Absence from school examinations
School examinations are used to give students practice with sitting assessments as well as providing feedback on progress. In addition to this, these assessments give teachers the opportunity to gather evidence about the standard at which students are working. This evidence is used when writing school reports and could be used for allocating an Unexpected Event Grade (Derived Grade). Therefore, a student’s absence from a school examination runs the risk of them not being able to receive a grade should they be ill or have an acceptable special circumstance for missing an external examination.
Students must apply for a re-sit opportunity and a medical certificate must be obtained if they wish to be considered. This must be forwarded to the Assessment office as soon as possible during the school exam period, emailing assessment@burnside.school.nz in the first instance is a good idea. Where there are valid reasons for having missed your exam, we will endeavour to re-schedule this if it is possible on the catch-up exam dates which are the first 2 days after the exams are completed.
If there are other reasons for missing an exam, these will be considered on a case by case basis, however, the expectation is that all students will be at their exams as per NZQA’s rules.