Teaching and Learning Requirements for Level 1

NCEA Level 1 (Taumata 6) Pūtaiao/Science

TEACHING AND LEARNING REQUIREMENTS FOR LEVEL 1

Māori-medium students entering Level 1 NCEA Pūtaiao programmes will be assessed using Achievement Standards based on Level 6 of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) Science Learning Area.

Teachers can use either the NZC or Te Marautanga o Aotearoa to plan their programmes, but the actual standards relate to NZC. Whichever curriculum is being used, students may use either English or Te Reo Māori for their external assessments.

YEAR 11 TEACHING and LEARNING PROGRAMMES

Your Year 11 Pūtaiao/Science programme should:

include whāinga paetae/achievement objectives from a range of strandsto allow for a range of options atYears 12 and 13
take student interests and career aspirations into account
berelevant to the achievement standards, but not limited by them, i.e. the programme of learning is most important. The standards should allow the students to demonstrate their learning from the programme.

There is no rule about how many or how few standards students need to do in any learning area. APūtaiao/Science programme which will allow students to progress into science careers[1], should provide opportunities to achieve between 5 and 8 achievement standards (i.e. a maximum of 20 to 32 credits), to contribute towards the 80 credits required over all subjects for NCEA Level 1.

Teachers can choose from 12 standards from the ‘science’ matrix, or from 31 standards from the full matrix of science, physics, chemistry and biology. There are some ‘exclusions’ – standards where the learning outcomes overlap, so students cannot be credited with both[2].

Programmes of learning and assessmentcan comprise any combination of internally and externally assessed standards. Including both types allows you to spread assessment over the year.

What are the differences between internal and external assessment?

Internally assessed standards have a number of benefits for students and teachers:

Assessments can be carried out immediately after the learning related to a topic, when the material is still fresh in the student’s mind
Assessments can incorporate skills not able to be assessed in a written examination, e.g. research, practical skills.
There is opportunity for a student to be re-assessed for any standard they did not achieve before the end of the year (one re-assessment per standard). This is not possible for externals.

Externally assessed standards rely on the student’s ability to demonstrate their understanding and knowledge in a national written examination along with all other students entered for that standard. Because these assessments are nationally marked to set criteria, they tend to be seen as high status, and are used to support merit or excellence endorsements in a subject for individual students.

Choosing which standards to use

Having decided on your teaching/learning programme, browse the matrix to see which are best suited to assess your students’ learning.

Internally assessed standards

There are good supporting resources for teachers, with sample activities and annotated exemplars of moderated student work. Annotations are explanatory comments written by the moderator to help teachers to see the difference between the quality of student work at the different grades – not achieved, achieved, merit and excellence. There are several possible pathways to get the information you need. Here is one:

Consider AS90941, Science 1.2: Investigate implications of electricity and magnetism for everyday life 4 credits)

Go to Bookmark this page!

Go to Resources for Internally Assessed Standards, click on Exemplars of Student work.

Click on AS90941 and then on Read the Standard. Download the standard If you decide to use it.

Go back to the previous page, click on TKI Assessment Resources. If you scroll down to Science 1.7 (AS90941), you will have a choice of two activities to look at:

1.2Av2

1.2Bv2.

Whichever you choose, you willneed to make some changes.“As with all assessment resources, schools will still need to follow their own quality control processes . . . Teachers must manage authenticity for any assessment from a public source, because students may have access to the assessment schedule or student exemplar material. Using this assessment resource without modification may mean that students' work is not authentic. The teacher may need to change figures, measurements or data sources or set a different context or topic to be investigated or a different text to read or perform”.[3]

Go to and click on Assessment Specifications and the Conditions of Assessmentfor more information about the assessment requirements for this standard.

Clarifications of Standards – Click on Level 1, then scroll down toAS90941to read additional information about what is required.

You will find deeper information aboutwhat is meant by ‘investigate’, and about ‘implications’, and a summary chart of the features of ‘Achieved’, ‘Merit’ and ‘Excellence’ for this standard.

Now that you have all the information you should need about the standard itself, you can get a picture of what actual student work at the three grades could look like. Go back to

Scroll down to AS90941, clickto read examples of student work at excellence, merit and achieved for Activity 1.2Bv2.

Repeatthis process for all the internally assessed standards you use.

Externally assessed standards

Although these assessments are not carried out until the end of the year, teaching the skills and knowledge must be spread through the year. Teach the material over Terms 1, 2 and 3.

Students need to practise the skills and confirm their understanding and knowledge several times before they can be confident to demonstrate and applythem in a formal written examination.

Support material for these assessments is also available online.

(Bookmarked).

UnderResourcesfor External Standards,you will find a range of resources, the first five of which will all provide you with useful information about the externally assessed standards.

Sample exam papers are especially useful for students to develop examination technique and practice answering questions appropriately. The judgement schedules will also help you to see what the examiners are looking for in terms of the level of understanding, and to develop your own questions to challenge student thinking.

Under Other Science Resourcesyou will find Glossaries for Translated NCEA External Examinations. These are valuable resources for those of you teaching Pūtaiao/Science in te reo Māori.

ROADMAP TO LEVEL 6 PŪTAIAO (Te Marautanga o Aotearoa)

TERM TWO

Weeks 1-2: / By now, students should have already participated in at least one internal assessment during Term 1, and possibly two. If only one has been carried out, then the second assessment could be scheduled for early in Term 2.
Weeks 2-6: / Teaching/learning for either

one of the topics to be externally assessed, or
another topic for internal assessment

Week 6: / Either carry out the third internal assessment, or start on another topic for external assessment, carry through until the end of term.

TERM THREE

Weeks 1-4 / Teaching/learning of the final kaupapa to be internally assessed should be the early focus for Term 3. This assessment could be initiated in Week 4, or left until later in the term.
Weeks 5: / The remainder of the term can be devoted to teaching/learning of the final topic for external assessment.
Week 8-9: / At this stage, many schools run ‘mock’ external assessments. These can be purchased through NZASE. Each is an typical exam paper, written by National Assessment Panel members. Judgement schedules are also provided.
Week 9: / Marked scripts should returned to students, and carefully gone through to identify where student improvements can be made.

Key decisions and planning concerning the final countdown to the year’s end must be made in conjuction with students. These include:

decisions about re-assessments – students are entitled to one re-assessment for each internal standard not achieved. It may not be sensible to request re-assessment for more than one or two standards, depending on the gap to be bridged to achieve the standard.
co-constructing a revision programme witheach student entered for external assessments for the Term 3 holidays.

TERM FOUR

Weeks 1-4 / Re-assessments where appropriate. Revision of material to be externally assessed. Classroom time should be allocated to

go through content and skills identified by students as difficult to understand/recall/understand, as well as those identified by teacher from testing/mock exams as needing revision.
practice answering examination questions from mock exams held at end of Term 3, and previous years’ papers.
assisting students to develop understanding of exam technique, e.g. how to capitalise on their strengths, dealing with nerves, avoiding panic, etc.
encouraging and monitoring students’ revision at home.

At this critical time, teachers may run tutorials at lunchtime or after school for individual students.

He mea waihanga mō tētahi kaupapa a Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga.

[1]

[2]

[3]Quote from notes at the bottom of this webpage.