Otumoetai college backs flexibility of NFQ

If flexibility is the key to NCEA and the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), Otumoetai College, Tauranga is bending over backwards to help its pupils.

Principal Dave Randell says his 1880-pupil, decile-8 school is making the most of the assessment systems available and it's suiting all students, from the academic to the vocational.

For some classes such as maths, there can be three levels of ability within a class. Teachers tailor the lessons to individual students, and both achievement and unit standards are used for assessment.

Deputy Principal Bruce Farthing says more use is being made of unit standards in some traditional subjects, such as accounting.

"Internal work may be assessed by a mixture of unit standards but students can also complete achievement standards to gain what's perceived to be a higher qualification, with merit/ excellence grades."

A benefit of the NQF is the flexibility for students to aim for more than one qualification while at school. Here teacher Brendon Jones works on engine assembly in the auto-shop room with students Juan Bagley (left) and Jesse Coleman.

Some students are also being assessed against unit standards to complete national certificates, such as tourism, hospitality, automotive, computing and employment skills; as well as gaining an NCEA qualification such as Level 1, 2 and 3.

"The great benefit of the NQF is the flexibility to aim for more than one qualification while at school. Increasingly students are coming to realise that they can use this to their advantage," Mr Farthing says.

The more academic students are not forgotten either. Emphasis is put on quality of results i.e. a push to gain ‘merits' and ‘excellences', rather than just a large number of credits.

The 193 students who got predominantly merit or excellence results last year were sent congratulatory letters and school monetary prizes rewarded the very able.

Principal Mr Randell says the uptake of NCEA and other national certificates has allowed new approaches to learning. This has accommodated and been reinforced by stronger moderation across the school to national standards. A combination of strong external and internal school moderation has encouraged healthy debate and raised professionalism by increased "teacher talk" on what really matters in a school.

"Schools are all about meeting individual learning needs, helping each student to succeed and encouraging a wide learning environment.

Not everything learnt needs to be assessed (something students find hard to understand at times)," Mr Randell says.

The school's also a supporter of NZQA and the work being done to improve the NCEA. Mr Randell cites the new-look Record of Learning and discussions around enhancements as positive steps to improving the system.