Students studying for NCEA exams. File photo Photo: RNZ / Katie Doyle
Some schools are finding changes to the first level of the national school qualification harder to work with than the old version.
But others think it is an improvement.
From this year, NCEA level 1 had fewer achievement standards available in each subject, but the content was broader.
Subjects now had four level 1 standards - two internally assessed, two externally assessed - each worth five credits. Students must achieve 60 credits to receive a level 1 certificate.
The changes were designed so that students learned more content in each subject rather than concentrating on the content of just a few standards, and to reduce the workload of teachers.
New Zealand was one of the few places in the world where the national school qualification was offered at three senior year levels; most countries assessed students in just one or two years.
But the first year of NCEA was optional, and about a quarter of schools had stopped offering a full level 1 programme, preferring to concentrate on levels two and three or to provide an alternative qualification for their Year 11s.
Some teachers said level 1 was valuable for struggling learners, who needed to experience success before they attempted the more difficult NCEA levels.
Others believed level 1 was essential for crowd control, giving otherwise fractious Year 11s something to focus their energy on.
Figures showed last year 11 percent of school-leavers had only NCEA level 1; 73 percent left school with level 2 or 3.
Students learning more, being tested less
Secondary Principals' Association president Vaughan Couillault told RNZ the new standards were proving to be a lot more work for both students and teachers.
He said each standard included a lot of content and because there were fewer standards, teachers had less flexibility.
"Fewer, larger sounds good. Less assessment for students, fewer high-stakes situations, less marking for teachers. This all sounds good.
"But actually, what we're finding is those significant pieces of work are intimidating for many students. They've actually become higher stakes, because there's far more credits and far more investment involved in them."
Couillault said although teachers did not mark the externally assessed standards, they had to organise online assessments or send off students' work to the Qualifications Authority for marking.
"They're proving to be particularly burdensome and increased workload for teachers and so I think there's quite a lot of work to do, not only on the context, but also whether those five-credit chunks are the right size or whether we need to change those again before we start progressing with level 2 and level 3."
Whangaparaoa College principal Steve McCracken told RNZ the school this year was again offering level 1 after students told staff they felt unprepared for level 2 exams and assessments.
"What we were hearing from our learners specifically is that they weren't ready to have those high-stakes examinations or assessments in level 2 without having that level 1 preparation prior. So it was a learner-based decision to try and give them the best chance of achieving."
McCracken said change was difficult, but overall feedback from heads of department was that the new level 1 standards were an improvement.
Teachers felt like they were doing more teaching and less assessment, he said.
"In some of our curriculum areas, the feedback that we've had from our heads of curriculum area is that the reduction of the assessment actually allows a lot more teaching of the curriculum area, rather than that focus on assessment that it was previously.
"So as a school we're quite happy with where we're at despite the change being quite difficult and challenging at times," he said.
Kaitaia College principal Louise Anaru said introducing the standards was more work for teachers but they expected the new assessments would eventually reduce workloads.
"With the old NCEA qualification ... there were so many standards, many teachers were over-assessing and of course that increased workload and also stress for our students."
Anaru said teachers believed the new standards would better prepare students for further study.
St Patrick's College Wellington head of science Doug Walker said it was too early to know if the new level 1 was an improvement.
"Some of the standards seem to work really well, but there have been very clear problems, particularly around the instructions for assessment for them that have left some teachers quite confused over the conditions under which they are assessing their students and that's been really tricky to deal with," he said.
Walker said there were two achievement standards for each of the science disciplines and four generic science standards.
He said schools were still figuring out how best to use those standards to create a good programme of study.
Walker said the new level 1 could be judged a success if students learned the content necessary to continue their subject at higher levels - and that would not be clear until next year.
Many of the new standards seemed to have higher literacy requirements than the previous standards, he said.
Changes to achievement standards for levels two and three of the NCEA have been postponed until 2028 and 2029.