Internal and external moderation
Secondary moderation consists of internal moderation and external moderation.
Internal moderation
Internal moderation supports the credibility of assessment by ensuring that assessment is valid, and grade judgements are verified.
External moderation
External moderation provides an assurance that assessment decisions, in relation to assessment standards, are consistent nationally.
On this page
Assistance for teachers
NZQA provides the following to help teachers assess internal achievement standards:
Assessor Support
NZQA offers online learning modules and workshops to help assessors of internally assessed standards.
NCEA subject pages
There are subject pages for each secondary school subject. These pages contain links to a range of resources, including:
- clarifications, with a focus on key assessment issues that arise through moderation
- exemplars of student work, with a focus on making judgements at grade boundaries
- national moderator's reports, which cover assessment information on internally assessed standards
- links to Ministry of Education TKI Resources and Conditions of Assessment.
Facebook pages for each subject
Each senior secondary school subject now has a Facebook page. Type the subject's name and NZQA into the Facebook search bar to find the page you want.
Teachers on Facebook can like these pages to follow and receive updates when new information is published for internally assessed standards.
These pages are not intended as a subject discussion forum.
Request clarification of a standard
Teachers can ask moderators specific questions about how to interpret a standard.
Moderators will refer teachers to the current clarifications document, send an individual response to queries, or update the published clarification as required.
Request clarification of a standard [DOCX, 38 KB]
This form is not for:
- verifying grades on student work, or
- pre-moderation and approval of assessment tasks.
Query or appeal a moderation report
Teachers may query or appeal a moderation report if they aren't clear on the meaning of something in the report, or don't agree with the moderator's decisions or comments.
National systems check
Each year, NZQA completes a national systems check to calculate the national moderation agreement rates. These rates are calculated by selecting a random sample of students’ work.
The total number of student work received by NZQA varies from year to year, but ranges between 5,000 and 10,000 samples taken from the population of student entries for internally assessed standards.
NZQA publishes the national moderation agreement rates annually.