Ākonga/students who did not achieve in the June 2023 assessment and want to attempt again in the October assessment will require a new entry by the school/provider.

A reminder that students who will require Numeracy translated into Te Reo Māori, Cook Islands Māori and Niuean must have their entries in by 1 August, and the translation request flagged on the system. The entry deadline for students who did not achieve in the first assessment event, and are ready to be re-assessed in October 2023, was 1 September.

The 2023 Common Assessment Activity dates are:

Pāngarau

Te Reo Matatini

Literacy Reading, Literacy Writing, and Numeracy

Each standard will be assessed as a Common Assessment Activity (CAA) and will be digital first, meaning that, in the first instance, assessments will be delivered in an online format. If you have important reasons that this isn’t possible, NZQA will work with you on different options.

For schools, kura or organisations who have not previously engaged with digital assessment, you can find information on the NZQA website on preparing your school and students for digital assessment.

• Get your school ready for digital exams » NZQA ·
• Digital exam preparation for students » NZQA

Assessment Master (AM) training and support

NZQA is providing support and guidance to schools, kura and tertiary institutes on preparing for delivery of 2023 external digital assessments using Assessment Master. This involves a package of material including online sessions, guides, job aids and an eLearning course on Pūtake.

1. Assessment Master training webinars are being held from the week of 15 May 2023 to help NCEA providers who are delivering digital assessments for NCEA requirements for te reo matatini, literacy, pangarau and numeracy. This page will be updated with dates and times and shared with everyone registered through the Expression of Interest mailing list

2. Guidance is now available in the School Provider login (Assessment Master Guidance folder). The support materials include:

   • the Administrator guide and the Supervisor guide – which cover step by step instructions for each role and links to support videos.

   • job aids in English and te reo Māori (stripped down instructions from the guides).

3. A Pūtake eLearning course is also available in English and te reo Māori. Instructions for accessing the courses are in the guides and in the School/Tertiary Provider login

4. Late Entries – as soon as possible and no later than 2 June

It is essential that schools submit entries for the co-requisite as early as possible. This is done in the same way as other entries in standards are submitted to NZQA – through the submission of a datafile if the school uses an SMS or otherwise through the web entry process. This is usually arranged by the school’s Principal’s Nominee. Our preferred date for entries for the first assessment event in June was 1 April.

Schools also need sufficient time to complete preparation tasks in Assessment Master such as the checking of entries, assigning of students to rooms and allocating supervisors. The late submission of entries will make these tasks even more challenging for schools.

Timely entries are also required so that students can create and practice using their learner logins for the NZQA website. Students must have at least one current entry before a learner login can be created.

We understand late entries may be required for some students, as teachers determine their readiness, or due to other logistical reasons. With that in mind, all entries for the co-requisite assessments must be submitted to NZQA no later than one week before the assessment week. For Assessment Event 1, the target date is 2 June 2023.

Only students whose entries are included in your datafile can have entries in Assessment Master.

Students from other schools or recent transfers may need to use the process for accessing a PDF copy of the assessment.

We cannot guarantee that entries received after Friday 2 June will be processed in time for a student to undertake the assessment digitally.

To minimise late entries, we recommend that prior to 2 June 2023, you check your entries in your NZQA login AND in Assessment Master. If there are missing students, please submit a new datafile or complete a web entry by 5 pm on Friday 2 June.

Timing of the Assessment

Literacy-Writing / Literacy-Reading / Numeracy / Pāngarau - Each assessment has been designed to be completed in 60 minutes by most learners, but schools may allow as much time as necessary for candidates to complete the assessment in one session.

Te Reo Matatini – (CAA option) – The assessment has been designed to be completed in 2 hours by most students, but schools may allow as much time as necessary for them to complete the assessment in two sessions.

Assessing over multiple days

We strongly recommend that schools make every attempt to assess all students for a single co- requisite standard (Reading or Writing or Numeracy) on the same day. This minimises disruption for staff administering the assessments within schools, and the risk of possible breaches due to the sharing of assessment materials/questions and failing to close the assessment in Assessment Master overnight.

Schools are strongly encouraged to complete the Writing assessment for all students in a single day unless this is impossible for logistical reasons.

The assessment can be held at multiple times on a single day i.e., all students do not have to sit the assessment at the same time on a single day.

We understand that resource constraints or other factors may make assessing on the same day difficult. If you must assess a co-requisite over multiple days, please ensure you close the assessment between sessions, if needed, and at the end of each day, and re-open only at the start of the next session.

Failure to close the assessment means that student work may be lost, or a breach could take place.

Possible Breaches in External Assessments

The purpose of the breaches process for the external assessment pilots is to ensure that student results are credible. NZQA investigates all possible breaches in these assessments to maintain the integrity of the NCEA qualification.

The school must inform students that by entering the assessment, students agree to follow the NZQA Assessment Rules and instructions, as outlined in the Pre-assessment instructions and on the NZQA website. Their conduct must not compromise the credibility of the assessment. By saving a response at the end of an assessment session, they verify the work is their own. NZQA may digitally sample student work to test its authenticity.

Assessment Conditions

Not allowed

• Material displayed in the room that will advantage students in the assessment
• Cell phones, notes, watches
• Accessing the internet
• Leaving the AM platform
• Communicating with others.

