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College NCEA results rise BY MYLES HUME

MYLES.H@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ

Ashburton College is trumpeting a major hike in its NCEA results. The lift in pupils attaining qualifications last year exceeded the national average in Levels 1 and 2, while in other areas it has made up serious ground on other decile seven schools. Last year principal Grant McMillan admitted the college’s results were not where he wanted them to be as they continued to rise, but an “across the board” focus in 2013 has resulted in a significant climb in the trendline. The results are provisional and are taken from pupils who participated in NCEA or the New Zealand Qualifications Framework last year. Level 1 was the highest performing year group, seeing 90.1 per cent of pupils pass, almost 10 per cent higher than the national average and 6.8 per cent higher than the decile seven average. It was also a 15.5 per cent jump on the school’s 2012 re-

Two in a row for Currie Braden Currie celebrates a second consecutive Coast to Coast Longest Day win with a kiss for his daughter Bella at the finish line at Sumner Beach on Saturday.

sults, marking the biggest improvement across the college. “The government goal is for schools to have 85 per cent of students leaving with Level 2 (by 2017) and if we’re going to achieve that as a college, that means 85 per cent or more have to pass Level 1 and we are doing that,” Mr McMillan said. For the first time in six years the college’s Level 2 results were higher than the national average, with an 86.8 per cent pass rate. It is an 8.5 per cent improvement on 2012, and has considerably closed the gap on the decile seven average to just 1.4 per cent. The Level 3 pass rate was 8.6 per cent on 2012 at 77 per cent, and sitting just 0.7 points below the national average, which equates to about one pupil. Mr McMillan said the results were indicative of the hard work done behind the scenes by staff and the enthusiasm of pupils last year, but the challenge now was to keep the upward trend which the college had done mainly since 2009.

PHOTO GETTY IMAGES/MARTIN HUNTER