“To move away from that is a bold step,” he told
Stuff. “The results prove the students, given a chance, aspire to get results and with good support around them.” He said often only top-stream classes were given the full opportunity of external exams because it was believed to be harder than internal assessments, or students in lower classes were not allowed to do high-level maths. But at Horowhenua, many students rose to the challenge if given the opportunity. The school’s head of maths, Amy Huse, said there has been an increase in students carrying on with maths after year 11 and they were succeeding.