Patrick Gale: Rangitoto College Principal on the issues with NCEA Level 1

The Education Review Office is recommending NCEA Level 1 be reformed.  

Its review found it's not a fair or reliable measure of knowledge and skills, and around a quarter of schools don't plan on offering it next year.  

Last year, students were almost twice as likely to achieve an excellence on an internal assessment than an external.  

Auckland's Rangitoto College Principal Patrick Gale told Ryan Bridge that within the existing framework, teachers can target standards they perceive to be easier.  

He says with internal assessment they can also offer more time, meaning they may not enter students into all externals, causing further issues as they're not learning the whole curriculum. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hero.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
The Education Review Office says NCAA Level one and listen
up if you've got kids studying it this year or
next year, is not a fair or reliable assessment of students'
knowledge or skills. A new report by the government agency
also says less than three quarters of schools planned to
offer Level one from next year. It comes a day
after a new post COVID school achievement number that was

(00:23):
at a near decade low. Patrick Gale is the only
talked to all college principal with us this morning. Patrick
Morden A good morning er, How are you? Yeah, really good?
Thank you, thanks for coming on the show. You stopped
offering incail every one that started this year. Why did
you do that?

Speaker 1 (00:41):
We had concerns in a number of areas. Firstly, pretty
and most important was around the quad gives support and
implementation that took place during the process. We found that
as a school, we were getting lots of information very
very late, and the more we found out, the more
concerns we had around whether it was going to be
a very tool to support the progress of our students.

(01:02):
So we decided to make the move away from Level
one this year, and to be honest, haven't really looked
back from that position.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
What are the results been like, I mean, obviously it's
the early days, but how have you found it?

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah, I mean we've The main problem that exists in
usual and education the moment is the lack of a
coherent curriculum and without a map to guidance towards a destination,
a lot of schools have been foundering in the dark. Therefore,
we've developed our own really strong, rigorous curriculum which has
given our students out teaches a pathway to enable quality

(01:35):
assessment to occur at the end of it, rather than
assessment driving what we teach, which in affecting what's been
taking place the last a large number of years in
using an education with the poor curriculum and overriding assessment
that we've had in previous years.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Speaking of assessments, this is students are twice as likely
to give an excellence on an internal assessment compared to
an exam. Why is that.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
I think teachers within the existing framework are able to
target standards they may perceive to be easier they are
with internal assessment. They're also able to offer more time,
which might mean they don't enter students into all the externals,
and that causes further problems because it means that students
are actually taught the whole curriculum because you're targeting certain standards,

(02:23):
and that means you're not preparing them as well at
level two, three and tertiary education. If that's where students
are going.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
On to the other problem I've heard of, Correct me
if I'm wrong, But it's up to the department, each
department in each school to decide how many credits their
courses are worth.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
I think I would depend upon the school as a school.
We have a policies about how many credits we would
expect students to have to sit at now in that
level two and level three, and we would also ensure
that we are trying the more difficult standards or perceived
difficult standards, because we believe that prepares our students the
best for the following year. But again, different schools have

(02:59):
different approaches towards that. Icon comment on what other schools
are doing.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, fair enough, Well, best of luck with your new
system you've introduced for level one, Patrick, appreciate your time
this morning, Patrick Gale. That said on a talk talk
college principle with us, some other quite horrifying numbers. Really,
seventy percent of employers don't think it's a reliable measure
of knowledge and skills. This is NCAA level one. Ninety
percent of employers don't think it's a reliable measure of

(03:27):
hard work.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live
to news talks. It'd be from five am weekdays, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.