Two Nelson secondary school principals say their students achieved above the national average in the 2023 NCEA results, while fewer students in Motueka are aiming for university.
Nayland College acting principal Hannah Banks says her students had “bucked the trend” across most NCEA levels and university entrance (UE) results, which were released on 17 January.
“At Level 1, it stayed pretty much static, we’ve dropped from 75.6 to 74.6 achievement, in every other category we’ve improved our results, Level 2 has gone up to 88.5 per cent achievement, and Level 3 to 74.3,” she says.
“Our Level 2 achievement is the one that we are particularly pleased to see setting so high, at the moment it is quite a significant rate above the national achievement at 72 per cent.
“University entrance achievement rate at Nayland College is just below the national average, the national average being 47 and we’re at 46 per cent achievement.”
Hannah says her students certificate endorsements at Level 2 were above the national average, and matching it at Level 3.
She also says students who sat the online Level 1 English exam achieved well, considering its nationwide log-in issues.
“A lot of our students had to resort to paper, but we continue to try and encourage our students to learn through a range of contexts. We use devices heavily but not exclusively, so they can achieve online and on paper,” she says.
Nelson College acting principal Tim Oughton says their students also stacked up.
“I‘m happy with what they’ve done given the stresses in the system in the past three or four years,” he says.
“With Level 1, our combined merit and excellences have improved with nearly half of our students getting merit and excellence, at Level 2, excellences are above our comparative schools.
“Our Level 3 results are continuing to improve with about one third of them getting merit or excellence in overall achievement.
While Motueka High School students met the national average in its 2023 NCEA results, they also reflected that less students were seeking university.
Principal John Prestidge says he was “pretty happy” with the outcomes for his students who played a part in increasing its literacy and numeracy, and merit endorsement achievement rates, despite the ongoing impacts of Covid-19 disruptions and truancy.
He says some results, however, demonstrated the growing trend in previous years of fewer students planning to attend university.
“The only thing that is any way out of step with the national averages is the year 13 results. After three years of Covid, a number of students are thinking further study is not where they want to head,” he says.
“With the number of employment opportunities in our area at the moment, a number of our students are looking at the year 13 year as a gateway to career and employment, and not necessarily focused on university entrance.
“A lot of students were leaving part way through last year which, of course, impacts the statistics of their achievement because they have left before they’ve been able to complete their Level 3 qualification.”
John says the university entrance achievement rate was 36 per cent, which sits below the national average of 47 per cent.
He says the school’s NCEA plans for 2024 included encouraging students to aim higher to increase excellence achievement rates.
“The merit credits now are pretty accessible, but the extra work required for excellence, a lot of our students don’t seem to place value in that,” he says.
“Some of the individual students are very driven and they do push themselves to get excellence, and we have good teaching staff who will support them all the way through as high as they can go.
“We’ll be looking at what can we do to reinforce the value of going that extra mile and doing that extra bit of work.”
