Epsom Girls Grammar to offer Cambridge as fears grow top schools could abandon NCEA
Epsom Girls Grammar announced in May it would start its Cambridge International pilot next year after being flooded with 'overwhelming community demand'.
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NZ Herald
2 days ago
- NZ Herald
NCEA overhaul: NZ principals predict short-term Cambridge boost amid curriculum changes
His school allows senior students to study either the local NCEA programme or the British-headquartered Cambridge exams, taught in schools around the world. He expected uncertainty caused by the NCEA's scrapping could lead more parents to choose Cambridge's 'stability' in the short term. That was until the new NZ Certificate of Education qualification was fully up and running. 'I think our students will keep opting into Cambridge probably in slightly bigger numbers for the next few years at least,' Hargreaves said. The overhaul, which could affect students for decades to come, is open for public feedback for the next six weeks. Macleans College principal Steven Hargreaves says parents may opt for the Cambridge exams in the short term while the details of New Zealand's education overhaul are being thrashed out. Photo / Macleans College via RNZ It follows years of criticism that the NCEA's flexibility meant students across the country were being held to different standards and learning varying lessons despite supposedly studying the same subjects. It also led some schools to abandon the NCEA entirely. More than 40 schools over the past year offered the Cambridge curriculum either in place of the NCEA or alongside it as another alternative. Popular inner Auckland school, Epsom Girls Grammar, was among the latest, telling parents it would be offering it as a choice from 2026 after 'overwhelming community demand'. Auckland Grammar offers students the NCEA and Cambridge pathways, with headmaster Tim O'Connor a long-time critic of the homegrown system. Epsom Girls Grammar is offering a pilot Cambridge exams pathway in 2026, with a full rollout to follow after that. Photo / Alex Burton He said many students had coasted under NCEA rather than striving for excellence, which 'tarnished' it as a 'flexible anything qualification' and led to more than 250,000 skipped exams last year. Despite that, O'Connor questioned whether the Cambridge pathway would be needed if the homegrown education system was revamped. 'We're a proud state school and we would support a nationwide qualification if it was going to be rigorous enough,' he said. Hargreaves, who was on the Government's reform advisory group, said moves under the proposed reform to have all assignments and exams marked by outside assessors rather than teachers was a positive step towards ensuring fair grading. He also backed a homegrown pathway but thought it would take time to convince parents to have faith in it. Mike Waller, principal of private secondary Pinehurst School, which only teaches Cambridge, was another to back the reforms. However, his school was firmly established in the Cambridge system and had no plans to change. He believed it was rigorous and as an international pathway serving schools in many countries, was more stable and less susceptible to political changes that homegrown curriculums could be. The proposed NCEA changes The Government proposes axing NCEA Level 1, giving students respite from high-pressure exams in Year 11. They will instead focus on literacy and numeracy in a 'Foundational Skills Award' to build a base for their senior studies. Year 12s will then seek the New Zealand Certificate of Education (NZCE) and Year 13s the NZ Advanced Certificate of Education (NZACE). The Government said common-sense grading, such as As and marks out of 100, will be clearer for parents, employers, and universities. The changes kick in for Year 11s in 2028, who will then move into the new senior qualifications in 2029 and 2030. It comes as the Cambridge pathway's popularity hit a high point last year with 8000 Kiwi students sitting its November exams and scoring 25 Top in the World awards for being the best in their subject anywhere in the globe. Despite Cambridge's success at his school, Hargreaves believed that in a perfect world all local schools would be delivering a national qualification rather than international. That made the current feedback period critical, given it was concerns over education two decades back that led to the arrival in the country of the Cambridge system. 'If there'd never been any concerns about it 25 years ago, Cambridge would never have arrived on our shores,' he said.
