Assessment (including Examination) Rules for Schools with Consent to Assess 2021

6.5 External Moderation

  1. External moderation for internally assessed standards listed on the Directory is a process by which NZQA can provide an assurance that assessment decisions in relation to Assessment Standards are consistent nationally.
  2. NZQA will annually select internally assessed Assessment Standards from across curriculum areas to form the School’s moderation plan. Some of these standards may be randomly selected for a National Systems Check to calculate a national teacher/moderator agreement rate, at each NCEA Level.
  3. Each School will submit assessment material to NZQA prior to their moderation submission date for the selected Assessment Standards, which will include samples of students’ work selected according to the school’s selection process. Schools are required to ensure that teachers have no opportunity to re-mark the sample of student work after it has been selected.
  4. All samples submitted must clearly distinguish each student’s work, be easy to read, and account for any privacy issues (for example known protection orders or by using a unique identifier in a way that is permissible under Principle 12 of the Information Privacy Principles of the Privacy Act 1993).  
  5. NZQA will carry out external moderation and will provide information to the School, summarising the results.
  6. Schools must address issues that are identified in the external moderation process, including the use of invalid tasks and lack of agreement by the moderator with assessor judgements.

    Appeal of an External Moderation Report

  7. Teachers, through the Principal’s Nominee, may appeal to NZQA any content of the external moderator’s report. Only the original moderation material can be included in the appeal.
    1. The Principal’s Nominee of a school may make an appeal through the NZQA External Moderation Application.
    2. Reasons for the appeal must be provided along with the original moderation material.
    3. In the appeal the Appeal Moderator will review the process followed and the decision based on the moderation material and reasoning of the decision, and further cogent evidence made available.
    4. The School (through the Principal's Nominee) will be notified of the appeal decision within 20 business days through the NZQA external moderation application from the date of the submission of the appeal.

      Review of a Declined Appeal Decision

    5. The School whose appeal is declined may apply for a review of the appeal decision in writing to the Manager, Assessment and Moderation, NZQA, PO Box 160, Wellington 6140, within 15 business days of the appeal decision.

      Chief Executive Reconsideration

    6. For an unsuccessful review the Principal’s Nominee may apply to the Chief Executive within 15 business days of the review decision for a reconsideration of the review.
    7. The Chief Executive's decision concludes the NZQA process and takes effect the following business day.
  8. Where external moderation identifies authenticity issues at a School, NZQA will advise the Principal’s Nominee and in the first instance the School is required to investigate a possible Breach of the Rules - Internal Assessment.
  9. NZQA will exercise all care in processing assessment material submitted to it for external moderation and in returning them to Schools.  NZQA is unable to accept any liability however for the non-delivery of, or damage to, these materials.
 
 
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