Internally assessed standards are marked by your Te Kura teachers during the year, and your results are updated with NZQA weekly.

Please regularly check your results during the year through your NZQA learner login page

Te Kura offers personalised learning. This means our students are not automatically registered for externally assessed standards. Students must submit an online registration to tell us what they would like to register for, and at which secondary school they would like to sit any end of year exams.

Externally assessed standards include:

NCEA and NZ Scholarship end of year exams sat in November

• NCEA and NZ Scholarship exams are timetabled and assessed by NZQA.
• As Te Kura is not an an end of year exam venue, you will need to contact a secondary school for approval to sit any end of year exams there.
• We'll email you after you've submitted your registration to let you know who you need to contact. It is important to submit your registration first.

TAPā for Level 1 Te Ao Haka sat in August

• TAPā is a Common Assessment Activity timetabled by NZQA, managed by the student's school and sat outside of the end of year exam period.
• The final date to register for TAPā is 4 July.
• If you wish to register for any other externally assessed standards, you will need to do so at the same time as you register for TAPā.
• TAPā is sat in September at a special Te Kura venue.

DCAT for Level 2 and Level 3 Digital Technologies Assessment Tasks sat in September

• DCAT is a Common Assessment Task timetabled by NZQA, managed by the student's school and sat outside of the end of year exam period.
• The final day to register for the DCAT is 25 July.
• If you wish to register for any other externally assessed standards, you will need to do so at the same time as you register for DCAT.
• DCAT is sat in October at a special Te Kura venue. 

Portfolio / Report / Kete Manarua submissions for:

• Level 1 for Dance, Digital Technologies, Music, Physical Education
• All levels for Design & Visual Communication, Technology, Visual Arts
• NZ Scholarship for Health & Physical Education, Music

Overseas NCEA exams for eligible students in October

• This is a special gateway and available only to those students who are eligible to be enrolled as full time overseas students.
• Overseas exams are timetabled by Te Kura in October.
• Students must sit any NZ Scholarship exams in New Zealand

Because Te Kura is not an exam centre school, you'll need approval from a secondary school in your local community to sit your end of year exams there.

• After you've submitted your NCEA registration we will email you instructions to let you know how to arrange approval from your chosen exam centre school. It is important to submit your registration first.
• Te Kura must receive online approval from your exam centre school before the deadline advised on your NCEA Registration instructions to ensure we can officially register your end of year exams.
• Your chosen exam centre school must offer all the exam sessions you wish to sit as your end of year exams must be sat at the same school.
• If your chosen school does not offer all your exam sessions, you'll need approval from a different secondary school. Contact us if this happens.

Te Kura students must take their exam admission slip and photo ID to each end of year exam session.

• If you don't have photo ID (e.g: passport, driver's licence, student ID card), organise this now - www.tekura.school.nz/student-id

• Your exam admission slip will be posted to you at the end of October. If this doesn't arrive by the beginning of November, contact our Qualifications team for a signed replacement.

You will need to be at your exam centre school with both your exam admission slip and photo ID at least 30 minutes prior to the start of your exam.

Before you register for any NZ Scholarship standards, you must first discuss this with your subject kaiako (teacher).

NZ Scholarship standards are designed to extend very high achieving Level 3 ākonga (students) who can apply high-level critical thinking, knowledge, skills, understanding, and ideas to complex situations.

If you were previously enrolled at another secondary school this year, any internally assessed results awarded this year as well as any registered externally assessed standards will have been withdrawn at NZQA.

Externally assessed standards

• You must re-register with Te Kura by submitting your NCEA registration.

Internally assessed results

• Te Kura will report this year’s internal results already gained through your previous school to NZQA.

If you have a medical, physical, sensory, or specific learning disability, you may be entitled to Special Assessment Conditions (SAC) for NCEA assessments.

All the information is available on our website, or you can contact our SAC Team by emailing SAC@tekura.school.nz.

Please immediately contact our SAC Team if you:

• need SAC but haven’t already been in touch
• recently transferred from another school where you were already approved for SAC. Your entitlement will need to be transferred from your previous school to Te Kura.
• need SAC to sit external exams. If you have already advised our SAC Team, there is no need to contact them again but you must provide your SAC details in your online NCEA registration.

Your internally assessed results will be updated weekly on your NZQA learner login page. Regularly check your NZQA learner login during the year to ensure your internal results and registration for any externally assessed standards are recorded correctly with NZQA.

All this year's results will become available in your Record of Achievement from mid-January next year. This includes any externally assessed results and the award of qualifications.

If you would like a paper copy of an awarded qualification and/or official copy of your Record of Achievement from next January, you will need to order this by clicking 'Order Documents'.

• Go to www.nzqa.govt.nz/login
• Scroll down to View your results and progress

Practice exams must be supervised by a non-family member if you wish to be eligible for derived grade/s.

Hunga ako (Advisories)

Some supervision may be available at local huinga ako. You can check with your Kaimanaaki (Learning Advisor) for availability in your area.

Practice exam supervision form

• Click here to complete the Practice Exam Supervision form no later than mid-day 22 August 2025.
• If you have any queries about practice exam supervision, please email practiceexam@tekura.school.nz.

Derived grades

Derived grades may be available if just before or during the end of year exam period, you suffer a temporary illness, trauma or event beyond your control.

• There must be a clear and observable detrimental effect on your performance and/or attendance.
• Evidence from a registered professional is required to support a derived grade application.
• An application can be requested from our Qualifications team.

If you are a home-schooled fee-paying student and wish to register for externally assessed standards but you’re not enrolled with us for those subjects, please contact our Qualifications team on 0800 65 99 88 option 3, or email ncea.registration@tekura.school.nz. As Te Kura is your school, we are responsible for reporting all your NCEA external entries to NZQA.

Digital exams are typed on a device (with a physically attached keyboard) rather than being hand-written in paper booklets.

While some end of year exams can only be sat digitally and some can only be sat paper-based, others have the option to be sat either digitally or paper-based. Where there is an option, it is your approved end of year exam centre that decides what type of exam session they will be operating, and Te Kura has no influence over their decision.

The exam centre school decision is provided to Te Kura in our online Exam Permission portal at the same time as they approve your request to sit your end of year exams there. After online permission has been received by Te Kura, you will be sent a confirmation email which will include which of your end of year exams are sat digitally and which are sat paper-based.

Critical preparation for sitting an exam digitally

On exam day/s, you will use your NZQA Learner login details to access digital exam standards from the NZQA homepage. It is important you have created your NZQA learner login account well before exam day, practiced logging in and memorised your username and password.

Device checks

Device set up is a critical step for ākonga getting ready for a digital exam. Well before exam day, you must go through the links on NZQA's Preparing for digital assessment as a student. This preparation is where you can familarise yourself with the digital exam platform as well as check that your device is suitable.

Language exams

All end of of year digital language exams include an audio file for the listening component. As you will be able to choose when you answer the listening standard, you will need to take headphones that are compatible with the laptop you will use on exam day.

Click here for a Digital exam checklist