Miss Tuhega and I are the Principal's nominees and we are responsible to NZQA for ensuring assessment is carried out in a valid way at SOHS.

Authenticity in NCEA

Miss Tuhega and I are the Principal's nominees and we are responsible to NZQA for ensuring assessment is carried out in a valid way at SOHS.  I spoke in assembly this week regarding authenticity, plagiarism and the use of AI. I shared a PPT with students regarding this topic and encouraged them to read it carefully. 

We have already come across a number of issues with authenticity in NCEA assessments so far this year so I wanted to share my assembly speech with you as caregivers as well. To help make sure your child doesn't feel the need to plagiarize work for their assessment, one thing you can do is talk to them about managing their time. This is also the PB4L focus for the week. You could help your child by encouraging them to use a calendar or diary weekly to organise when they will work on assessments and how to prioritise their time around their other responsibilities.

My Assembly Speech

When you are doing assessments, we have a responsibility to ensure the work is entirely your own before awarding you credits. Credits make up your qualifications and they need to reflect the work you've done, the skills you've developed and the knowledge you have acquired. 

Your teachers can't award you credits if they're not sure the work is yours. There are a number of ways in which we are required to monitor your work. Your teachers will make the conditions of assessment clear and you must follow them. If there is something which strikes them as unusual they will ask you about it. Do not be offended. If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about. 

If it is suspected that the work you have handed in is not entirely your own you may be asked to prove it's yours. SO what can you do? Make sure you do all your work on the correct document your teacher tells you to work on, keep all your notes - don't throw anything away or delete it, don't let someone else human or other write it for you - you may be asked to explain your work to your teacher, HOD or myself or Miss Tuhega.  And if you can't and you can't prove the work is your own, you will most likely receive a Not Achieved grade. And we don't want that.

On another note, I am in the process of entering a number of you into the CAA Literacy and Numeracy exams - I will be communicating with you via email so you should be checking your emails daily. Spend some time at mentoring organising your emails and clearing your inboxes so you don't miss anything. 

Thank you
Ms Beaumont