved. Like Achievement Standards, Unit Standards also have a credit value that counts towards the NCEA. Unit Standards are all internally assessed.
 
Some courses at Westlake Boys' High School offer a mixture of both Achievement Standards and Unit Standards. Unit Standards are used in traditional subjects to ensure that students meet the requirements for entrance into university or polytechnic courses, or to bridge the gap between 4th and 5th form, 5th and 6th form, and 6th and 7th form work where boys find the increase in work level too great. In non-traditional areas the focus is on skill development for specific career pathways for example Boatbuilding, Automotive Engineering, Food Technology, Sport Leadership.

Endorsement of NCEA Awards

  • Your NCEA can be 'endorsed' if your results are good enough. In other words you will have "NCEA Level 1 with Merit".
  • If you gain 50 credits at Excellence, your NCEA will be endorsed with Excellence. Likewise, if you gain 50 credits at Merit (or Merit and Excellence) your NCEA will be endorsed with Merit.
  • You can earn credits counting towards endorsement over more than one year and more than one level. However, they must be gained at the level of the certificate or above. For example, Level 2 credits will count towards endorsement of a Level 1 NCEA, but Level 1 credits will not count towards endorsement of a Level 2 NCEA.

Individual Subject Endorsement

  • Individual subjects can be 'endorsed' with Merit and Excellence from 2011.
  • If you gain 14 credits at Excellence, your NCEA subject will be endorsed with Excellence. Likewise, if you gain 14 credits at Merit (or Merit and Excellence) your NCEA subject will be endorsed with Merit.
  • You can earn credits counting towards individual subject endorsement in one year only.

NCEA Results

In January next year, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority will issue students with an NCEA Report for each subject. On it will be recorded:
  • the Achievement Standards and/or Unit Standards the student entered
  • the credit value of each
  • whether they are internally or externally assessed
  • the grade achieved
  • the number of credits gained in each Standard

NQF Result notice

Results are also made available to students online at approximately the same time as the results are posted. These results are provisional until all reviews and reconsiderations have been processed.

Reviews and reconsiderations

Students may want to apply for a review or reconsideration of their results. These can be applied for in the period immediately following the release of the results.
 
For externally assessed Achievement Standards, answer booklets are returned to students (for Graphics, the folio is returned to the school.)
 
To help students understand how their results were arrived at, the judgement statements used by markers are made available on this website. After students have looked closely at their answer booklets they may want to apply for a review or reconsideration of their results.

Review

If you consider a processing error (such as one or more sections unmarked, or the incorrect transfer of grades) has been made, you can request a review of external assessment material. This involves checking that all of the script has been assessed and the results have been correctly recorded and transferred. It does NOT involve re-marking the script.
 
Fill in the application form included with your result notice and send it with the relevant answer booklet/s.

Reconsideration

If you think your answer booklet has not been assessed (or 'marked') correctly, you can apply for a reconsideration. This involves reassessing all answers in the answer booklet using the original assessment schedule - in other words re-marking it - and also checking mechanical processes like transferring results.
 
NB: If you apply for a review, you can't ask for a reconsideration of the same Achievement Standard. There is a different reconsideration process for Visual Arts. Contact your school for assistance.
 
It costs $20.00 for each booklet to be reconsidered. Fill in the application form included with your result notice and send it off with a cheque and relevant answer booklet/s. This fee is refunded should the mark change.