I get it. It is incredibly frustrating when you put your heart and soul into your mahi and support your ākonga all year on projects, thinking you’ve nailed that excellence, only to have it seemingly shut down through NZQA external moderation or external results.

One year you think you’ve cracked the formula, carry it forward into the next, and then see the results swing again. There is a lot at stake. Ākonga rely on these results for endorsements and university entrance. When things don’t land as expected, it can be heartbreaking and deeply demoralising.

So, what are some practical steps you can take when it feels like you’re getting it wrong?

Start with the achievement standard

Don’t rely on a folder from 2019. Check the version on the NZQA website every year. Standards are periodically updated, often released in January, and even small wording changes can significantly impact planning and assessment.

Pore over that standard again.  

• Get the highlighter out. Look for pluralisation. “Tests” means more than one test. Phrases like “may include, but is not limited to” indicate guidance, not a finite list.
• Study the verbs and unpack what they mean.  For example: assuming what skillfully and efficiently means can be detrimental to guiding students in their learning.  You may assume skillfully means accuracy alone, but have you missed the independent aspect of the requirement?  How will a student show evidence of independence in their learning for the assessment?  Have you planned for this in your learning tasks? 
• Do you understand some of the subject-specific terminology?  If the standard requires a process of “manipulating or combining” materials, do you truly know those processes?  If I boil a potato vs roast a potato with oil vs mashing that potato with other ingredients – which is manipulated? Which is combined? Which sits outside these two processes?  Not sure?  This may help you.

Check the exemplars

Analyse them critically, just as we ask our students to do.  Look at all grade levels, not just excellence. Not Achieved exemplars are just as important for understanding curriculum-level expectations. Ask yourself:

• What are the project differences between Excellence and Not achieved?  
• Are my tasks complex enough for higher grades?   
• How has the student provided evidence? Particularly for aspects not easily seen such as independence and decision making.
• Is there a template guiding them?  Does this help or hinder students from gaining higher grades?  
• Gosh, does my template unintentionally cap achievement?

Read the NZQA moderator’s report

What’s this? The report gives feedback to assist assessors with general issues and trends that have been identified during external moderation of the internally assessed standards in the previous year. It also provides insights from moderation material viewed throughout the year.  Super useful for identifying common issues in a standard.  This could be just what you need to read.  You will find this on the NZQA website in your subject area.  

Moderators can only judge what they can see.  Make the invisible visible.

If independence, iteration, decision-making, or justification happened verbally or informally, ask yourself where that learning is captured. If it isn’t visible in the submitted evidence, it effectively doesn’t exist for moderation purposes. Simple learning logs, checkpoints, or annotations can surface thinking without adding unnecessary workload.

Have you got the latest assessment schedule?

The assessment schedule is used for marking purposes.  If you align this with the achievement standard, this ensures you have correctly interpreted the requirements for learning evidence.  

Pūtake

First of all, do you have access to Pūtake?  The school’s PN can add you.  There is a wealth of information and support for assessment in this platform.  Practice assessor tools, exemplars, online learning modules, webcasts etc.

Curriculum level and task complexity

Is your learning task genuinely complex enough for the standard being assessed? I often see a mismatch between complexity of design brief, project or task to the assessment.  If advanced procedures are required in the standard, then the learning has to live up to this expectation.  There is a big difference in complexity from making a poached egg to making hollandaise sauce to then putting all three components together in perfect harmony with the right timing.  What year level would you do these tasks at?  If you are not sure, reach out to your subject associations for support, ideas and clarification.  Tāhūrangi is a great place to “check the curriculum level” for learning tasks. 

When all else fails… 

Principals’ Nominees and Heads of Department, can ask NZQA moderators specific questions about how to interpret an internally-assessed standard.

You can submit a request for clarification and ask questions about interpreting a standard at any time for written, professional feedback from a moderator.

Moderators send an individual response to clarification requests. These responses may inform the clarifications that NZQA publish online.

And…

Find your subject community. Connect through the AKO forum spaces, where teachers are actively sharing ideas, and remember that our kaiārahi are also available beyond the forums to support you with their knowledge and expertise.  Reach out at [email protected]