Preliminary university entrance and NCEA results for last year show pass rates of almost 80% and above.
"I think for the school and for the community, academic achievement is something we really pride ourselves on," principal Oded Nathan says.
"The focus and the purpose for us is to try to support students to get their best qualification possible so they’ve got as many pathways and doors open to them beyond high school."
As of January 15, 74% of year 13 students had attained university entrance.
And by last Friday that figure was 77% and closing in on the school’s 2024 target of 80% — well above the 66% ‘equity band’ set for schools of similar socioeconomic status.
"So we’re thrilled with our university entrance achievement," Nathan says.
The year 13 NCEA Level 3 pass rate was 84% and the year 12 NCEA Level 2 rate was an even higher 89%.
For the year 11 NCEA Level 1, the pass rate was 80%.
Last year, Wakatipu High also put its year 10 students through the new NCEA Level 1 numeracy and literacy programme — 88% achieved the writing co-requisite, 83% the reading co-requisite and 69% the numeracy co-requisite.
"We were thrilled with that, especially given some of the conversations around the declining literacy achievement of our students at the start of year 9."
Nathan says the overall results are also pleasing as Wakatipu High is continually taking in students from overseas, for many of whom English isn’t their first language, so therefore they take longer to get up to speed academically.
Using last year’s NCEA Level 2 as an example, 50% of students who arrived last year passed it, compared with 81% who joined the school the year before.
Nathan says another pleasing trend is Maori students performing above average — 84.2% last year achieved Level 3 and university entrance and 91.3% Level 2.
He adds it’ll be about six weeks before they’ll be able to compare results with other schools.
