NZQA NCEA Assessment Policy

Adopted 6th October2025 
Next Review Date: October 2027 (Then Reviewed Biennially)

Rationale: 
Students achieve and improve when the assessment is valid, consistent, fair and accurate. 

Purpose: 
▶To ensure fairness of assessment for all students. 
▶To ensure school-wide consistency of internal assessment procedures.
▶To define the roles and responsibilities of staff and students. 
▶To satisfy NZQA requirements for NCEA assessment.  
▶To minimise student workload peaks.
▶To allow students to achieve to their potential. 

Guiding Principles: 
1. Each assessment activity must feature the following attributes:

Valid – the assessment must stand alone and be able to gather evidence of the coursework being assessed, consistent with both the standard and curriculum. A valid assessment should measure what it is supposed to measure, i.e., NZQA assessment specifications, standard-specific, as detailed in the achievement criteria. Note: An assessment that is not valid cannot be used to provide evidence for derived grade purposes.

Fair – the assessment must be presented in such a way that no student is advantaged or disadvantaged by the nature or content of the assessment.

• Sufficient – The Achievement Standard assessment must provide enough opportunity for a student to show competence at the Achieved, Merit or Excellence level. Unit Standard assessment must provide sufficient opportunities for a student to demonstrate competence at Achieved.
• Authentic – the assessment must be sufficiently different from practice assessments to ensure that each student’s own knowledge is assessed in a way that preserves the authenticity of their response, which must be in the learner’s own words.

2. Assessment conditions must be appropriate for the outcome being assessed.

3. For all NCEA Levels, KingsGate School will give priority to the following order of assessment:
▶3.1NCEA Literacy and Numeracy standards.
▶NCEA Level 1 Certificate Endorsement - Achieved, Merit or Excellence
▶For students planning further study of NCEA Level 2: the delivery of all relevant NCEA Level 1 subject curriculum content;
▶NCEA Level 2 Certificate Endorsement - Achieved, Merit or Excellence and/or relevant NCEA Level 2 subject course endorsement with Achieved, Merit or Excellence. v) ▶For students planning further study of NCEA Level 3 subjects: delivering all relevant NCEA Level 2 subject curriculum content.
▶NCEA Level 3 Certificate Endorsement - Achieved, Merit or Excellence and/or relevant NCEA Level 3 subject course endorsement with Achieved, Merit or Excellence. iii) Relevant UE Literacy and Numeracy achievement standards.  iv) NZQA Level 3 Scholarship exams.

4. Procedures will be transparent and well-publicised to ensure all students and staff know their responsibilities. 

5. Each assessment will be conducted, critiqued, moderated, and supervised, as appropriate, by experienced and qualified teachers. No inexperienced teacher will be solely responsible for critiquing or moderating an assessment. Every teacher will have their work moderated. 

6. Assessment results are only reported to students after moderation. 

7. All assessment dates, including practice external assessments, will be spread over the year to minimise clashes and facilitate student workload.

8. In anticipation of the next NCEA level, courses will offer all relevant content in their NCEA course level across the previous academic year.

9.Every NCEA course is required to offer at least 10 credits for internal Achievement Standards by mid-term 3, where practicable, and at least the content of two standards by the end of Term 2.

10. In time for Term 4 NZQA external assessments, every NCEA Level course is required to offer the content of at least one external Achievement Standard by the end of Term 3.

11. The content of the relevant subject’s additional external Achievement Standards will be offered in NCEA courses. When deemed ‘assessment ready,’ students will participate in the course subject's additional external Achievement Standards.

12. Kaihautuu|Head of Learning will ensure that all assessment activities and schedules are internally moderated and that samples of assessor judgements are verified in keeping with NZQA requirements. 

13. Kaihautuu|Head of Learning will determine suitable strategies for collecting evidence of student achievement and ensure that they are used consistently within each subject department. 

14. Copies of internally moderated student assessments and results will be stored securely and readily retrievable. The location will be specified in the moderation process. The required number of NZQA selected samples for external moderation will be stored digitally in the NCEA Assessment folders in the KingsGate School High School Faculty NCEA Drive for the following year, along with the assessment tasks and marking schedules.

15. When a student has gained Not Achieved in an assessment, teachers are required to review any valid, authentic, and naturally occurring evidence that the student has already provided before necessarily considering the need for further resubmission or reassessment.

16. A further opportunity to demonstrate achievement may be offered unless deemed impractical and/or unmanageable.

17. In keeping with KingsGate School Special Assessment procedures, students who have approved Special Assessment Conditions (SAC) will be offered the same conditions for NCEA internal assessments as they would for an NCEA external assessment.

18. Consistent with this policy, subject faculties will determine suitable specific procedures to ensure authenticity for each internal assessment under their authority, including monitoring plagiarism and external AI monitoring apps.

19. The NCEA appeals procedures will be well-publicised on the KingsGate School Google Classroom NCEA Hub, KingsGate School NCEA student handbook and during course teaching time.

20. Moderated grades only will be reported to NZQA and delegated for NZQA web entry by the Principal’s Nominee.

21. The Principal’s Nominee will maintain regular communication with NZQA to ensure the school’s policy and procedures comply with their requirements. 

22. The procedures defined in NCEA handbooks must apply to all students sitting NCEA or any other NZQA-approved assessments.

23. In Term One, students will receive a paper copy of the KingsGate School NCEA student handbook and be invited to the Google Classroom NCEA Learning Hub.

24. Digital copies of the student handbook, the NZQA NCEA Assessment Policy and its procedures will be posted on the Google Classroom NCEA Learning Hub. The NCEA Learning Hub will contain NCEA policies, guidelines, and procedures. It will store the relevant application forms for NCEA procedures mentioned in the KingsGate School NCEA Student Handbook.

25. Digital copies of the NCEA Student Handbook and the NZQA NCEA Assessment Policy and Procedures will be posted on the Google Classroom NCEA Learning Hub

26. Formative or diagnostic assessments should aid teaching and learning, curriculum delivery and review, and evidence collection.

27. This policy will be shared with all NCEA teachers, including new teachers to KingsGate School, during their induction.

28. All teachers will receive an explanation of these practices through department meetings.

29. Departments using within-school moderation are expected to source and identify their within-school moderators. They will return marked assessments with moderated, recorded grades to students within three school weeks of the assessment.

30. Departments will retain copies of selected scripts for external moderation and upload these to the NCEA Assessment and Policy moderation folder in the KGS High School NCEA Policy and Procedures Drive.

31. Departments using out-of-school moderators are expected to source and identify their moderators. Following the assessment, they will immediately communicate any moderator sourcing concerns, requesting moderator support from the Head of High School, Kaihautuu|Head of Learning, and the Principal’s Nominee.

32. Departments will agree on a realistic out-of-school moderation turnaround time with the Principal’s Nominee to a maximum of six school weeks. Once approved, course teachers will clearly communicate this agreed turnaround time to students, both digitally and during class time.

33. This policy will be reviewed in 2026, while its corresponding procedures and appendices will be developed, reviewed, updated and communicated to students and NCEA teachers throughout 2025.