While the school environment has changed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, we want to assure parents and caregivers that students learning and achievement will not be compromised during this time.
Please see below some common concerns and reassurances from the College and NZQA.
1. What can parents/caregivers do if you are worried about your young person’s
learning?
• Remember you are not expected to be your young person’s teacher.
• Support and encourage your young person to keep engaged with their learning, and their classmates.
• Let us know if you have any concerns or questions about NCEA assessment and how your young person is getting on.
2. Evidence from changes made to assessment following the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes showed that:
• More flexible assessment opportunities do not affect the expected performance or the credibility of the results.
• Schools already make decisions about NCEA assessment to meet the needs of their students. The flexibility of NCEA will also allow us to meet students’ needs now.
3. Students can still get their NCEA – Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Vocational Pathways, University Entrance, Merit and Excellence grades, and endorsements
• We are making sure that any changes we make to learning and assessment programmes will still enable students to get credits, achieve their qualifications and awards.
4. Your young person can still do assessments, although there may be changes to what they will ‘hand in’ and how:
• Assessment could include:
- Work done on the computer, work done on paper. Your young person can complete activities on paper or in workbooks and keep these to hand in later or keep in a file or portfolio.
- Practical or physical work. This could include technology, art, design, science, and performance work that students record or hand in later.
• NCEA internal assessment does not have to be done under test conditions so teachers have ways to assess these remotely, where this is possible.
• Assessments requiring supervision can be deferred until the alert level permits.
5. Teachers know a student’s work is their own and can check that work is authentic by:
• Having checkpoints or milestones for big assignments
• Checking plans, drafts, notes and working
• Using digital tool features such as revision history, plagiarism checkers, and ‘googling’ content
• Talking to the student to check the depth of their understanding.
Please remember you are always able to contact the College or your child's Whanau teacher if you have any concerns.
