Hundreds of high school students in Bay sitting online exams this year

Over 600 students will be sitting digital exams. Photo / File

Thousands of Bay of Plenty high school students are kicking off their exams this week with more than 600 sitting online exams.

Around 9100 Bay of Plenty students are preparing for NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship exams, with 603 students from 12 schools entered to sit some of their exams online.

Online exams are being offered in 21 subjects across NCEA Levels 1, 2, and 3 this year, with around 35,000 students entered nationwide.

There are also 525 students in the region entered for New Zealand Scholarship, a system of competitive awards where top-performing students receive between $500 and $30,000 towards the cost of tertiary education or training.

Both exam schedules run from November 16 through to December 9.

Students can find information to help with exam preparation and managing exam pressure by visiting NZQA's Student Exam Hub or following "NZQAofficial" on Facebook and Twitter.

For students sitting NCEA exams online, it's important they go to NZQA's website and create their student login before their first digital exam.

NZQA's Student Exam Hub also has information on the health and safety measures that are in place to protect students sitting exams.

This year's changes to NCEA recognises the disruption caused by Covid-19.

For students doing online exams

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Prepare yourself

• Do practice activities to get familiar with the digital exam platform with digitised past exams
• If new to NCEA, set up Learner login and password. If returning to NCEA, ensure you remember your username and password. These will be used to login to access the digital exam.
• Practise typing skills.
• Those doing Te Reo Rangatira, Te Reo Māori or a foreign language exam, practise enabling and using the language keyboard.

Prepare device

• Complete practice exams on the device to be used on the day.
• Those providing their own device, complete the digital exams device check and make sure an approved browser and operating system is used.

On the day

• Bring admission slip, fully charged device, black and blue pens, a pencil, and eraser.
• Emergency evacuation pack: clear, sealable plastic bag with mobile phone, watch, keys, money, bus pass, and medicines.
• A fully charged power bank, stored in your emergency pack, if you have one.