Heather McCrae: Diocesan School for Girls principal on complaints over NCEA Level 2 maths and biology exams

NCEA exams have been running for one week and already there have been complaints over being too hard.

Teachers at Auckland’s Diocesan School for Girls have written to NZQA complaining about the Level 2 maths and biology papers.

Its head of maths says the writer of the algebra paper was trying to be creative and was a ‘little too far removed from the classroom’.

Diocesan principal Heather McCrae joined Heather du Plessis-Allan.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
N CEA. Speaking of the kids. N CEA exams have
been running for only one week and already we've got
to complaint that the exams are too hard. Now. The
teachers at Diocesan Girl for School for Girls in Auckland
have written to NZQA complaining about the Level two maths
and biology papers. The school's head of maths says that
the writer of the algebra paper was trying to be

(00:21):
creative and was a little too far removed from the classroom.
The principle of DIO in Auckland is Heather mccrayon with us. Now, hey, Heather,
how are you?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
How are you?

Speaker 1 (00:30):
I'm very well, thank you? So what I mean like,
have you had a look at this? Does this genuinely
look too hard to you?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well? It were just parts of questions, Heather, that were
outside of you know, the guidance. It's in the curriculum
and it wasn't all questions, but there are some parts
of questions that weren't specifically relevant to what was required
to be taught. And I think that's an issue for

(00:56):
students throughout New Zealand. And you know, we want assessments
at the highest standards, you know, particularly those that are fair, reliable,
and they could to be valid, and you know, we
had questions around that, and I think all of our
students in New Zealand should for their national qualifications have
an assessment that is all those three things fair, valid

(01:20):
and reliable.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
So did you look at the maths paper in the
biology paper?

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Not in detail. I've taken feedback from the head of
Maths and also the head of Biology and also our
heads of faculty who have oversight of them. So they
confirmed that there were parts of questions that were very
hard for students to actually get an idea of what
the examiner was asking and where you've got, you know,

(01:45):
really literate kids who are having problems with that. I
think sometimes that it's easy to read and proof read
an exam paper, but you have to actually do it.
And I would like to see much more rigor put
into sure that those assistments are valid and reliable and
also fare.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Okay, so the complaint about the Maths paper is question
one D on page four. I'm having a look at
this right and basically what it is is they've got
a cylinder and it's a drinks manufacturer who wants to
be able to have the cylinder hold a volume of
five hundred mills, but reduce the surface area that the
cylinder has. That's a straight math's equation. What's hard about that?

(02:25):
This is level two?

Speaker 2 (02:26):
No, that's fine, But there are other parts of that question.
I understand. You know that our head of faculty questioned,
and that's.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
The that's the one that we were told as a problem.
We were told level two mathematics with stats paper is here,
see question one D on page four.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
And that's what I'm okay, right, Well, you know I
can't tell you the details of that. I'm a scientist myself, okay.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
And you're are you like EUFA with the biology question
about the cats and the dominant and the the recess
of genes.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
There was a comment that burn It passed on to
us about one particular question that enrolled involved I think
the difference between messenger RNA and transfer rna. And you
know that that is often not taught to a higher level,
and certainly I did when I did my biochemistry degree.

(03:22):
We didn't do that till level one at university. And
I understand them perhaps looking to see what's beyond you know,
the concepts of that question. But by the same token.
If it's outside of the curriculum, then it is unexpected.
You will get a normal spread of achievement anyway through

(03:43):
asking students what they know in canboo. But if you
ask well beyond that, you know you're dealing with students
who are committed to learning. You know they're nervous about
examinations anyway, and then you know, you put them in
a situation where they make a question really hard and
outside of what they know, and you know, is that fair?

(04:05):
I don't think it gives students the right opportunity to
find out what they know, understand and can do.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, the reason I'm asking you this hither, and I'm
not accusing you guys of this at all. I'm just
trying to establish with what is going on is that
we have too much of educators making excuses for kids
at the moment. Is that possible?

Speaker 2 (04:28):
That's an interesting question in what way?

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Well, I just see at the moment because we're having
this back and this is a broader discussion, and I'm
just trying to figure out if this is what is
going on here. So you know, I'm not saying it is.
I'm asking you the question, but we do have this
at the moment discussion going on in the country about
beefing up the curriculum across a whole bunch of areas,
and there are a lot of educators coming out and say, oh,
I can't possibly do that, can't possibly make the kids
at these exams and stuff, and it almost is just

(04:53):
like accepting a dumbed down version of society. And I
just want to explore whether that is going on here.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Well, I'm not one of those. They're not die and
our school is not like that. But what we do
want is a very strong and rigorous qualification for our
students through NCA. And to be honest, we haven't had
a lot of confidence and rolled out of the changes

(05:21):
to NCA, which we think will be good because they
do reinforce the rigor of NCA and we are fortunate
enough to offer international Bagloriate as well. But for other
students who don't have that opportunity, we want a really
high quality MCA qualification with assessments that are fear reliable

(05:42):
and reflect the highest standards of assessment that are available.
And I'd like to see that really improve throughout the country.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
All right, Hey, Heather, thank you for your time. Has
always really appreciated is Heather McRae, who is the principle
of dire in Auckland. Hither my daughter prepared well for
the Level two Maths and biology and came home pretty
disappointed because the exams were blow hard. To be fair,
I couldn't have answered either of those questions. To be
fair to me, it's been a while since I did.

(06:09):
I didn't actually do n CEA. Did I was before
the time of NCAA. But I mean, it's well over
twenty years since I was sitting my level to biology class. Jeez.
But man, I looked at that and I thought, I'm
so glad I'm not at school anymore. For more from
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