Celebrating academic excellence at Scholars' Assembly

Kia ora te whanau ō te Kōtuku

On Monday we celebrated our Rutherford College Scholars Awards. We acknowledge all students who endorse NCEA with Merit or Excellence. This year that meant acknowledging over 250 students who put in the work to achieve 50 Merit or Excellence credits and some exceptional students who were endorsed at two levels of NCEA in the same year.

Congratulations to the following students:                      

 
We also celebrated our senior top academic scholars. These awards are also presented at our end of year prizegiving, but sometimes the achievement landscape changes once the November external grades are taken into account.

New Zealand Scholarship Exams

Students who gained success in the New Zealand Scholarship exams were also celebrated at our awards.

New Zealand Scholarship is an award that recognises top secondary school students who sit an extra exam in their subject. Typically the difficulty level of the exams is at university level and only the very top students succeed. Students who achieve NZ Scholarship receive a monetary award. This ranges from a one-off $500 payment for a single subject award to $10,000 per year for up to 3 years for premier award winners.

Not only are we proud of our students, but I must make special mention of two teachers whose names appear multiple times in the Scholarship list year after year: Mrs Perri Fahitua and Ms Katie Betanzo. Reliably producing Scholarship students is a testament to these teachers’ dedication, hard work and extraordinary subject knowledge. We are lucky to have such teachers, and many like them, at Rutherford College. The quality of our staff underpins our students’ success.

Assessment Season

Assessment Season is upon us, as we reach the latter part of Term 1. Students respond to the pressure of assessments in many different ways. The best way for students to deal with mounting assessment deadlines is to sit down with a calendar and work out their priorities. Please encourage your children to learn to use a diary or an online calendar as they begin their journey into adulthood. Working backwards from a big deadline to plan what needs to be done at each stage is a skill many of us as adults take for granted. This skill needs to be learnt and will give your children the edge in succeeding at school. 

Assessment Authenticity and AI

The worst way to respond to assessment pressure is to cheat. We work hard to teach students what we mean by assessment authenticity and plagiarism. We have school procedures that students must follow to meet our authenticity requirements. These may include measures such as not working on assessments outside of class, completing a handwritten draft, using a secure exam platform, ensuring the teacher can use google docs history to see the creation of the document from scratch, etc. 

We sign an agreement with NZQA assuring them that we know we are giving grades for work that the student has produced and not work generated by AI or copied and pasted from the internet. As you can imagine, monitoring assessment authenticity for hundreds of students requires systems and processes. If your child does not follow the authenticity processes for the assessment, we cannot attest to NZQA that the work is genuine and we can’t mark it. That doesn’t mean an accusation of cheating - it means that the processes we have to ensure authenticity have been ignored, so we can't be sure that the work is authentic. Please discuss this with your child. If you feel they are unsure about what this means in their subjects, please encourage them to ask their teacher for clarity. We start this approach from Year 9 so that students learn this critical lesson early on. Breaches of authenticity at NCEA level can have serious consequences for students.

Missed Assessments

Part of our agreement with NZQA is ensuring we have fair processes relating to missed assessments. If your child missed a NCEA assessment, they must have a valid reason such as an illness, bereavement, or high level sports or cultural representation. If you know in advance your child will be absent from an assessment for a valid reason, please arrange for an extended deadline beforehand.

Taking a holiday during term time is NOT a valid reason for missing assessments. Holidays during term time are deemed unjustified absences by the Ministry of Education and as such, they do not obligate the school to provide alternative assessment arrangements, nor do they obligate teachers to provide catch ups for work missed. I have noticed an increase in students assuming that the school can rearrange assessments for holidays during term time. This is not the case and places an unfair workload on teachers to work around students with unjustified absences. 

Rutherford Study Site

Study.rutherford.school.nz is a resource for students that we update throughout the year. That’s where we post exam timetables, exams summary study guides, advice on study skills, links to past papers and practice exercises for the Literacy and Numeracy exams and so on. 

Reporting Timeline

Our first set of progress reports were sent out on February 26. If you did not receive a report for your child please check your spam first. If you did not receive the email, you can check the report on schoolbridge and contact reception to make sure the school has your correct email address.

We provide progress reports twice a term and we email all assessment results to parents as they are published. Please take advantage of this data and the ability to log in to schoolbridge. You can see how your child is progressing and their attendance data is available period by period. As always, if you have any queries about your child’s progress please email their Tutor Teacher.

Literacy and Numeracy NCEA Co-requisite Exams 

In Week 5 and 6 of Term 2 students will be sitting the Literacy and Numeracy NCEA Co-requisite Exams. There are three exams: Reading, Writing, and Numeracy. They are online digital exams and will require students to use a chromebook or laptop. All Year 10 students will sit these exams in Week 5 and Year 11-13 students who have yet to achieve these standards, will be re-sitting the exams in Week 6.

All students preparing for these exams should head to the Rutherford College Study Site to get valuable tips and information. The Numeracy Common Assessment Activity (CAA ) is a one-off digital exam. Once you have passed this exam, you do not need to do it again. The Literacy Common Assessment tasks (CAAs) comprise two assessments, Reading and Writing. You do not need to pass both at the same time. When you have passed one, you do not need to sit it again. Putting some study time in to prepare for these exams is a good idea. The study site has plenty of information to help students prepare. The school has homework centres running after school for additional support for any student wanting academic support.

Y9 and 10 Parents Evening

Last night over 70 parents attended the Year 9 and 10 Success at School Parents’ Evening, run by our Junior Academic Dean Mr Blair White. If you missed this event you can find out more here.

Mr White is also sending out an information sheet to Year 9 and 10 parents this week, so look out for that message in your inbox.

Ngā mihi 

Rozanne Donald