I want to say a big congratulations to all the students who participated in the CAA Literacy and Numeracy tests this week. It is a massive undertaking for schools all over the country, with a huge amount of preparation, organisation and logistics to manage.

NCEA Literacy and Numeracy tests this week.

I want to say a big congratulations to all the students who participated in the CAA Literacy and Numeracy tests this week. It is a massive undertaking for schools all over the country, with a huge amount of preparation, organisation and logistics to manage. I especially want to note the Year 10s who have now completed their first NCEA assessment, well done. 

As part of their overseeing of this new assessment process NZQA have been doing Quality Assurance visits to schools all around the country this week and next to check in with how it has been going. We had our visit on Wednesday and our feedback was very complimentary, praising our systems, staff and students for handling it very well. 

We will run catch up tests next week for those students who were absent. Please encourage your child to check their emails over the weekend. The organisation of this examination process has really highlighted the importance of students regularly checking their emails and having some sort of self management strategies in place to remember information. Students are regularly reminded to check emails by mentors and classroom teachers, however I have seen a number of student inboxes over the past few weeks which are full of unread messages. It would be beneficial for you to spend some time with your child this weekend helping them organise their inboxes and reminding them of the importance of checking this daily, especially in the lead up to assessment periods. 

For students who did not sit the Literacy or Numeracy tests this week and for those who have sat but did not pass, they will all be entered into the next round of CAA tests in September. I have fielded a few questions from students and parents this week asking why they or their child was not entered into a particular test. The English and Maths departments have different measures to test readiness for these tests. For English we use the beginning of the year E-Asttle reading comprehension test. Students who score at high level 4 of the curriculum or above were entered into the Literacy tests, as the test is set at high level 4/low level 5 of the curriculum. We do not want to enter students before they are ready and stress them out unnecessarily. However, we have had some feedback from students expressing their interest in sitting these tests, even if they haven’t met the readiness score, for the experience of sitting the test. We will consider using an ‘opt in’ option for Year 10s in the May round of CAAs in 2026.  Being prepared, feeling calm and not having a negative experience of examinations which may impact wellbeing is at the forefront of our decision making. If your child was not entered in this round of the CAAs please rest assured that they will be in September and they have time to prepare and improve their skills before they sit this test. 

Katherine Beaumont
HOD English and Principal’s Nominee