Understanding NCEA Courses

• Each course contains several Achievement Standards, Unit Standards or a combination of both.
• Each standard (like a topic) is worth a number of 'credits' which relates to how much work is needed to complete the standard.
• Achievement Standards (AS) can be Achieved, Achieved with Merit and Achieved with Excellence.\
• Students will receive a description from their teacher at the beginning of each standard of what is required to gain an achieved, merit or excellence result.

Internal and external assessment

• Most courses have a combination of internally and externally assessed standards.
• Achievement Standards can be assessed internally (within school) or externally (an exam at the end of the year, or a portfolio of work which is sent away to be marked).
• Unit Standards (US) are normally assessed as achieved or not achieved, although some now offer to Excellence Level and are always internally assessed.