Doing okay, NCEA results show

To which Northland school should you send your children to get the best education?
A Christian, country or single-sex school could be a good bet, if latest NCEA results are anything to go by. Figures just out for 2005 paint a generally positive picture for Northland schools, with pass rates hovering around the national averages for level one (former School Certificate), two (Sixth Form Certificate) and three (Bursary). The results have impressed the Ministry of Education because just three years ago, Northland high schools - especially in the Far North - were near the bottom of the academic heap.
However, some Northland high schools struggled to make the grade. Kamo High School recorded a 40 percent level-one pass rate, and Kaikohe's Northland College 34 percent, up from seven percent the year before. Pompallier Catholic College, Tauraroa Area School and Ruawai College had level-one pass rates of at least 80 percent - the national average was 56.5 percent.
One of the star performers is Northland's largest school, Whangarei Girls' High, which thumped the national averages at level one and two, with respectively 69 and 78 percent of pupils passing. Co-principal Lyn Sneddon put the results down to high expectations and teachers who cultivated good relationships with students. "The staff really care about them. They will often stay behind to help, run weekend workshops near exams and we have an appraisal system at the end of each year where students rank their marks and if courses could be improved," Mrs Sneddon said.
Ruawai College showed that being small makes it easier to tailor courses to individuals, encouraging more students to stay at school. The 165-pupil school had a 84 percent level-one pass rate and 72 percent level-two pass rate. Principal Stephen Fordyce said the school had worked hard over the past two years to retain senior students, which was made possible by using NCEA's flexible nature to make courses interesting for teenagers. He also believed the school's tight-knit atmosphere helped foster a supportive learning atmosphere. He admitted the 29 percent level-three pass rate was not great, but was pleased students who failed the qualification still gained useful credits. "Academic success is not the be all ... For some of them success doesn't mean level three, it means being a damn good shearer," Mr Fordyce said.
Christian schools, such as Whangarei's Pompallier Catholic College and Christian Renewal, fared well on the educational achievement ladder. Pompallier achieved 80, 73 and 79 percent, respectively.
However, other Northland high schools are struggling to just get half of their students to pass.
Tikipunga High School recorded a 39 percent level one pass rate and Northland's largest high school, Kamo, 40 percent.
Principal of the 1240-pupil school, Richard Abel, believed the level-one pass rate would be 50 percent if drop-out and alternative education student numbers were taken into account.
Mr Abel said the statistics were based on student numbers in the middle of the year, not the actual number that sat exams at the end of the year. He said around 100 year 11-13 students left before the end of 2005, mostly to take up jobs. Kamo's role as the host school for alternative education in Whangarei would also affect the figures, as alternative education children did not usually excel academically.
Ministry of Education Northland manager Chris Eve was pleased with Northland's results overall. Nearly 10 years ago, the Education Review Office reported that 40 percent of Far North high schools weren't up to scratch. Since then, programmes aimed at measuring students' abilities - allowing teachers to give lessons appropriate to their knowledge - had been brought in.
The turnaround in schools such as Bay of Islands College, which jumped from a level-one pass rate of 11 percent in 2004 to 41 percent last year, showed the programmes were working, Mr Eve said.
NZ Qualifications Authority acting chief executive Karen Sewell warned parents to not look at the statistics on their own.
"Parents wanting to know more about a school should use this information in conjunction with latest Education Review Office report," she said. "I also advise parents to talk with the school principal to find out more about the school, in particular, the sorts of courses on offer."
Go to http://nzqa.govt.nz/qualifications/ssq/statistics , click on `school by school statistics' and then `Northland'.