The New Zealand Curriculum applies to all school students, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, belief, ability or disability, social or cultural background, or geographical location in New Zealand. The Curriculum specifies eight essential learning areas that describe in broad terms the knowledge and understanding that all students need to acquire.

• English
• The Arts
• Health and Physical Education
• Language and Languages
• Mathematics and Statistics
• Science
• Social Sciences
• Technology

The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) is the senior secondary school national qualification that was implemented in all New Zealand schools in 2002.

Fees are payable by International students to have their results recorded on their Record of Achievement and to receive their certificate.

These entry fees are paid to and managed by the school. They are due by the end of July 2025. A late administration fee of $50 is payable if the deadline is not met.

About NCEA Level 1 and WGHS

As of 2024, we no longer offer Level 1 NCEA as a qualification in Year 11. This is how we reached this decision.

Our conversation about Level 1 started in 2019 when the changes were first signalled. We surveyed our Year 12 and 13 students to ascertain their feelings about maintaining the full Level 1 qualification. Their overall response was to keep some Level 1 assessment. A few of the key reasons they provided are below:

• Most students experienced success and gained confidence with NCEA.
• They valued the opportunity to experience the NCEA external examination environment.
• Many students made simple errors when completing assessment tasks in Year 11, such as poor time management, inadequate application of study skills, omitting pieces of work, not reading the question thoroughly, and being confronted with language they had not seen before.
• They felt that through the experience of Level 1, they gained valuable knowledge to take into Level 2.

An overarching theme from the feedback was that students felt there was too much assessment in Level 1, which created stress at busy times when they were managing multiple assessments. Since collecting this feedback, we have been actively reducing assessments in our Year 11 courses and focusing on quality learning.

Over the past three years, we have designed Year 9 to 11 courses to reflect curriculum changes and to ensure they contain essential knowledge and skills in all subject areas. NCEA assessments fit where they are appropriate rather than being the driver of course design. This means that Level 1 assessments are included in some Year 10 courses and Level 2 assessments in some Year 11 courses. There are a variety of scenarios across different subject areas.

Our focus in Year 11 is ensuring our cohort of students has gained the Literacy and Numeracy requirements for NCEA and laying the foundations for Level 2 and 3 NCEA, which are leavers’ qualifications that will open doors to tertiary education, vocational training, or the world of work.

We are confident that our programmes prepare our students for their future pathways.

For more information:

• Understand NCEA
• NZQA website
• NCEA Subject Resources
• Literacy and Numeracy in NCEA – a guide for students and whānau 2024-2025 

NCEA Review

In 2018, the government released an NCEA Review discussion document which was open for public consultation and feedback.  WGHS submitted a NCEA Review Detailed Submission, which was a collation of the feedback provided by staff, parents/community and students. Findings from the public engagement have now been released and the summary is now available, as well as the full report.