There are different data-management processes for students leaving secondary education and students transferring to another secondary school.
It's important for schools to follow the right process so that all student records are complete and accurate.
On this page
Students leaving a school
When a student leaves a school, the school must make sure the student’s outstanding results are reported so they can be viewed online and the relevant qualifications awarded.
To make sure this happens, schools must:
- report all missing internal assessment results to NZQA
- withdraw any internal entry that does not or will not have a result recorded against it
- withdraw all external entries unless the student has said they will sit the examination
- enter the student leaving date and reason for leaving in the school's student management system
- continue to update their SMS with any internal results and external entries for the examinations the student intends to sit
- update ENROL to show they have left school
- send a full transcript of the student's results to their new school on request, including any results confirmed after the student left.
A student’s enrolment, along with any entries and results, remains active with the last school they attended until they transfer to a new school. When a student transfers, any entries with results are recorded against the new enrolment, and the previous enrolment is marked as withdrawn.
Your school’s Key Indicators page in the School Portal lists students who are leaving or have been withdrawn. This process ensures that students can continue to access their results and that NZQA can award the appropriate qualifications, as students cannot access results associated with withdrawn enrolments.
Students transferring to a new school
Students can only have one active secondary school enrolment with NZQA at a time.
When a student transfers schools, the new school must take the following actions so the transferring student’s record is accurate:
- update ENROL to show the student’s change of school
- add the student’s results to the Student Management Systems (SMS). Some SMS will automatically update the school’s records with a student’s existing results, while others require the results to be imported manually. To manually import results, use the Candidate Results from Other Providers link in the MyNZQA School Portal to download the student’s results, then follow your SMS vendor’s instructions for importing them into your system
- complete a data submission to NZQA, with an enrolment for the student. If the previous school has not recorded the student’s leaving date then you will receive an error saying ‘learner is currently enrolled at provider xxx’. Contact the student's previous school to update the leaving information. Contact your data manager or School Relationship Manager at NZQA if the problem persists
- request a full academic transcript from the previous school to confirm that all the transferring student’s results are recorded with the correct provider code
- report any additional results using the previous school or external provider's code, making sure the correct provider responsible for the assessment is listed
- make entries for standards (including externals) the student will be assessed against in the remainder of the year
- check that standards, including those from the previous school, are allocated to courses appropriately.
If you need to contact the previous school, a list of contacts for Principal’s Nominees can be found under School’s Administration in the MyNZQA school portal.
Late external entry process for transferring candidates
Students who transfer schools after 1 September will not have personalised booklets at the new examination centre school.
The new school must follow the late entry process, which includes adding the entry details to its data submission.
Papers must not be transferred between schools.