Positive reaction to NCEA results

Bethlehem College student Ashley Hocking checked her results online this morning. Photo: Bruce Barnard.

NCEA results are out, and one Bethlehem College student is pretty happy with how she did.

Ashley Hocking, who sat NCEA Level 1 last year, was among thousands of students who logged on to the NZQA website this morning to check their results.

Ashley, who sat exams in English, Maths, Science, Drama, Music, and Sport Science, says she's ‘quite happy' with her results, although she had been hoping for higher marks.

'I had quite high standards for myself, so my results weren't necessarily as good as I had been hoping. But I wasn't disappointed.

'I was quite nervous before the exams, especially as it was my first time sitting them. But the practice exams we did beforehand really helped.”

She shouldn't have been nervous, though, as Ashley already had an Excellence endorsement for NCEA Level 1 from her internals, which were assignments assessed during the school year.

'It was great having the overall endorsement before exams as all I had to worry about were my subject endorsements.”

Those were great, too, with Ashley coming away with an Excellence for Science, and Merit for Drama, English, and Sport Science.

She says her friends are all happy as well, and that there were no issues logging on to check results – unlike last year, when the NZQA website experienced difficulties with the high number of students wanting to check results at the same time.

Each year Aquinas College Director of Curriculum Fraser Graham collates his school's results and uploads them to the Aquinas College database for parents and students to look at.

He says the pass rates across the three levels were high – 94 per cent for Level 1, 98 per cent for Level 2, and 89 per cent for Level 3.

'We're pretty stoked with our Excellence endorsements in particular,” he says. 'We had 40 per cent of Level 1 students endorsed with Excellence, 37 per cent of Level 2 students, and 20 per cent of Level 3 students.”

Aquinas College combined Excellence and Merit endorsements were 79 per cent for Level 1, 70 per cent for Level 2, and 58 per cent for Level 3.

Fraser says the school's results have been consistently strong for the last few years.

'It is pretty straightforward to gain NCEA. You can supplement your learning with work-based unit standards and other ways of gaining credits,” says Fraser. 'So the endorsements are a great indicator of the performance of our students.”

He says recent speculation by Education Minister Chris Hipkins and others over the future of NCEA Level 1 has concerned him.

'I know there have been some questions around whether NCEA Level 1 should continue, and whether it is necessary. My concern is that leaving exams until Level 2 is putting too much pressure on students, as there's no dummy run. Level 1 gets kids used to exams and accumulating credits, so I'd be worried if we lost it.”

Students can enter the Learner Login section of the NZQA website to view their results, while marked NCEA examination papers are returned to students from late January.

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