RNZ News
5 days ago
- RNZ News
How influential NZ schools hastened the demise of NCEA
By Stuart Deerness* of Photo: RNZ Analysis: As New Zealanders digest the news about government plans to scrap NCEA from 2028 , we should also consider the role influential and prestigious schools had on its demise. Since NCEA was introduced between 2002 and 2004, these prominent schools have increasingly opted for alternative assessment systems. This effectively undermined trust in the official assessment system. In 2011, Auckland Grammar School became the first state school to decide NCEA wasn't suitable for its students. It began offering assessments from Cambridge International Education , a suite of imported qualifications where students sit externally assessed exams alongside NCEA. The headmaster at the time, John Morris, publicly criticised NCEA , saying it was poorly designed and only suitable for less academic students. Other schools catering to wealthy or high performing students quickly followed. Macleans College copied Auckland Grammar's approach. Many private schools also began offering Cambridge examinations instead of (or alongside) NCEA, indicating their implicit criticism of the system by choosing alternative qualifications. Recently, Epsom Girls' Grammar principal Brenda McNaughton said there was "overwhelming community demand" for alternatives to NCEA. By heavily investing in alternative qualification systems these schools demonstrated a belief that NCEA, on its own, did not meet the academic needs and aspirations of their entire student body. The schools weren't trying to undermine NCEA on purpose. They were simply responding to pressure from parents who wanted what they saw as more rigourous qualifications for their children. But their language mattered. The way these schools talked about Cambridge exams is revealing. They used terms such as "rigour", "international standards" and "university recognition". This language appealed to parents who were familiar with traditional exam systems. The numbers tell a compelling story. A 2023 NZQA survey revealed that 25 percent of schools were not planning to offer a full NCEA Level 1 programme, with many high-performing schools abandoning it altogether. Between 2023 and 2024, Cambridge International Education reported a 20 percent increase in students taking its exams, with 8000 pupils across a quarter of New Zealand's high schools now doing Cambridge qualifications. But did New Zealanders lose confidence because NCEA genuinely had problems, or because influential schools had already signalled their lack of trust by offering alternatives? The answer is probably both. Educational theory suggests that when schools with serious influence opt out of national systems, they don't just seek alternatives - they inevitably change how people perceive the systems they leave behind. By 2025, NCEA was under attack from multiple directions. Some schools offered alternatives, employers were confused, and influential parents found it difficult to understand. Education Minister Erica Stanford's admission that she never understood the system perfectly illustrates the problem. NCEA's flexible system, designed to recognise different types of achievements, was simply unfamiliar to many parents who were used to traditional exams. The replacement system proposes scrapping NCEA Levels 2 and 3 and replacing them with the New Zealand Certificate of Education at Year 12, and the New Zealand Advanced Certificate of Education at Year 13. Students will need to take five subjects and pass at least four. The new qualifications focus on "international comparability", "subject mastery" and external assessment, according to the government. While these aren't necessarily bad things, they reflect particular ideas about what education should prioritise. Importantly, the government admits that fewer students may pass initially, particularly those who struggle with traditional academic approaches. The end of NCEA teaches us something important about how educational change actually happens. Systems can be undermined not through dramatic opposition, but through the gradual effect of individual choices made by those with enough power to influence public opinion. New Zealand's prominent schools didn't set out to destroy NCEA. They were responding to genuine pressure from their communities for alternatives they believed would better serve their students. But their collective actions created a situation that ultimately made the national system politically difficult to maintain. Any new qualification system faces the same fundamental challenge. How do you address legitimate concerns about consistency and clarity while also serving all students fairly? The Cambridge phenomenon suggests communities with educational advantages will always look for ways to distinguish themselves, regardless of what qualification system is in place. As New Zealand introduces new qualifications, it's worth remembering the loudest voices calling for educational change don't always represent what all students need. The real test of any system isn't whether it satisfies the most articulate parents or prestigious schools. It's whether it serves the educational hopes of all New Zealand families without accidentally creating new forms of inequality. The story of NCEA shows how powerful the actions of elite institutions can be, even when they don't intend to cause system-wide change. *Stuart Deerness is a senior lecturer in Education at Auckland University of Technology. -This story was originally published on The Conversation.
NZ Herald
18-07-2025
- NZ Herald
Epsom Girls Grammar to offer Cambridge as fears grow top schools could abandon NCEA
Epsom Girls Grammar is set to offer its students Cambridge exams in 2026, as another top Auckland principal worries high schools are increasingly 'abandoning' the national curriculum. Epsom Girls Grammar announced in May it would start its Cambridge International pilot next year after being flooded with 'overwhelming community demand'. Mount
