At St Bede’s we strive to be proactive in designing pathways that best suit our students' needs. We were increasingly finding that some students in the junior school were well advanced of their expected curriculum level, and some were even arriving in Year 9 having already gained excellence in NCEA Level 1 subjects. This led to St Bede’s looking to place students in appropriate classes to allow them to make progress in a subject.

In 2021, led by John McPhail, the college began a pilot scheme which accelerated a small number of junior school students into NCEA courses in Maths, Science and English. This programme proved to be successful, with students achieving very highly. The numbers in these classes have consistently grown and we have 18 students in the junior school in 2023. In addition to this, there are a significant number of students in the senior school that have been accelerated in NCEA subjects, allowing them to pursue their academic interests in the classroom and in some cases through extension courses at the University of Canterbury.

This is a programme we will be looking to develop as the Senior Curriculum is redeveloped, and we hope it will allow students to achieve to their full academic potential.