Might seem a bit weird to some but I agree with Anne Tolley that Auckland Grammar has the right to choose not to offer NCEA to most of their students.  The standards based system was developed by National Ministers,  notably Lockwood Smith and Wyatt Creech, many of the final details were sorted on my watch.

And while I confirmed the decision to abolish the School Certificate system which had been in place since my father went to school and was past its use by date when I was a student, I never made taking NCEA compulsory. I expected most students would do it but frankly I did not expect that there would be the amount of assessment done as is currently the case.

We knew through the process that some schools were unhappy with the change and were considering using imported systems of varied quality. I was comfortable with that because in my opinion as it developed NCEA would be seen as superior for NZ kids and gain a good international reputation.

And that has been the case.

I accept John Morris’ opinion, although this might be a middle aged males point of view, that boys don’t do as well in an internally assessed system and prefer cramming for exams. But I also know that the world doesn’t work like that. Universities recognised that nearly forty years ago when I was a student. And employers certainly prefer people who can learn consistently and retain that knowledge.

So Auckland Grammar doesn’t do that well at NCEA, especially at the scholarship level. It isn’t all about gender because the Wellington equivalent, Wellington College, does really well.  It is 18 years since John Graham was headmaster at Grammar.  Graham had, like Roger Moses does at Wellington, an ability to attract and retain great staff. And Grammar has suffered because the zoning changes meant that Morris can no longer cherry pick out of zone kids to boost the academic results.

Having said all that – disagreeing with the Grammar decision, accepting that the school has consulted with its parents, I defend the schools right to make it. In the end it is a decision for the Board of Trustees following the professional advice of (in this case) the headmaster.

The point has to be made though that it is weird to give this discretion at the secondary level where the stakes are much higher but Tolley refuses to accept that primary boards have the right to make assessment system decisions.

My view is that ERO should certify at each visit that each primary school is using one of four or five recognised assessment systems and that it has a quality process in place to inform parents both where their child is at and the progress they have made at least every six months. If they really wanted to (not that most professionals would) they could use Tolley’s standards.

But I’m sure Tolley is now backed so far into a corner on this that she couldn’t possibly be consistent.