Allowed

• Rulers and a standard (non-scientific, non-graphing and non-communicating) calculator, or any calculator on the approved calculators list, may be used for the Numeracy assessment. There is no calculator functionality available in Assessment Master
• Power banks
• Headphones
• Blank paper provided by the school, for workings.

Attendance Registers

Attendance registers must be completed whether a student completes the assessment on Assessment Master or whether they complete on paper and the assessment is scanned and submitted. If you do not submit an attendance register, we will contact your school to remind you.

Instructions on completing the attendance register are on page 55 on the Supervisor Guidance in your School and Tertiary Provider Login (in the Assessment Master Guidance folder). Job aids are also available through your NZQA provider login.

Learner Logins

• Students use their NZQA Learner Login details to access digital exams. They must create an account if they do not already have one, and if they do, they should check their username and password.
• Teachers should check that students have logged into their NZQA student login recently. Teachers can use the Last Login Date column in the Digital Exams link for Literacy and Numeracy standards in Key Indicators to check this.

Assessment Specifications for 2023 are now available:

Literacy (Reading)

Literacy (Writing)

Numeracy

In advance of the assessment, you can get prepared using digital assessment guidance on NZQA’s website:

• Assist your students with digital preparation
• Ask students to familiarise themselves with the format and delivery of the assessment using these past examples
• Check your devices to ensure they are compatible with the assessment platform
• Ready your school for digital assessment
• Check your school infrastructure

An eLearning course on how to use Assessment Master will be available from NZQA’s Learning Management System Pūtake in April. There will be two modules in this course. Module 1 is for the Assessment Master administrator and Module 2 is for the Supervisor.

Make an assessment plan including:

• who will supervise
• which rooms will be used
• which day you will assess on.

Equipment required and tips

Ensure you/your students have enough compatible devices to carry out the assessment. 

Ākonga who will be using the text-to-speech functionality (on the Literacy Writing and Numeracy standards only) will require headphones.

No headphones will be required to complete the Literacy Reading, Literacy Writing and Numeracy assessment, otherwise.

Assessment Reports from 2022 can be found via the Assessment Tab on:

• Literacy
• Numeracy
• Te Reo Matatini
• Pāngarau

These reports provide an overview of where students strengths and weaknesses lay in each assessment, and recommendations for teachers on where to focus teaching and learning.

Change 1 of the NCEA Change Programme is Make NCEA more accessible. Consistent with this, the Common Assessment Activities (CAAs) for Literacy and Numeracy | Te Reo Matatini me te Pāngarau have been designed to enable schools, kura and other NCEA providers to meet the accessibility needs of their learners more easily. For example, there is no time limit for the CAAs, so long as each can be completed within a single session.

Schools, kura, and other NCEA providers also decide:

• who supervises the CAAs
• what day(s) CAAs are held on during the assessment week
• whether their whole cohort of learners undertakes the reading, numeracy, te reo matatini and/or pāngarau assessments at the same time, at different times on the same day, or across multiple days within the specified week
• the room configuration for the assessments
• whether learners are eligible for Special Assessment Conditions (SAC).

NZQA asks that the writing CAAs are held on the same day for the whole cohort. Knowledge of the stimulus material provided for these assessments could advantage students who sit the assessment later in the week. It is however still possible for a school, kura, or other provider to stagger the writing CAAs throughout the same day – e.g., to conduct the writing assessment at three different times on the same day.

Polly/Assistive Technology

NZQA is running another trial of Polly, a text-to-speech tool that comes with the digital assessment platform (Assessment Master).

Polly is available to any students sitting the 2023 English Literacy Writing (32405) and English Numeracy (32406) digital assessments between 12-16 June 2023. Polly can be used to support students who have low vision, learning differences or reading difficulties, and who are aural learners.

Polly converts text into audio so they can listen to text in the assessment being read aloud. We ‘re not trialling Polly with the Reading (32403) standard as the Ministry of Education is investigating the use of text-to-speech with reading assessments.

Further information on Polly can be accessed on the Te Aka webpage or using the School or Tertiary Institute Provider log in (Assessment material folder)

Students can practise using Polly with the sample numeracy assessment (access code 0000).

If you’re interested in receiving regular updates on Polly and/or giving feedback on student experience of trialing Polly please complete the expression of interest form.

We’re also running a trial of text-to-speech assistive technology in the June 2023 English Literacy Writing (32405) and English Numeracy (2406) co-requisite digital assessments where students will bring their own assistive technology app to the assessment.

This is an opportunity for students to use assistive technology they use in the classroom in the assessment, rather than use Polly, the inbuilt text-to-speech function. If you are interested in participating in the assistive technology trial please complete the expression of interest form.

Reading assessments

Polly and other text-to-speech technologies will not be available in the reading (literacy) assessments for 2023. We are currently working with NZQA to develop guidance on the usage of these tools for 2024.

Special Assessment Conditions

All SACs are available for all Common Assessment Activities. This means that all learners who are eligible for a reader and/or writer have access to this support across all assessments, including those where Polly is not available (reading, te reo matatini, and pāngarau).

Information on provision of Special Assessment Conditions and accessing the PDF is available. If you have further questions on any of these matters, we encourage you to contact your School Relationship Manager. Alternatively, you can reach out to the NZQA pilot team by submitting this form.