Earlier this year Year 10 students sat the NCEA Numeracy assessment. In the coming weeks, any young men who did not achieve this Standard in the first assessment will have a reassessment opportunity on Monday, October 30 and will then sit the Literacy Standards (separate reading and writing assessments) on Thursday, 2 November.

The Numeracy and Literacy assessments are being introduced to New Zealand secondary schools. Successfully passing these assessments (achieving the Standard) will be a pre-requisite requirement for students to gain any NCEA qualification from 2024. The Numeracy and Literacy assessments assess content at upper level 4/lower level 5 of the New Zealand Curriculum, the level students should be working at by the end of Year 9.

Please find below some key information about the Numeracy and Literacy assessments and attached is some information provided by NZQA, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.

· The assessment is completed online. Young men who are able to bring a laptop to school to use for the assessments are requested to do so. Students who do not have a laptop that they are able to bring to school will be provided with one on which to complete the assessment.

· Students who ‘fail’ any of these assessments (a not-achieved result for the Standard) will be able to continue resitting the assessments in 2024 and beyond.

· The Numeracy and Literacy Standards are marked externally by NZQA. Results will be reported directly to candidates via their NZQA login.

We believe that it is prudent to begin these assessments in Year 10 as teaching programmes are geared towards developing the skills and knowledge necessary to achieve the Numeracy Standard. All young men in Year 10 have been shown how to log into the NZQA website to access the assessment platform and the practice assessments that have been provided.

Links to this information can be found below:

Digital assessment preparation: https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/ncea-exams-and-portfolios/external/digital-exams/

Make sure your laptop is set up correctly: https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/ncea-exams-and-portfolios/external/device-readiness-check/

Look at previous Numeracy and Literacy assessments: https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/ncea-exams-and-portfolios/external/digital-exams/find-past-digital-exams/

Polly, a text-to-speech application, is being trialed this year for the Numeracy and Writing Standards (NOT the Reading Standard) and is available to any student wishing to use it. Please note that any students wishing to use Polly must supply their own headphones. Further information about Polly is attached to this email.

Further information will be provided to your son closer to the date of the assessment. If he has questions about the Literacy or Numeracy assessment he will be able to discuss these with his English and/or Mathematics teacher.

Yours faithfully,

D M Bovey

RECTOR