NCEA: Thousands of Northland students find out exam results

Whangārei Girls' High School student Sophia Soljak is happy with her NCEA exam results. Photo / Michael Cunningham

There was only a brief moment of nervousness as Whangārei student Sophia Soljak sat in bed checking her NCEA results - and that was when she read "error, you cannot log in".

"I thought 'oh no' and then I logged in again and it worked. So I was pretty calm, it was straight after I woke up."

The Whangārei Girls' High School student has remained pretty calm throughout the whole exam process.

When the Advocate spoke to her before exams she said she felt nervous, but pretty good, and she had the same response when asked a week ago how she felt about results coming out.

When she saw her results yesterday morning, she was pleased.

"I'm pretty happy. Most of it is what I would expect. I got English and art excellence endorsement," she said.

"I told my dad and he was very proud of me."

Around 140,000 students across New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Niue - including about 4000 from Northland - were able to check their results yesterday.

Last year's NCEA students had a challenging year with Covid-19 lockdowns, but NZQA introduced "learning recognition credits" to compensate.

In a normal year, students need 80 credits to get NCEA level 1; 60 credits at level 2 or above, plus 20 at any level to get NCEA level 2; and 60 credits at level 3 plus 20 from level 2 or above to get NCEA level 3.

To compensate for the Covid lockdowns, Auckland students received one bonus credit for every four credits they achieved, up to a maximum of 16 bonus credits at level 1 and 12 at levels 2 and 3.

While students elsewhere received one bonus credit for every five they achieved up to 10 at level 1 and eight at levels 2 and 3.

University Entrance requirements were reduced from 14 to 12 credits in three approved UE subjects.

Meanwhile, Soljak was headed to Raglan yesterday to attend Soundsplash and celebrate her results with friends.

"A couple of my friends aren't looking at results until we get back," she said.