Stressed NCEA students likely to need help

A stressful year means more NCEA students are expected to apply for special grades. 

This year more than 143,000 Year 11, 12 and 13 students will sit their National Certificate of Educational Achievement.

Students have until December 5 to apply for a derived grade – formerly known as compassionate consideration.

The New Zealand Qualifications Authority said a derived grade could be awarded to a student who couldn't sit an exam or submit material for external assessment. It was also an option for students who felt their exam performance was hampered by exceptional circumstances outside their control – including the death of a family member and national representative duties.

The authority has also put initiatives in place to help students affected by the Christchurch earthquakes. Those are aimed at students from schools within a certain zone and take lost teaching and learning time into account. Students have to sit the exam and make a "genuine attempt" to answer the paper. Unanswered papers, "nonsense or doodles" do not count as "genuine".

School leavers who had narrowly missed out on achieving level 3 NCEA and University Entrance could apply for a special credit. Some course requirements had also been relaxed.

Year 12 Christchurch student Mahali Matehe said he and his friends had talked about applying for a derived grade but were sketchy on the details.

The authority's website says students must submit their applications to their school, which then drew on "standard-specific evidence" to award a grade that was sent to NZQA for processing.

"The earthquake has affected our schooling, we've had to sit all our topics in a small amount of time," the 16-year-old said.

St Bede's College deputy principal Nola Kilpatrick said: "All of our students have had significant disruption throughout the year with site sharing and reduced teaching and learning time ... with homes in red zones, parents losing jobs, businesses, families taking in relatives, others fleeing the city, dealing with the trauma of the events."

She said schools were applying for the grades on behalf of students and there would be significantly more applications this year.

- © Fairfax NZ News