Project boosts NCEA results

Elizabeth McKinley

Academic profiling of high school students can help more of them to complete NCEA, with better results, an Auckland University study has found.

Education researchers at the university worked with Massey High School in Waitakere City for five years to collect data and identify barriers to student achievement.

Massey High used achievement data from Years 9 to 11 to set individual and school academic targets for NCEA that would stretch the students' abilities.

The targets were combined with counselling sessions with deans, and parental involvement.

The year after the scheme was introduced, final-year NCEA completions increased 10 per cent.

At NCEA level one, 16 per cent more Maori students and 20 per cent more Pacific students gained numeracy and literacy.

Elizabeth McKinley, director of the Auckland University Starpath project, which aims to alleviate under-achievement, said the study showed paying more attention to student achievement data, supported by academic guidance and family engagement, could lead to rapid and substantial improvements.

Starpath published a report on the Massey High scheme - based on 2007 Year 11 achievement levels and with feedback from students, teachers and parents - and hopes the results will be used to design guidelines for schools wanting to adopt the targets scheme.

Dr McKinley said the targets were intended to be internal, unlike education national standards launched last month requiring teachers of pupils up to Year 8 to track each child's achievements in reading, writing and maths in Plunket-style charts.

Dr McKinley said Starpath's researchers were interested in students reaching their potential and teachers being aware of what data could tell them in terms of teaching processes and curriculum planning, rather than competing on reaching targets.NZPA