Opportunity for consultation

As indicated last year, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) has developed a set of draft guidelines for schools on reassessment and resubmission opportunities for internal assessment.

The draft guidelines for consultation recommend one opportunity for reassessment is provided for a standard within a year.

The draft guidelines aim to reduce the current diversity of practice nationally, while allowing teachers to exercise professional judgement in their assessment practice.

They emphasise that the one further assessment opportunity is not mandatory and may not always be practical or feasible to provide.

No more than one resubmission opportunity is to be provided and should be limited to specific aspects of the assessment, where a teacher judges that a mistake has been made by the student, which the student should be capable of discovering and correcting themselves.

Schools will have an opportunity to provide feedback about the draft guidelines up to 8th May, 2009.

From mid-2009 schools will be asked to prepare for a 2010 implementation of the guidelines into their school wide policies and procedures.

In 2010, NZQA will report on the implementation of these guidelines as part of its Managing National Assessment system reviews and as required.

NZQA chief executive Karen Poutasi said the guidelines would address diversity of practice between schools, and sometimes across departments within schools, relating to the availability of further assessment opportunities for internally assessed standards (sometimes called reassessment).

“NZQA has often been asked to provide a set of national guidelines and we have now done this.”

The guidelines are available on-line at: www.nzqa.govt.nz/publications/circulars/secqual/2009/s2009-008.html