Staying friends with the NZ Qualifications Authority

Staying friends with the NZ Qualifications Authority HODs and the Principal’s Nominee

The role of a Principal’s Nominee • verify candidate eligibility, entries and fees • process financial assistance applications, and make recommendations to QA on applications for compassionate consideration and special assessment conditions • monitor internal assessment procedures • ensure the school meets all requirements of the external moderation process • verify and report internal assessment results • liaise with and support the Exam Centre Manager

Moderation It’s all about assuring quality…

Getting internal assessment right The bottom line: NCEA is a state qualification backed by the NZ government. It must be got right. Internally assessed standards are not ‘school’ standards – they are ‘NZQA’ standards in the same way externals are.

Moderation – internal & external • INTERNAL MODERATION • Moderation that takes place within a school • Checked by NZQA as part of its tri-annual ‘Managing National Assessment’ (MNA) visits • EXTERNAL MODERATION • Moderation that takes place outside the school • Annual moderation (approximately 10% of internal standards) sent to a fulltime national moderator

Internal moderation is the first check and must be applied to all assessments and practice external assessments. • ‘Schools must report only those results which have been subject to the school's internal moderation process…’ Rules and Procedures (4.6.b) • External moderation is the final check undertaken for a proportion of assessments.

‘Internal quality assurance’ is about… • Ongoing improvements to procedures, recording and monitoring of: • external moderation follow-up • internal moderation completion. Robust internal moderation results in fewer issues arising from external moderation.

Documenting everything… Moderation processes need to be documented: • to assure the quality of assessments • to improve assessments for future use • to ensure continuity when staff or responsibilities change • to ensure materials are kept for external moderation • so the school and NZQA can monitor internal quality assurance

The Internal Moderation Cover Sheet • The Internal Moderation Cover Sheet provides evidence that: • Critiquing of the materials has taken place before use • Attempts have been made to ensure consistency across classes • Verification of sample grades and benchmarking has occurred • The HOD has logged professional interactions on assessment • Materials have been reviewed before re-use

External Moderation • Standard selected by NZQA based on a range of factors, including past moderation history • Samples of student work ‘randomly selected’ – to reassure external stakeholders of the integrity of the process • How long to keep student work – and how much? • Minimum of latest eight samples ‘randomly selected’ in case called for moderation • Benchmark samples as required

Optional teacher-selected samples for external moderation • submit up to four additional samples for the selected standard from a secondary moderation system (not for ITO standards) for professional feedback – include your query • must relate to the same assessment as the ‘random’ samples • not mentioned in moderation reports – feedback comes direct to the HOD

Good practice

Filing Moderation Materials • How do you file moderation materials? • moderation reports • benchmark samples • internal moderation cover sheets • responses to external moderation. • How do you ensure that a new teacher can access relevant historical moderation information?

Recommend one file per standard: • Latest version of the standard • Recent National Moderator’s Reports • Assessment task(s), schedules and associated materials for the standard • Exemplar activities from TKI • Benchmark samples • External moderator’s reports for that standard for the school

Retaining student work -benchmarks • Benchmarks may or may not be the samples of student work for external moderation • Benchmarks are carefully selected and annotated samples of student work used to • refresh professional memory • help teachers new to the standard • ensure consistency of marking from year to year • exemplify the standard to students • Samples should be updated if better ones are found

What about external standards? • Same as for internal standards – one file per standard: • To enhance good practice • ‘one stop shop’ • To store data if needed for compassionate consideration applications

Student handbooks • Ready reference about: • Course content, objectives, rationale • Assessment: • Standards and Assessment Specifications • Internal and external, including reassessment opportunities • Rules & regulations (late work, absences etc) • Calendar – key dates • Recordkeeping

A maximum of one further opportunity for assessment of a standard should be provided within a year A ‘further assessment opportunity’ occurs when a new, assessment is provided after their first opportunity, and after additional teaching and learning. This could be a new test, a new writing topic or a new research topic. If a further opportunity for assessment is offered, it must be made available to all students entered for that standard. This is regardless of their performance on the first opportunity. All grades must be accessible. It is the school’s decision whether a further opportunity will be offered for any standard. If it is not manageable to offer a further opportunity, then students should be advised from the outset that there is only one opportunity to be assessed against that standard. Reassessment and resubmission

Resubmission opportunities should be limited to specific aspects of the assessment and no more than one resubmission opportunity should be provided. • A resubmission can be offered when students have made mistakes which they should be capable of discovering and correcting on their own. The problem should be capable of rapid resolution. In other cases, a further assessment opportunity may be more appropriate. • If a resubmission opportunity is offered, it must take place before the teacher gives any feedback on the work done. If more teaching has occurred after the first assessment opportunity, resubmission is not possible.

Resubmission must not compromise the assessment. For example, if the original assessment was completed in a supervised classroom, the resubmission must be completed under the same conditions. It is not appropriate to allow a student to complete their resubmission at home when the original assessment was done in class. • An example: the student may not have made a particular calculation correctly. The teacher may consider it appropriate to allow a student to resubmit this part of the assessment. The amount of information a teacher provides to a student in identifying the error is important. eg, the teacher might say “your method is fine but there is a problem with your calculations….” The teacher would not however say “there is a problem with your use of brackets in this calculation.”

Not Achieved when: Standard not met Assessment was a core part of the course and not handed in Assessment not completed due to an unjustified absence Not reported when: Student did not have a reasonable opportunity to complete the standard (eg. legitimate absence, not in course when sat) Standard offered as an ‘optional extra’ to the main part of the course (eg. for extension) Reporting ‘Not Achieved’

Accessing support materials • General: • http://nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/index.html • Subject specific: • http://nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/resources/index.html

Statistical analysis • Know how to do this – and use it to improve teaching and learning. • http://nzqa.govt.nz/qualifications/ssq/statistics/statsreports.do

Alignment of standards and the new curriculum • The idea is to match NCEA to the new curriculum • Key changes: • Achievement Standards will be used to assess the NZ Curriculum – overlaps will go • Unit Standards will remain if not derived from NZC, otherwise they will go • Some Unit Standards will have Merit and/or Excellence • Maximum of three external Achievement Standards (maximum of 6 credits each) • Literacy and numeracy pre-requisites for Level 1 will change

Staying friends with the NZ Qualifications Authority