Requirements for grades from school-based evidence
Student evidence can come from an assessment event such as a class test or practice examination.
Grades from school-based evidence for externally assessed standards must be:
- derived from actual authentic evidence
- specific to and covering all criteria of the standard
- collected in a way that mirrors the format and conditions of the externally assessed standard
- subject to a quality assurance process
- collected prior to the external assessment.
Schools must use processes and evidence for derived grades that assure NZQA that the reported grade is based on pre-existing authentic, standard-specific evidence which meets the requirements of the standard.
On this page
Quality assuring school-based grades
To ensure that the assessment provides authentic, valid, standard-specific evidence from which a grade can be derived schools must:
- ensure that all grades they submit for externally examined standards have undergone a quality assurance process and
- hold evidence of this.
If schools cannot ensure this, grades should not be reported until any issues have been resolved.
Your quality assurance process
The process must assure both the evidence gathering process and the grades. As with internal assessment, this includes:
- critiquing the assessment materials prior to use; and
- using verification or justification to check that the grades awarded are valid.
Verification or justification as part of your process
Verification
Verification requires a suitably qualified “second pair of eyes” (where one is readily available) to verify the grades through, for example:
- the use of a panel marking process of a practice examination, or an end of topic test held under examination conditions
- having a colleague in that subject area check a sample of grade boundary decisions from a selection of each teacher’s assessment papers.
Justification
Justification provides confidence in assessor consistency and accuracy of judgements with the standard where a suitably qualified “second pair of eyes” is not readily available. This can be done through, for example:
- the assessor being involved with external assessment writing or marking for the standard or subject
- a comparison of previous year’s practice assessment grades with NZQA external assessment grades achieved for those same years middle or senior management consultation on the teacher’s use of assessment schedules, NZQA exemplars and past student answer booklets that have been used as benchmarks
- external moderation outcomes for that subject providing confidence of the assessor’s ability to apply an assessment schedule and make consistent judgements against an assessment schedule.
Submitting grades derived for externally assessed standards
Submit grades in your regular data files. They can be updated and amended in subsequent data submissions. You will be able to review the grades submitted through the report section of your Provider Login.
Find out more about some derived grade myths and the facts about them.
Is your derived grade assessment tool fit for purpose?
Examples of processes that could give the school confidence that the assessment tool used was fit for purpose.
- The evidence used is from a practice exam that, for example, had been:
- developed “in-house” and critiqued in the same way that internal assessments are critiqued (e.g. it could be a practice exam based on modified papers from previous years); or
- purchased from a secure source such as the subject association and checked against the achievement criteria of the standard; or
- purchased from a commercial source and checked against the achievement criteria of the standard; or
- provided by a colleague in another school and critiqued in the same way that internal assessments are critiqued.
- The evidence used is from an assignment or an end-of-topic test that was:
- developed with similar rigour as any of the examples above; and
- there is certainty that the student’s work was their own.
Quality assuring the teacher judgement
The following quality assurance processes could give the school confidence that the derived grade was justifiable and based on valid, standard-specific evidence.
- Another subject-expert (i.e. "second pair of eyes") had been involved in the marking, for example, through:
- the use of panel-marking
- a sample of grade boundaries from marked examination papers having been checked by a colleague.
- Alternatively, where a second pair of eyes is not available with the school, the derived grade is justifiable. For example through:
- teacher involvement with external examination writing or marking for this standard or subject, which could provide confidence in teacher judgements
- comparison of previous years’ practice examination grades with NZQA external examination grades achieved for those same years, to provide confidence in the consistency and accuracy of the teacher’s judgements
- middle or senior management consulting the teacher on their use of assessment schedules, NZQA exemplars and past student answer booklets that were used as benchmarks, to provide confidence in teacher judgements.
The alternatives are particularly useful where a "second pair of eyes" is not readily available.