Over the last week, community cases of COVID-19’s Delta variant have caused disruption to thousands of secondary school students around New Zealand. 

The Ministry of Educationd and NZQA have agreed to change dates and processes around some assessments-including end of year exams and portfolio submissions.

As the whole country is in Alert Level 4, the following date changes will apply across New Zealand.

END OF YEAR EXAMS AND PORTFOLIOS

Please take note of the following important date changes:

• End of year NCEA and NZ Scholarship exams will be delayed by two weeks, to run from: 

Monday 22 November until Tuesday 14 December.

• Due dates for portfolio submissions will also be pushed back by 2 weeks

• Schools will also not have to provide Level 1 or Level 2 Visual Arts portfolios for NZQA Verification. This also means there will be more time for students to finish their work, and for teachers to mark it.

MATHEMATICS COMMON ASSESSMENT TASK (MCAT) AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES & HANGARAU MATIHIKO COMMON ASSESSMENT TASKS (DigiCATs)

NCEA Level 1 Mathematics Common Assessment Task (MCAT) will also be delayed by two weeks. This will give students who were due to sit the MCAT more time to prepare. The new dates will now be: 

Tuesday 28 September OR  Thursday 3O September. 

DigiCATs remain 20 September - 1 October and 18 - 27 October.

EXISTING FLEXIBILITY AND PROCESS

Schools already have a lot of control over how they teach and assess students working towards NCEA. The Ministry of Education and NZQA are talking with schools about how teaching and learning can continue under Alert Levels 3 and 4, and how learning can be assessed while students are at home, or when they return to class.

As usual, if COVID-19 - or something else beyond their control - means a student is not able to sit their end of year exams, we have the well-established Derived Grade and unexpected event grade processes. Please make sure that, where possible, you are gathering evidence for Derived Grades and unexpected even grades.

Article added: Thursday 26 August 2021